Bands & Music

The music and dance should fit together and complement one another to provide the best entertainment for your function:

Your choice of music may be decided by price, but whichever you go for, our callers will ensure the combination works well.

All the options include a full PA system and, even with a band, the facility to play recorded music from CD or if requested DVD, Ipod or PC.

We have a large selection of recorded music, including pop, rock and party tracks, or you can bring your own favourites for us to play. As we can play tracks before, the formal dancing, during the break and after the ceilidh/barn dance, you may not need to hire a DJ as well as us. We will be happy to discuss your function with you so that we can provide the best possible entertainment.

As we have good contacts with a variety of musicians, we can also help by providing other styles of band/musicians including string quartets, harpists or even Pipers.

• 1: Recorded Music: We have a large selection of Barn dance, ceilidh and line dance CDs all selected to be the correct tempo and length for the dances. In some cases the tracks have been specially recorded for us. The recorded music option will give you high quality entertainment at a very modest cost and is ideal for socials, and fund raising events. We can theme the event to be all one dance style, e.g. all Scottish or all American, or we can mix and match, with a few fun (often rather silly) dances thrown in.
  Although you may book the function for 1 caller with recorded music, if 2 callers are free, particularly John and Liz, they are so keen you might get 2 for the price of 1 with a little live music from one or the other added in.
• 2: Recorded Music + 1 Musician: This is an option that, while not breaking the bank, will guarantee you live music during the evening. As John can play an instrument and call, you will have a duo plus drum machine for some dances, virtually a full band!
• 3: A Duo: We work with the well known duo Blazing Strings (violin and guitar) and you can hear samples of their music on their website, www.blazingstrings.com. There are other musicians we know who can work as duos with different combinations of instruments, e.g. flute or violin and keyboards, depending on your choice of music. Blazing Strings can add extra musicians to offer 3,4 or 5 piece bands.

• 4: A Trio: The trio we work with most is the Tritons and we have a sampler CD we can send on request. They are a well established band with a good repertoire of tunes for dancing. A CD is also available of Swallowtail
  playing with an extra musician as a trio.
• 5: A 4 piece band: The Tritons add an extra musician to become Tritons Plus and Blazing Strings can also offer 4 musicians. In addition, we know a number of other 4 piece bands we would be pleased to recommend.
• 6: Bigger Bands: John and Liz are the regular callers with popular ceilidh band ThingumaJig, www.thingumajig.org, and the band may be booked through Danceon at no extra cost. Samples of their music appear on the website together with lots of nice comments about the callers! ThingumaJig is usually a 5 piece band, but can add extra musicians if required.
  We also recommend a new band 5 piece band called Rocas and a sample of their music may be found on the Hobgoblin Record Label website www.hobgoblinrecords.com.

We are fully insured, have all the necessary licences for using CDs and have comprehensive risk assessments for all our dance >activities. We also have full Criminal Records Bureau clearance for working with children. Our callers and musicians are highly qualified and very talented. We are not an agency but a group of musicians and callers/dance teachers with a passion for music and folk/popular dance who enjoy working together. If we are not available on a particular date, we will if possible, recommend another band and/or caller we believe can meet your requirements and our standards.