Dick Atlee's Dance Tunes

Dick Atlee's Dance Tunes
Updated: 10 October 2024 -- see update notes
(see also other music on this site)

General Notes on This Collection: Background and Technical Characteristics
Skip down to Tunes table
Skip down to In honor of..." table
Tune list, organized by: title, date, person, type

Motivation: Although my exposure to playing folk dance music began in earnest at Folklore Village Farm in Wisconsin in the late sixties, making my own tunes didn't begin until my involvement with the English Country (and eventually Scandinavian and International) dance band that I helped start in 1975 and played with for 25 years -- The Peascods Gathering ("PG" in the notes below). It developed a tradition of members writing tunes in honor of the decade birthdays of other members, a tradition which produced an outpouring of diverse and often fascinating/beautiful tunes. Having previously written only one tune (Buggy Rock), these occasions were a great motivation for me to play around with tune composing.

Approach: I'm not familiar with how other people compose such tunes. I sit down with a pencil, an eraser and a sheet of manuscript paper, and, starting only with the type of tune I want (which may change), begin randomly messing around on the accordion, until I hit a run of interesting sounding notes and/or chord progressions. Once I hit something I like, all kinds of variations happen. Since the one I like best may have been wiped from memory by subsequent playing around, I keep an old cassette recorder running in order to be able to retrieve such fragments.

ABC: ABC notation is a method of expressing music using a code of simple letters, numbers, and punctuation marks. The "sheet music" and sound files on this page were generated by using ABC notation. If you are interested in that, see the ABC note on the root page of my music section.
Mechanism: My initial output consists of almost unreadable rapid pencil scribbles, smeared dots representing notes whose eighth/sixteenth flags are only tenuously associated with them.
Prior to my becoming aware of ABC notation in 2003, I would transfer these raw notes to carefully-drawn notation, using a calculator and proportions to figure out how the tune should be laid out. An example of the raw scribbles and calculations can be seen here. Scanned copies of all these hand-drawn tunes are indicated as orig in the "Xtra" column in the table below.
ABC notation changed all that. The files linked below are the output of the programs described in the ABC note -- ABC2Win for the abc and sheet files, and ABCMus for the play files.

Tempo: The MM tempo recommendations in the abc files are reflected in the play files, except where they are identified as "faster" or "slow." However, these are simply my sense of what makes the tune sound both good and danceable. Your mileage may vary.

Fixing the files: As good as the ABC2Win and ABCMus programs are, they each have quirks that affect the way the abc/sheet files look and the play files sound.
The "Fix" -- In such a situation (indicated by an asterisk *), I apply a "fix." This involves creating a "playback" version of the abc file to produce a correctly playable sheet file and/or a play file whose melody is correct or whose rhythm sounds best. In such a case, the play link is the fixed playback version and has an asterisk next to it. In the table's Fix-related column you will find the playback version's abc and sheet files and the unfixed version's play file.

Ties: ABCMus plays tied notes as separate notes, which can be a real problem where ties are needed for the correct sound. Sometimes this can be fixed by creating a playback version of the tune, but when a tie crosses a measure line or a chord change, it can't be fixed. So to understand what a tune should actually sound like (i.e., where two shorter notes should be actually be a single longer note), it is helpful to look at the sheet version while listening to the play version.

Rhythm: ABCMus handles backing rhythm well for many tunes; for others, not so well -- particularly a failure to provide the kind of upbeats (or, in Balkan music, to deal with "odd"-metered rhythms like 7/8 or 11/16)) that make a tune danceable. In a few cases, this can be fixed by "lying" to ABCMus about what kind of a tune it is. For most others, a rhythm-fix version of the "fix" has to be applied.

Third/Fourth endings and returned-to parts: Most of the tunes consist of several parts, each repeated. These parts often have two different endings. Occasionally the whole part, with two different endings. To save writing the whole part out twice, it's convenient to mark the two endings as "1,3" and "2,4." ABC2Win does not support this convention. In other cases, the ending for the last time through a piece is different from all the others, or a part other than the last is repeated to end the tune (where a "D.C. al fine" or "D.S. al fine" is used). ABC notation doesn't support this. In such cases, the "fix" involves including all the necessary material, repetitive though it may be.

