Dance Tunes Are All The Same Size

I know only two tunes: one of them is "Yankee Doodle," and the other isn't.
  -- Ulysses S. Grant

Dance tunes -- most fiddle tunes -- all have the same shape. They're 32 bars, AABB.

Yankee Doodle's a great example.  It's probably the classic, American, fiddle-and-dance tune.  First the verse.  Sing along

Yankee Doodle  went to town, a-
Riding on a   ponyStuck a feather   in his cap andCalled it maca  roni.

Next, repeat that as an instrumental.  Hum along.

Da da da da   da da da, daDa da da da   daaa  daaa,Da da da da   da da da daDa da da da   daaa daaa.

Now the chorus

Yankee Doodle   keep it upYankee Doodle   dandy,Mind the music   and the stepAnd with the girls be   handy!

Instrumental!

Daa-da da da   da da daaaDaa-da da da   daaa daaaDaa-da da da   da da da daDa da da da     daaa daaa

Go back the top and do it all again.

Each American fiddle tune has it's own melody, but they all have the same structure: first a verse, repeated, then a chorus, repeated.

I've never heard them called "verse" and "chorus" because they mostly don't have words. (Unless you ask Bob O'Reilly who'll sing you words to any of them. Good words, too.)  They're "A" and "B," or "high" and "low," or "coarse" and "fine," depending on who you hang out with.

Each of the four parts is the same size: eight bars of four beats each. They're all 32-bar tunes in 4/4. It's because they fit the contra dances and square dances -- quadrilles -- that you'll play them for.  Callers like Jim Borzym will turn around and tell you, "Stop at the end of A2."  That's the second "A."

If you're jumping into a jam, trying to follow along with tunes you've never played, just knowing this is an enormous aid. In no time at all, you'll get to know when that part you missed is coming back around, so you can take another crack at it.

A tune with another shape -- a three part tune, a crooked tune, a half-length tune, a waltz -- isn't a good dance tune. It can be fun in a jam, but don't try to play it for a contra dance, no matter how much you like it. They'll figure out you don't know what you're doing and won't invite you back.

We all sang Yankee Doodle as kids, so it never occurs to anyone to play it for dances. I wish we did. It's a deeply great tune.