Our tutor Rod Downey gives some tips about practicing phrasing.

Phrasing is a very important part of your dancing. It’s all about getting to the right place at exactly the right time – neither too early nor too late, and at the same time working in concert with all the other dancers in your ‘team’.

Here’s a game you can play by yourself at home, and also one you can play with a partner if they can dance or even walk in time to the music.

Watch a video here of basic phrasing games danced by members of our club

The Warm-up Game(s)

Print out the page of diagrams below.

Find yourself some spot in a room where you can dance around in an oval (say 3 metres long). If you have a partner, they start at the opposite end of the oval.

1. The simplest version

1. Give yourself (or you and your partner) exactly 8 bars to dance around the oval and get home on exactly ‘8,2,3’.
2. Choose a partner who can count. This time do the same again, but the partner stands at home place, and won’t move out of the way until the beginning of bar 8.

2. Now try the original one using only 6 bars. (No partner needed). Try for 12 bars.

1. Beginning on bar 1. Did it disturb you that the music did not match your movements? This is called split phrasing.
2. Try beginning on bar 2 and it will feel even worse.
3. Try the same thing, but this time begin on bar 3, and it should feel better, as you will be doing the last 6 bars of an 8-bar phrase and then the first 6 of the next.

Split phrasing occurs when a figure is split across more than 1 phrase of music. When you danced the 12-bar phrase beginning on bar 2, the first 6 bars were in the first 8-bar phrase of the music, whereas the second 6 bars were split across bars 7-8 of phrase, and bars 1-4 of phrase 2.

Scottish country dancing rarely has anything beginning on an even bar. There are some exceptions such as stepping in on bar 8 for a poussette, an allemande or a promenade. For example this often occurs on the last bar of College Hornpipe, especially for the second couple. Typically this is done on the left foot. Why?

Whimsy (download dance instructions below) is a tricky triangular dance. In the fugal part (bars 25-32), 1C begin on bar 25, 2C on bar 26 and 3C on bar 27. I found this very tricky to dance and to teach.

3. Working with your partner

1. Now try the original loop, but you must dance through the position your partner is in. And they are not allowed to move until the beginning of bar 4.  
2. What about if they don’t allow you to go through until bar 5? Or at bar 3? Try this in both reel and Strathspey time.
3. Try this from a close distance, say 2 metres (for 8 bars), so you need tiny steps.
4. Now try different shapes. Try in a diamond shape with 2 bars for each side. Try with square. Try with partner standing at one of the points on square or diamond while you are dancing, and only moving at the beginning of the bar you should be arriving on.
5. Go back to original distance, but both you and partner dance the track. Can you stay exactly opposite from them while dancing the loops?

The Basic Game

Print out the pages of diagrams below for Basic Games (and more)

Arrange two chairs/children/objects in a row about 1metre apart. You stand at one end and your job is to weave around the objects through the positions on the ends, returning home.

Your real (or perhaps ‘reel’) job is to not begin coming back until the end of ‘4,2,3’ (i.e. you count) and not be home before the end of ‘8,2,3’. (See the first diagram.) Then try looping the other way (red track).

The Basic Game, with cooperative partner

Now begin with partner at the other end, they move to their right and you follow the basic pattern. Their job is to be at the other end at the end of ‘4,2,3’ but they must let you through the middle first. Now switch roles and shoulders. Switch roles but don’t change ends.

The Basic Game with hostility

There are two versions of this. 

1. First you can be hostile to them. See if you can block them from getting to the other end on ‘4,2,3’ and/or ‘8,2,3’, but still get to your places on time.
2. Second, they do the same to you. They block you but get to their end positions on time.

Variations  

Same thing but this time only take 6 bars for the patterns, so you are at the ends on ‘3,2,3’ and ‘6,2,3’

Do the above, but using Strathspey music.

Next, take the chairs away.

More advanced games

Now try some trickier things. Have some shapes from several chairs, and figure out a number of bars to weave around. Two possible examples are in the diagram.

Use strange shapes and unusual barring. Can you begin on 3 for the basic game? Can you get home in 5 steps, 9 steps, 16 steps? etc. All of this will:

1. Make you think about your own phrasing, and
2. Make you think about how your phrasing affects others

Rod Downey
5 May 2020