Sheet Music: Staff music is available under the Sheet column in two formats: Print format (PDF) and -- for those whose browsers don't immediately render PDF files -- a Graphic format (PNG graphic).
Chords: Over the years I've encountered string rhythm players who have difficulty reading chords from plain sheet music when the chords aren't strictly one per measure, with every measure's chord written out. So I've developed a simple format with chord letters shown between measure lines -- e.g. | Am | E7 |. In cases where there are two chords in a measure, if this only occurs a couple of times in a piece I simply cram them into the measure. But if the piece is characterized by such patterns, I include dashes in all single-chord measures to indicate a repeat of that chord -- e.g. | Am ‑ | Am E7 |.
The chords are available under the Crd column in two formats: Print format (PDF) and -- for those whose browsers don't immediately render PDF files -- a Screen format (PNG graphic).

Live: Since MIDI files are quite "clean" and accurate (except for the idiosyncracies noted above), I've counted on them to get the basic sound of the tunes across. However, I now have an good mp3-capable digital recorder, so I've started adding mp3's of accordion renditions, played twice -- please forgive the occasional small glitches. :-).

Xtra: In general, a single MIDI playthrough of each piece is offered in Sound, at the MM-speed specified in the tune's ABC file. If for some reason I think having more repetitions or a different speed would be useful in using/appreciating a tune, MIDIs of such variations are linked in this column. Also, the "raw" or "original" manuscript of the tunes (described in Method, above) are linked in this column, if available. [Note: Regrettably, modern browsers have gotten out of the business of playing MIDI files, requiring programs like QuickTime or Windows Media Player to render them.]

Notes and Tense: Each tune has a link to a note about the tune in the background notes section below the tune table. The note puts into context the person for whom the tune was made, the reason for the tune's name, and comments about the nature of the tune or shortcomings in its play file representation. In these notes, I use the past tense in referring to people, even though most of them are still around and doing much the same things, because the tunes are like a snapshot in time of those people at the time the tunes were made.

The Tunes

ABC	Sheet	Crd	Sound	Live	Xtra	Note	Title	Key	Type	In honor of...	Occasion	Date

abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	3d	3-D Wise	D/Bm	Waltz	Tom Atlee	70 bday	201704
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	orig	adw	The A.D. Waltz	Dm/D	Waltz	Joanna Rueter	70 bday	201907
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	orig	alr	A Leksand Riamarsch	D	Gånglåt	Dottie Beck	50 bday	199207
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig,mid‑mp3	ah	Aallon Hoijakka Polska	Dm	Polska	Fred Aalto	departure	201707
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3 slow	orig	as	Aavan Sävelmä (Aava's Tune)	G	Gånglåt	Aava Usva Corson	birth	201707
abc	G P	S P	midi-mp3	mp3	orig	a	The Activist	Am/C	Gånglåt	Lynn Bradbury	honor	202205
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	orig	ap	The Adams Pairadocs	Em/G	March	Dr. Tom Adams	retirement	201508
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	--	abg	Annie Through Breeze and Gale	D/Bm	Waltz	Anne Lord	73 bday	201104
abc	G P	S P	midi-mp3*		orig	ah	The Arbor Harp	Am	March	Dottie Pecson	50 bday	199905
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	2x	acp	Arpeggichrome Polka	C	Polka	Dottie Beck	70 bday	201207
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	-	bdw	The Barbadav Waltz	G	Waltz	Barbara McLeod	60 bday	201311
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	bw1	Bari's Waltz	C	Waltz	Bari Haskins	70 bday	201904
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	--	bt	Be Thankit	Dm	Waltz	Thanksgiving 2009	--	200911

