Thanks for the kind words, Henry. The situation where I live is very different from the situation where you live.

Our callers are younger people (age 30 - 50) who love to dance but are not ballet dancers or other professionals. They did not grow up in villages or attend schools where all the children learn the local dances.

They get the dances and the tunes from books and from the Internet. (in our case, often the books of Peter Barnes or Brooke Friendly) The callers are not musicians, and they need someone to tell them what goes with what.

The situation for the musicians is similar. We don't memorize tunes, but give us the notes and chords, and we can turn a simple melodic line into an interesting, ever-varying piece of music. And that's a good thing, because if we wouldn't we'd soon grow very bored and stop playing.