Contra and Square Dance Music
I began contra dancing in the late 1980s. While at a dance festival I took a break from dancing and sat down next to the band that had a hammered dulcimer, fiddle and piano. Although I had seen them in bands before, this was the first time I really “heard” a hammered dulcimer and I loved the interplay of its sound with the other two instruments. On the ride home the public radio station I was listening to played the entire Bill Spence Hammered Dulcimer recording. I took this as a sign!
When I got home I bought a 12/11 instrument and several instruction books that turned out to be of little help. As luck would have it a few weeks later I went to a local dance where the band that evening was Lucille Reilly playing the whole dance, just her on dulcimer with a piano. I was impressed. I bought Lucille’s book and used it to teach myself how to play. With a few tunes under my belt I started going to local dances that welcomed sitin musicians, and where I began to develop my dance repertoire. Eventually I was able to repay the kindness shown me by becoming the musical director of one of those dances, the CDSS monthly dance in Cambridge, MA.
In the mid 1990s I started, and then each month for 14 years organized and played at the nearby Northboro Contra Dance in Northboro, MA. Now run by the dancers I’m happy to say that the dance is still going strong, and I look forward to performing there several times a season.
Over the years I’ve been in several bands, and am currently a member of Wild Card (with Vince O’Donnell on fiddle, Robin Kynoch on whistles and button accordion, and Susan Creighton on piano). We regularly perform at Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire dances and are frequent performers at NEFFA (the New England Folk Festival).
Jon Weinberg Band You Tubes
Wild Card at Northboro Contra November 2019
Allemande North at Tower Hill Botanic Garden
Allemande North Northboro November 2017
Allemande North & Dan Pearl Northboro May 2012
Northboro Contra 