ABC	Sheet	Crd	Sound	Live	Xtra	Note	Title	Key	Type	In honor of...	Occasion	Date

abc	G P	S P	2x	mp3	raw,orig,faster	bvv	Beau Vals' Vals	Dm	Waltz	Beau Vals/Galen Malicoat	wedding	199906
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	polka	bdr	The BeenSome DoneSome Rag	G	Rag	Fred and Ann Benson	50 anniv	200912
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	boe	Beki Open Eyes	G	waltz	Rebecca (Beki) Lord	48 bday	202203
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3		bgg	Bena Gets a Grip	Dm	Jig	Robena Malicoat	55 bday	201604
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	bw	Blue Winter	Em	Waltz	no record	--	1995?
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	orig,~Boda*	bsh	Breathing Space Hambo or Bodapolska	G	Hambo	Joanna Rueter	50 bday	199908
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	orig	bg	Bronwyn's Grace	G	March	Bronwyn Malicoat	50th bday	201511
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	br	Buggy Rock	Am	Jig	West Virginia landmark	for fun	1980?
abc	G P	S P	midi		-	ck	Čačak Karush	Am/C	Čačak	Carl Karush	70 bday	201503
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	orig	cat	Captain Alan's Travels	G/Em	March	Alan Lord	60 bday	201502
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	co	The Caring One	G/Em	Waltz	Linda Powell	61 bday	201805
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	--	cc	Cerama-Cubism ala Conrad	D/Bm	Jig	Conrad Malicoat	75 bday	201101
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	orig	crl	Charlemagne and the Ruby Light	Em	March	Carl Minkus	50 bday	198803
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig,2x	ccj	Chock-Chock Jig-A-Jig Jig	Am	Jig	Carl Minkus	60 bday	199803

ABC	Sheet	Crd	Sound	Live	Xtra	Note	Title	Key	Type	In honor of...	Occasion	Date

abc	G P	S P	midi-mp3*		orig	cgr	Common Good Rag	G/C	Rag	Larry (&Fran) Stettner	Fran passing	201702
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	--	cr	Competence Rag	D	Rag	Jim Vekasi	retirement	201112
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	orig	c	The Composer	Am	Reinlendar	Lisa Robinson	60 bday	201803
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	da	Dream of Anne	Key	Gånglåt	Anne Lord	80 bday	201804
abc	G P	S P	midi		orig	ep	The Elinora Polka	Am	Polka	Ellie Atlee	75 bday	199307
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig, faster, +	etf	Ellie's Three-fourthed	G	Waltz	Ellie Atlee	81 bday	199907
abc	G P	S P	midi		3x	ed	Em-Dash	Am	Ragtime	Emma Walsh	Off to school	201208
abc	G P	S P	midi		orig	fd1	Farewell to Down Under I	D	Waltz	Margaret Eccles	55 bday	199707
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	orig	fd2	Farewell to Down Under II	D	March	Margaret Eccles	55 bday	199707
abc abc abc	G P G P G P	S P S P S P	midi midi midi		--	fsh	The Fifth Shift	Gm+Am Gm Am	Waltz	Lorraine Silsbee	50 bday	200503
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	3x	ff	Firm Foundation	Gm	Waltz	Brian Dyer-Stewart	60 bday	201104

ABC	Sheet	Crd	Sound	Live	Xtra	Note	Title	Key	Type	In honor of...	Occasion	Date

abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	ffe	The Fixer From Elsewhere	G/Am	March (jig)	Willie Brown	60 bday	201612
abc abc	G P G P	S P	midi-mp3* midi*		--	fss	Four Score and Seven Eighths harmony (also, PDF of both)	D/Bm	Lesnoto 3-2-2	Ruth Grierson	80 bday	200712
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	fk	The Freeport Kat	G/Em	Jig	Katrina Van Dusen	60 bday	201706
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	faster	fsl	The Friendship Sloop	D	Waltz	Ralph Stanley	career	200908
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	fft	The Front Forty	Dm	Waltz	Jennifer Atlee	40 bday	201608
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	gm	Global Maddy	D/Bm	Waltz	Madeline Uraneck	not-70 bday	201608
abc	G P	S P	midi		--	gtl	A Guy's Twice-in-Your Life Waltz	G	Waltz	April Hall‑Hough/Steve Davis	wedding	200810
abc	G P	S P	midi*		orig	hp	Haråspols	Dm	Pols	Sarah Corson	51 bday	199208
abc	G P	S P	midi-mp3	mp3	orig	hc	The Harley Clerk	G/Em	Jig	Marilyn Lowell	Retirement	202409
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	w/Metsäkukkia	ht	Helsingin Tähti	Gm/Bb/Gm	Waltz	Anu Partanen	39 bday	201402
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	--	hf	Herbs Forever	G	Waltz	Eva Sommaripa	70 bday	201106

abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	2x	htf	High Tide and Fog	D	Waltz	Sarah Corson	72 bday	201307
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	hal	The Holly and the Lively	D/Bm	Gånglåt	Holly Lord	50 bday	201902
ABC	Sheet	Crd	Sound	Live	Xtra	Note	Title	Key	Type	In honor of...	Occasion	Date

abc	G P	S P	midi-mp3		orig	h	Horticulturist, The	D/Bm	Waltz	Susan Pink	65 bday	202004
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	orig	ikt	Im Kalten Tal	G/Em	Zwiefache	Becky Rehl	60 bday	201608
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	imf	Institutional Memory's Farewell	G	Waltz	Julie Fernald, RN	retirement	201507
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	ij	Irising Jig	D	Jig	Iris Atlee	5 bday	201709
abc	G P	S P	midi		orig,2x	ir	Island Rugosa	D	Waltz	Ann & Warren Fernald	50 anniv	200007
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	orig	iww	It Was Wrigged	G	March	Jennifer Wriggins	60 bday	201704
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	2x	iic	It's In The Clay	C/Am	Waltz	Joan Johnston	75 bday	200805
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	jj	Jake's Jig	G	Jig	Jake Carrera	10 bday	201701
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	jh	Jamy's Harp	D	Waltz	Jamy Lasell	70 bday	202107
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	m2x,hp	jf	Jennifrench	D	Reel	Jennifer Atlee	30 bday	200608
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	jem	Jenny's Extra Mile	G	Jig	Jenny Lord	50 bday	202004
abc	G P	S P	mid-mp3	mp3	orig	jog	Joan On the Go	D/Bm	Gånglåt	Joan Terry	admiration	202410
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	jgr	Johnny G's Rag	D/G	Rag	John Gleason	60 bday	201710
abc	G P	S P	midi		2x	jjj	Julia's Jewel-of-a-Jig	G	Jig	Julia Johnston/Brian Lanoie	wedding	200607
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	orig,slow	jl	Julie Låt	G/Em	Gånglåt	Julie Speakman	85 bday	200001
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	jsq	Juliesque	A	Waltz	Julie Russell	Departure	201704
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	3x	jag	Just A Game	G	Jig	Ash Corson	40 bday	201305

ABC	Sheet	Crd	Sound	Live	Xtra	Note	Title	Key	Type	In honor of...	Occasion	Date

abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	--	kr	Keys to Ruth	G	Waltz	Ruth Rohl	80 bday	201307
abc	G P	S P	midi		orig	kk	The Kiwi Kids	G	Jig	Peter & Suzanne Lord	50 anniv	201608
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	--	km	The Klezmarch	Dm	March	Margaret Eccles	70 bday	201206
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	lv	Lady Vanessa	G	Waltz	Vanessa Robinson	honor	202109
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	ls	The Little Sister	Am/C	Waltz	Sarah Corson	80bday	202108
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	lb	Looking Bokward	G/Em	Gånglåt	Gordon Bok	80 bday	201910
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3 faster	--	lg	The Lord Girl	Dm	Waltz	Sarah Corson	70 bday	201108
abc	G P	S P	midi		2x	lok	Lord Only Knows	Dm	Humppa	Anne Lord	75 bday	201304
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	lor	Lord Only Rows	Em/G	Reel/polka	Peter Lord	87 bday	201609
abc	G P	S P	midi		--	mp	Madre Paulo	Gm	Waltz	Doleta Chapru	70 bday	200612
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	--	mr	Maria of Rivers	G	Reel	Maria Van Dusen	75 bday	201103
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	mdi	MDIrish	G	Waltz	Tim Garrity & Lynn Boulger	honor	201609
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	mdf	Mercurial Dragonflies	G/Em	Jig	Michael Marion	50 bday	201811
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	mf	Midible Forrests	G	Gånglåt	John & Catherine Forrest	honor	202106
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	msf	Miss Susan's Favorite	D	Waltz	Keith Davis & Susan Pink	Thanksgiving	201511

