Eric J. Anderson: contra dance piano
Last updated May 18, 2012.
Breaking
news...
- Last birthday party ws Sunday April 1, 2012. See photos here!
- E-mail
to 'ericdancepiano.com' is still black-holed. Try meanders@gmail.com or 'ericdancepiano' on Facebook (though I don't often post...). Or look below for my mailing address and phone number.
Sound
samples
Configurations
"Do you believe only two people are
making all that music?"
-- a camper at Bear Hug, as reported in the
Missoula Folklore
Society newsletter
You'll see me mostly fiddle-and-piano, and mostly with the
same familiar faces:
- Bandemonium!,
fiddle-and-piano with Lee Anne Welch
of Saratoga, CA. Contra dance fiddling with a bluegrass tinge.
- Fiddlerats, fiddle and flute-and-djembe and that piano again.
Young and lively contra dance tunes built around the spectacular Scottish
fiddle of Caroline McCaskey from Stockton CA and now Denver CO. (She also
plays saw.)
- Alan Roberts,
more fiddle-and-piano with a great old-time player from Seattle WA. We're
often joined by his wife Sande Gillette and Betsy Cooper from Kingston as
"Southwest Passage" (so named because we used to all get on
airplanes...).
Other bands and people I've played with --
- I
got to tour a little this summer with Nor'easter, a great lively young band from Boston.
- I'm
in a band 'Triangularity' with Susan
Burke and Joe Micheals of Seattle.
We played Halloween 2010 in Sacramento and Hayward, CA.
- I
played a dance recently with Julie Smolin, an up-and-coming fiddler from
San Francisco.
- Once
in a while I get to play for David Kaynor,
at his Montague Center dance or even in Seattle.
- I
used to play with Tom Hodgson (a fabulous guitar player from Ithaca NY)
and Randy Miller in Celticladda.
Find
out more...
Contra dancing is quite popular in Seattle and elsewhere,
for good reason. Live fiddle music and
a rocking piano,
and newcomers always welcome.
If you want to play -- who doesn't? -- I've got some
workshop materials
on playing piano for dances that I'm happy to send you. Just drop me a line.
Also, as noted above, we hand out the Bandemonium! tape from 2006 to anyone who
wants a full-dance-length live recording. Useful for calling, maybe too for the
musical ideas. A sound sample
(30s, mp3).
Upcoming schedule ...
These days I'm based in Seattle and Montague MA, but I'm traveling quite a bit, mostly to
dances. This page collects my travel schedule,
for my own benefit as much as organizers'.
May
May 2012:June 2012:
- June 9 Reno NV
with Bandemonium!.
Recent past...
April 2012:
- April 1 Birthday Party! Mark your calendars.
- April 5
Rochester NY with Howard Blumenthal and friends.
- April 6 Fredonia
NY with Howard Blumenthal and friends.
- April 7 Buffalo
NY with Howard Blumenthal and friends.
- April 14
Binghamton NY with friends.
- April 21 Tacoma
WA with Triangularity.
March 2012:
February 2012:
- Feb 23 with
Susan Petrick at Google!
- Feb 16 Rochester
NY with Howard Blumenthal and friends.
- Feb 4 Monterey
CA with Lee Anne Welch and Kathrine Gardner.
- Feb 3 Felton CA
with Lee Anne Welch and Julie Smolin.
January 2012
- Jan 1 Petaluma
CA with the Fiddlerats.
- Jan 21 Friday
Harbor WA with Triangularity.
December 2011
- Dec 30 Hayward
CA with the Fiddlerats.
- Dec. 31 San Rafael CA with the Fiddlerats.
November 2011
- Nov
12 Sacramento CA with Marlin Prowell.
Further back
April 2011:
- Apr
1-2-3: Birthday weekend! Lee Anne and I will play the Phinney Ridge dance
on Friday night, then throw the Birthday
Bash on Sunday.
- Apr
9: Reno NV.
March 2011:
Nothing
planned!
February 2011:
- Feb
5: Honolulu HI, calling for KGB.
- Feb
25: Bellingham WA with Bandemonium!.
- Feb
18-19-20: Dance Flurry in Albany NY. Brrr.
January 2011:
- Jan
7: Phinney Ridge with Bandemonium! and Spider Vetter.
- Jan
8: Olympia with Bandemonium! and Spider Vetter.
- Jan
13: Lake City with Southwest Passage.
- Jan
15: Vancouver BC with Bandemonium!.
- Jan
28: Denver with the Fiddlerats.
- Jan
29: Sacramento with Bandemonium!.
- Jan
30: Hayward CA with Bandemonium!.
Earlier schedule
... from the now obsolete page
Links
- An invaluable reference on
Seattle-area contras, location and dates
- A
local Web-based discussion group for Seattle-area contra dancing
- Chris
Walshaw's abc page, a
description of the popular format for transcriptions, with links to
Web-based sources of folk tunes.
- Conversion
utilities, written by J.R. Allwright,
for translating 'abc' files into various formats, including MIDI and
PostScript.
Return
to Eric's home page.
Or write to me at my snail-mail
address.
meanders@gmail.com
Last updated: 11 April 2012