Timing and music
Square dancing is danced to the music, not at a pace of its own. Every call has a beat cost, the caller counts those beats, and the eight of you are expected to arrive at the end of the call on the beat.
The beat
Standard hoedown and singing-call tempo is about 128 beats per minute. You do not need to count; you need to walk at that speed, which is a comfortable walking pace with some spring in it.
Every call's timing is given in this book in beats. Examples from the program:
| Call | Beats |
|---|---|
| Pass Thru | 2 |
| Star Thru | 4 |
| Right and Left Thru | 6 |
| Square Thru 4 | 10 |
| Grand Square | 32 |
| Circle Left, full turn | 16 |
Notice how much they vary. Grand Square is not a long move; it is a move that takes a long time because everyone does four separate parts.
Phrases
Music comes in phrases, and the phrase the dancers feel is 16 beats long — four 8-beat lines.
A singing call's figure is built from 16-beat phrases, which is why callers can slip a 4-beat Star Thru into a phrase without disturbing anyone's feet: it fits.
The 64-beat segment
A standard singing-call segment is 64 beats: four 16-beat phrases. Dancers feel this as the shape of a verse.
This matters to callers rather than to dancers, but it is worth knowing because it explains why a figure is danced four times in a singing call — once with each couple leading — and why the music, once you know it, tells you when the figure is about to repeat.
Why timing is in the definition
The manual's timing numbers are not decoration. They are the standard every caller works from, and they are how a caller knows whether a sequence will fit the music before calling it.
Two of them behave differently and are worth flagging:
- Promenade has a variable length. Its timing is a simplification: a promenade's true duration is how far the set has to travel. The manual says so rather than pretending otherwise.
- Calls that move into the middle from a squared set cost 2 beats extra to get there, because the dancers have to walk in first. See Squared Set Convention.
For the caller and the teacher
Timing is the tool that makes a tip feel smooth. If a figure feels rushed, the answer is almost never "dance faster" — it is to call the calls with the timing the manual gives them, and let the dancers use the beats they have.
The numbers for every call in this book are collected in the call index.
Next
- how calls are combined into a whole dance → Tips, the unit of the dance
- what a fraction means → Fractions