ABC	Sheet	Crd	Sound	Live	Xtra	Note	Title	Key	Type	In honor of...	Occasion	Date

abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	faster	mic	Molly In The Clouds	Am/C	Waltz/Air	Molly Lyman	Departure	201506
abc	G P	S P	midi*		2x fast	mcg	MonoCarlo Gankino full speed (140 vs 80)	Dm	Gankino 2-2-3-2-2	Carl Minkus	70 bday	200803
abc	G P	S P	midi			mwl	More With Less	G	Jig	Lorraine Silsbee	60 bday	201503
abc abc abc	G P G P G P	S P S P S P	midi midi midi	mp3 mp3 mp3	orig	mph	Mr. Pothole	Dm Em Dm/Em	Jig	Charlie Bookman	70 bday	201803
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	mrf	Muddy Reef, The	Em	Jig	Jay Speakman	70 bday	201905
abc	G P	S P	midi		--	nw	The Neuro-Wit	G	Jig	Alan Rosenquist	70 bday	201309
abc	G P	S P	midi*		orig	nfp	Newfane-gled Pols	Am	Pols	Joanna Rueter of Newfane	50 bday	199907
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	orig	nr	The Nobility Romp	D	March	Joel Edelman	50 bday	199311
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	ols	Oh, Lord, Susie!	G	Rag	Suzanne Lord	80 bday	202102
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	--	ohc	Olgyay Hatvan Csardas	Dm	Csardas	Cora Olgyay	60 bday	201307
abc	G P	S P	midi*		orig	om	Over Middagshøyden	Dm	Pols	Fred Aalto	50 bday	199203

ABC	Sheet	Crd	Sound	Live	Xtra	Note	Title	Key	Type	In honor of...	Occasion	Date

abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	pom	Pair-o-Meds	G	strathspey	Dr. Clarke Baxter & Kathy Baxter	appreciation	202408
abc abc	G P G P	S P	midi midi*	mp3	--	pbc	Peanut Butter Cakewalk as I like to play it	D	Rag	Brian Hubbell	honorary	200707
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	pw	The Peggone Waltz	D/Bm	Waltz	Peg Beaulac	retirement	201709
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	pm	Phil's Marina	C	Waltz	Phil Steel	honoring	201803
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	-	phh	The Pilates Half Hundred	C/Am	Rag	Linda Homer	50 bday	201404
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	pv	Puolivuosisadan Valssi (Half-Century Waltz)	Gm	Waltz	Trevor Corson	50 bday	201907
abc	G P	S P	midi		orig,hp	rr	The Raggedy Reel	A	Reel	Chris Hough	50 bday	199701
abc abc abc	G P G P G P	S P S P S P	midi-mp3* midi* midi*		--	rrr	Really, Really, Rehl	G+C G C	Reinlendar	Becky Rehl	50 bday	200608
abc	G P	S P	midi*		orig	rvr	The River Roll	C	Hornpipe	Charlie Bookman	50 bday	199803
abc	G P	S P	midi		--	rq	A Rohl of Quarters	G	Waltz	Carol Rohl	60 bday	201307

