Jeff's Square Dance Related Articles
These are articles related to Square Dancing that I have written. I recently re-found the original WORD files documents for the olders ones. Most of the newer ones have been copied from my archive of "Australian Callers Federation" newsletter "Callerlink", (which I was editor of for several years). The "date" information is based upon the "last save date" of the original documents. Some of the dates might not be correct, but should be close.
WHAT MUSIC SOURCES WILL WE BE USING IN THE FUTURE?
(Original Feb 2011, Updated Dec 2012)
Jeff Garbutt, Western Australia
Well I guess we always knew that one day Hilton Audio would no longer be producing turntables. But it still caught me by surprise last year when it did happen. I had previously thought it wouldn't happen for another 5 years.
Of course we will adapt, Hilton still carries enough spares to last a few years, and of course many callers are starting to switch to other sound sources for their music anyway. But is also leads us to the problem of not having a universal media that is acceptable to nearly all callers. This is especially going to be a problem at future large functions such as conventions.
So what can we adopt as an acceptable compromise in the future for large functions? I believe this is something we could easily lose time and discuss for hours, and not come up with a resolution. So I've tried to switch off my personal preference, list probable factors that we should think of, and attempted a matrix that could help us sought this problem out logically:
Vinyl records and turntables have made a remarkable return in the last decade. In the 1990s vinyl records had almost died out and new turntable models didn't exist. We now have more turntable models than existed in the 1970's. And most of the newer age models come with variable pitch, (in the 1970's variable pitch was almost non existent). But how long is vinyl going to last as a fad, maybe 5 or 10 years? And will there be a "third coming" 20 years after that? Maybe not.
In the 1990s minidiscs looked like being the way of the future. But their creators were a bit slow in keeping up with rival technology around them. Especially with mp3 players that offered high speed data transfer while minidiscs only offered "real time", After a while they started offering higher speeds, but the damage was already done by rival technology. It is only within the last 5 years that one model of minidisc started to offers mp3 compatibility and direct connection to computer that they truly evolved. But that model came about 15 years too late. Finally the biggest challenge to minidiscs came when CD technology evolved with affordable CD burning capability.
Computers are the way of the future, but there is still resistance from some people in square dancing. And unfortunately it is hard to argue with their main objection. "Time wasted when multiple callers have to switch over to their computer". I believe we (computer music users) need to work a bit more on selling the concept and prove to others that "computers are good, not evil" before attitudes will change significantly. It also doesn't help that we need to "plug in" a different music source instead of "inserting a disk" into an existing music source.
CDs come out ticking most boxes, (except that you can't guarrantee that the sound person of a fuction will supply a player.) The technology looks like being future proofed since newer systems such as DVDs and Blue Ray are "backward compatible" (they can play old technology CDs). More record producers are releasing new tunes as CD, some even as CD only. And as most laptops have CD burners built in, it doesn't take long to create a CD to use in a player. They are acceptable to dance organisers, even though it puts the onus on the organisers to have a CD player. CDs easily bridge the gap between the older and new technology, and I believe they are a good option for larger functions. As far as I can see - that are the best compromise that every square dance function should have on hand.
December 2012 Update
External USB Flash Drives are having growing acceptance in Australia. The concept was first demonstrated by Queensland Caller's Association at functions in early 2012. The concept was also used at the Western Australia State Square Dance Convention in September 2012.
There are currently two ways of using USB flash drives:
- A powered USB hub plugged into one computer so that each caller can plug in their music and use the host caller's music player.
- A multimedia player such as Numark NDX-400 CD/USB player which plays (1) CD Audio, (2) CD with mp3 and (3) USB devices.
Jeff