Reached from: Main Menu -> Select Dances button, then "Dance Details"
The Dance Details screen is available in the Player so that you can enter enough information into the database file to use DMP without using the DanceMaster Record Librarian program. It can also be handy for making quick corrections to dance information, regardless of which way the database was set up.
The way to review and/or update a particular dance is to use the Select Screen to find the dance, then open this Details Screen. The selected dance will be shown.
Click on the picture below to jump to the details for each section.
Navigation Buttons:
The gaily colored buttons on the left side of the screen are used to move from screen to screen in DanceMaster, and are explained in more detail here. The yellow buttons at the bottom should be pretty self-evident except for:
Export This Dance - This will cause DanceMaster to take the music, cue card, full cue sheet, dance data (everything on this screen), voice cues, karaoke timing, bookmarks and even the Record and Song information you may have entered in the Record Librarian, and wrap them all up into a Dance Module. (What's a Dance Module?)
Sort Dance List - When you add a new dance it gets added at the end of the list of dances, and doesn't get sorted into the proper alphabetical order until the next time you open DanceMaster. If you want it sorted right now, click this button.
Entering Dances:
You start the process of entering your dances by clicking the “Add New Dance” button near the middle of the bottom of the form. Then fill in the fields as described below:
The Name of the dance should be what is on the cue sheet (not the name of the song). (Required)
The Choreographer is optional, but nice to have. Dance ID is assigned by the program.
The following fields are check boxes, which can be "checked" or "unchecked" by clicking them with the mouse or by pressing the space bar when the field is active. (You can tell when the field is active because the label on the field will appear to be recessed.)
Active - is this dance in your current repertoire? Would you be willing to cue it if asked? DMP won’t list inactive dances on the Select Screen unless you explicitly tell it to.
If you aren’t using DanceMaster Record Librarian, this field might not be terribly useful – you probably wouldn’t bother to load dances that you aren’t going to cue.
Preferred - should this dance be on the list of dances you submit to festival programmers or on Request Menus for dancers?
Classic - is this a Roundalab classic dance?
The next set of fields will make it easier to choose dances to play.
The Phase is shown in Roundalab Roman, but you can enter it using Arabic numbers if you prefer - the program will convert it for you.
Plus is, of course, the number of "Plus" figures in the dance. Neither Roundalab nor the program will let you enter a number higher than 2 here.
Unphased is the number of unphased figures in the dance. The program doesn't impose a limit here, but your dancers might.
Speed is the speed that the dance should be played at. You can adjust the speed at the time you play the dance, and DMP will remember the adjustment if you want it to, but this field is where you should put the speed recommended on the cue sheet.
The Plus 1 and Plus 2 fields may or may not appear depending on the number of plus figures you specified above. Enter the names of the plus figures here.
Rhythm 1, 2, 3 - These are choice boxes where you select the rhythm(s) of this dance. You can click the down-arrow to the right of the box to cause a list of rhythms to pop down, then scroll to the rhythm you want, or just start typing in the field. If this is a multi-rhythm dance, select rhythms in more than one box.
Category 1, 2, 3, 4 are choice fields. Here you can assign this dance to as many as four of the categories you defined when you set up the categories list in DanceMaster. As with Rhythms, you can select a category by typing a letter or two.
Other Significant Figures are figures that aren't above the rated phase but would be good to know about when selecting dances. For instance, a figure that is unusual (but allowed) in this rhythm or at this phase, or a figure that might make this dance good (or bad) for teaching.
Comments: up to 200 characters of whatever you want to say about this dance.
DMP needs to know whether you have recorded cues for this dance and if so, how you did so.
If you did it the recommended way and put your cues in a separate voice file, choose "In Cues File". If you used "stereo" cues, mark whether they are in the left or right channel, so DMP knows which way to set the balance for "music only" or for the remote control.
The next set of fields has to do with the Cue Card, Music, Voice Cues and Full Cues files for this dance. We will use the Cue Card File selection as an example.
The Cue Card File box shows the name of the Cue Card file (in the Cue Cards directory (folder) on your hard disk). If you haven’t assigned one yet, then this will be blank (I hope).
You can assign one (or change the current assignment) by clicking the ADD/Change Cue Card button. That will open a list of the files in the Cue Cards folder, with four additional buttons. Select the cue card file for this dance by clicking on it, then click the O.K. button. Or, click the “No CUE CARD For This Dance” button to remove a previous assignment. Cancel will close the window without making any changes.
The “Refresh Cue Card List” button is used to cause DMP to re-read the list of files in that folder. You might want to do that if you open this screen, discover that the file you want isn’t in the cue card file folder, open another window and move the file into the right place, and return to DMP. You would then have to click this button to see the new cue card file in the list.
The ADD/Change Voice File, ADD/Change Full Cue Sheet File and ADD/Change Music File buttons work similarly. The folder where DMP looks for these files is shown at the top of this window, and can be set from the Main Menu / Files and Folders button.
The ADD/Change Cue Card File form includes a checkbox at the bottom to keep the timing files (.SCT) in the cue card folder from cluttering up the display.
You can verify that you have the right music or voice file by clicking the Play Music File or Play Voice File button, which will cause the song or cues to start playing.
Checking or un-checking the Show Cue Cards checkbox determines whether the attached cue card is displayed in this screen. Showing cue cards makes moving around in the database a little slower. If your computer is fast enough, you might not care.
TIP: If you are using Word format (.DOC) cue cards, you should open Word in your computer before you open DanceMaster if you are going to do much moving from dance to dance. This will keep Windows from closing and then re-opening Word each time you move to another dance.
Recorded at is the speed at which the song was recorded. For instance: if a particular dance should be played at 43 RPM, you can either record it at 43, or record it at 45 and adjust the speed in DMP.
If you record it at 45, DMP can slow it down without changing the pitch, so Shaia Twain doesn't become a baritone. In either case, enter the speed at which it was actually recorded here.
Cue Card File: The name of the cue card file attached to this song is shown here.
If you double-click somewhere on the cue card shown on this screen, the program will open your word processor with the cue card file loaded for editing. You can make and save corrections there (just don't forget the save part).
Unfortunately, you can't create a new cue card from scratch this way - you can only edit existing ones. New ones have to be started from within your word processor. (See Creating Cue Cards)
Learn about synchronizing music and voice (cue) files here.