ABC	Sheet	Crd	Sound	Live	Xtra	Note	Title	Key	Type	In honor of...	Occasion	Date

abc	G P	S P	midi-mp3		orig	rur	Ruth's Rag	G/C	Rag	Ruth Grierson	90 bday	201712
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	-	sr	Sagittarius Rising	Am/C	Gankino	Jon Archer	60 bday	2015bb
abc abc	G P G P	S P	midi midi	mp3	--	si	Sally of the Island (later transcription)	D G	Waltz	Sarah Corson	52 bday	199308
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	st	Sandy's Tango	Dm	Tango	Sandy Campbell	75 bday	202007
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	sst	The Sasha Stroll	C/Am	March	Ellen Church	80 bday	201802
abc	G P	S P	midi*		--	shd	Saying Hi At the Dance	G	Rag	Carol Hyatt	50 bday	200210
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	sg1	Scullery Girl	D/Bm	waltz	Gretchen Van Dusen	60 bday	202103
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	ssp	SemiSesqui Polka	D	Polka	Sarah Corson	75th bday	201608
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	sg	Seven Girls	D	Waltz	Ralph Stanley	90 bday	201902
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	sh	She Has The Time...	G	Waltz	Noreen Dolan	60 bday	201608
abc	G P	S P	midi		--	ss	Simon Sez	D/Bm	Jig	Jon Simon	60 bday	201309
abc	G P	S P	midi		-	sjj	Sleepin' Joel's Jig	Am	Jig	Joel Edelman	70 bday	201311
abc	G P	S P	midi		--	ssb	Soaring Sea Blue	Am	Waltz	Sarah Corson	65 bday	200608
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	su	Speak Up!	G/Em	Jig	Marjory Russakoff	60 bday	201605

ABC	Sheet	Crd	Sound	Live	Xtra	Note	Title	Key	Type	In honor of...	Occasion	Date

abc	G P	S P	midi		orig	sb	The Spruce Bough	Dm	Waltz	Sarah, Dick, Trevor, Ash	Xmas card	1988?
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig,2x	sgr	St. George Raggg	A	Waltz	George & Eva Sommaripa	honor	199804
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	orig	sat	Stålman och Ask Trädet	D	March	Ash Corson	25 bday	199805
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	sf	Starfish	C	Waltz	Marta Ferro	50 bday	202109
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	sgi	Still Got It	G/Em	Gånglåt	Ashley Bryan	95 bday	201807
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	sbw	The Strathblack Wood	G/Em	Strathspey	Temple Blackwood	70 bday	201807
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	--	sps	Suz Pizzazz non Solemnis	Am/C	Waltz	Suzanne Lord	70 bday	201102
abc	G P	S P	midi		2x	tt	The Temple Turn (fingering)	Em	Reel	Temple Blackwood	60 bday	200807
abc	G P	S P	midi slower	mp3	orig	tlh	That Love of Hers	G/Em	Swing	Jennye Cline	in memory	201604
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	--	tfse	Three Fourths in Seven Eighths	D/Bm	Lesnoto	Carl Minkus	75 bday	201303
abc	G P	S P	midi*	mp3	orig	tr	Tickle the Rosewoods	Dm	Lesnoto	Carl Minkus	80 bday	201803
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	faster	tat	Time and Tide (fingering)	Em	Waltz	Pam Walsh	50 bday	200906
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	--	tw	Trainer's Waltz	G	Waltz	Deb Mateik	50 bday	200604

ABC	Sheet	Crd	Sound	Live	Xtra	Note	Title	Key	Type	In honor of...	Occasion	Date

abc	G P	S P	midi*		orig	ubl	Unger Bensam'slåt	D	Gånglåt	Lorraine Silsbee	40 bday	199503
abc abc	G P G P	S P	midi midi	mp3	--	vs	Vileä Svengaa w/upbeats but no ties	Dm	Humppa	Trevor Corson	40 bday	200907
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	wg	Waltz for George	G/Em	Waltz	George Sommaripa	honor	199804
abc	G P	S P	midi*		orig	wfn	Warren's Finnsk-Norsk	Dm	Reinlendar	Bill Warren	career	199312
abc	G P	S P	midi*		orig	wr	Welcome 'Rain	Am	Pols	Lorraine Silsbee	40 bday	199503
abc	G P	S P	midi	mp3	orig	wn	A Woman for November	Dm	Waltz	Gordon Bok	78 bday	201710

ABC	Sheet	Crd	Sound	Live	Xtra	Note	Title	Key	Type	In honor of...	Occasion	Date

All Tunes -- actual (abc file)
All Tunes -- playback versions (abc file)

An asterisked play link indicates that the rhythm fix has been applied to the tune. This means the linked play file was created by a separate "playback" version of the tune, rather than by the version shown in the abc and sheet links. The playback version's abc and sheet files, and the play file for the "unfixed" tune (unfixed play), are linked from the tune's footnote.

Background Notes
The linked abbreviations take you to the tune in the table above

(Past tense is used to acknowledge the fact that the tunes are snapshots of the people involved as they were at that time, though they may be quite the same now.)

3D	Who: Tom Atlee, my brother, the founder of the Co-Intelligence Institute and inspiration for the concept of 3-D Wise Democracy. Tune: This is one of the most programmatic tunes I've ever made. As a result, some might say it lacks a certain amount of grace. But it is intended as an homage to the important role of diversity of thought and perspective in wise decision making. It starts out with a burst of eighth notes in a major key -- someone on the positive side talking fast and pushing a point. After 8 measures it is interrupted by someone on the negative side doing the same, in a minor key. But towards the end of the rant, Negative is beginning see a bit of Positive's viewpoint, and slows down. The rest of the tune is a lyrical mixture of both major and minor. Finally, given the importance of iteration of the process to take account of new information, the tune pauses for that new information, before starting to hash it all out anew, finally ending with a comfortable consensus. Title: Self evident.
A	Who: Lynn Bradbury is gutsy activist here in Maine who will drive almost anywhere to participate in activities related to both "good" and more controversial causes. She has been a stalwart ally in battles in which I've been involved related to 9/11 Truth, vaccines, and the current COVID disaster. She posts numerous signs related to these issues in her front yard abutting a busy road. She's a gardener, and a very thoughtful person. Tune: I'd been waiting to write a tune for a major birthday of hers, but when she found earlier this year that she was going to be dealing with cancer, I thought it wise to get off my duff and make one. An activist presses forward, not waltzing around or jumping up and down, so a walking tune fit better than a waltz or jig. Although many of my tunes switch from major to minor, in this case I reversed that, in acknowledgment of the activist wish that things that are bad will get better. What was fun here was putting in some almost-syncopation, which is not altogether inappropriate in her case :-). Title: Goes without saying.
ABG	Who: Anne is one of Sarah's sisters, a whimsical artist in sketches and ceramics. Tune: Anne said she'd like a waltz that moved from major to minor. The A-music is in the legato style of a Swedish "sailor's waltz." But when I switched to minor for the B-music, it began to demand a bit more variation in rhythm. Title: As the tune emerged, it felt like a combination of lightness and dark, of the good times and difficulties that Anne takes so graciously. I'd originally thought of sun and storm, but the A-music is so breezy that I switched.
ACP	Who: DottieB is a PG concertina player. Tune: Since Dottie plays English concertina, which can handle chromatic runs, I thought it would be fun to mix those with arpeggios and some pedal-note sequences. It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Title: Arpeggios are a natural for a keyboard instrument, and I was hoping they were for a concertina, as well.
ADW	Who: Joanna Rueter is my former sister-in-law, a former therapist and personal organizer, and for a number of years before her retirement the director of a program of the Brattleboro (VT) Area Hospice to encourage everyone in the community to complete an Advance Care Directive. Tune: I'd written a hambo and pols for Joanna's 50th, but missed the 60th. In response to my asking what kind of tune she wanted, she said "Relaxed, major and minor... some Hebrew flavors. Hmmm lullaby?" Not being a lullaby writer, I chose a waltz. I used a modal approach in the A-music to get a slight Jewish traditional sound, and then switched to a quiet major key "sailor's waltz" form for the B-music. Title: It refers to the Advance Directive she worked so hard on.
AH	Who: DottieP was the PG harp player. Tune: An attempt at a "harp tune" by an accordion player. The MIDI file didn't sound as I'd envisioned the tune, until I changed the ABCMus setting from the "0 (Accordion)" I've used in most of these other tunes to "46 (Orchestral harp)," and it made all the difference in illustrating what I was trying to do with the tune. I have to second that comment (4/21/22). I came back to the tune after over 20 years to make an mp3 and couldn't make it sound right -- in fact, it didn't really make sense. So I listened to midi version, and was struck with how it IS a harp tune, almost O'Carolan in feeling. Title: At the time of the tune's making, Dottie was the arbolist for Montgomery County, Maryland.
AHP	Who: Fred Aalto was a Finnish-American accordionist who played with the Peascods Gathering band for many years, and taught Scandinavian dancing in various venues. He composed a huge number of folkdance tunes in a variety of national genres, always keeping remarkably true to each genre. Tune: Fred wrote all kinds of folkdance music. I wanted something Finnish to honor his ethnic identification. He was the only person I ever saw teach the no-couple Finnish circle dance called a hoijakka, and the band almost always used a 16th-note polska medley for it that started with Koiviston Polska (played here by Tauno Aho). So I used that as an inspiration for this tune, complete with a major-key interval in the minor-key tune. Title: That's pretty self-explanatory: Aalto's hoijakka polska. (Note: in Finnish, the possessive of a noun is generally created by adding an "n", but that frequently forces a change in the last consonant in the noun, as it did in this case.)
ALR	Who: Dottie was one of the PG concertina players. Tune: The style is a gånglåt, a Swedish walking tune, like a strolling march. It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Title: A cross between Dottie's hometown Alexandria and the gånglåt "Leksands Tingsmarsch."
AP	Who: Dr. Tom Adams. Tune: In keeping with the reasoning behind the title mentioned below, I wanted a two-faced tune: one part that would be more serious and minor (the scientist), the other more kindly and major (the warm-hearted house-caller). It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi) Title: Dr. Tom Adams was the ultimate small-town doctor: the serious diagnostician combined with the empathetic house-caller -- hence the pair-of-docs play on "paradox." He might be sitting in the town library reading up in Science or the Scientific American, or sitting on the front porch of one his patients (or family) who was having a hard time. He always had (within limits) the time to explore controversial ideas, and refused to knuckle under to pressure for reducing time with his patients.
AS	Who: Aava Usva Corson is the daughter of Trevor Corson and his Finnish wife Anu Partanen -- my first and probably only granddaughter. Aava refers to a broad expanse of ocean (or sometimes land), while Usva means "mist" (or sometimes fog). One might say that a Maine translation is "Thick o' Fog" :-). Tune: I was looking for something quiet, sweet, and easy-going to honor a baby. A gånglåt seemed like the most appropriate, given I've written way too many waltzes :-). I think this fills that bill, though it also turns out to be a quite lively snoa/polka-ish kind of tune. I've included mp3s of both approaches. Title: It's Finnish for "Aava's tune." Fortunately, I got the Finnish consulate in NYC to check my translation, and I'd used the word for "tuning an instrument." They straightened me out.
BDR	Who: When I first met him, Fred played guitar and Strumstick (a small dulcimer). Later he took up electric bass, and has been a great addition to many musical endeavors, some of which I've had the pleasure to play in. The people who knew him as a lobbyist in Washington probably had no idea he was a musician and singer with his own recording studio and a deep caring about how what he produced sounded. Tune: The only way to write this tune -- and still get the chords properly placed -- is to use ties, as shown in the ABC file. But ABCMus can't "do" ties -- it splits them into multiple notes, which wrecks any sense of a rag's syncopation. So I used a variation on the rhythm fix, making one note out of the ties, even though this shifts some of the chords into the wrong position (abc, G P; unfixed midi). I gave this tune a rhythm declaration of "reel," which in ABCMus introduces a dotted-flagged "hornpipey" quality, though this is masked by all the syncopation. A more straightforward (but hardly discernable) implementation comes from declaring the tune in ABCMus to be a "polka." You can hear this version in the "polka" link in the "Other" column. Title: This was a play on "BenSon" and the fact that one sees a lot in 50 years of marriage.
BDW	Who: Barbara McLeod is actively involved with a number of nonprofits here, such as Bar Harbor's Abbe Museum. Tune: Barbara and her husband David Hales (a former head of the College of the Atlantic) were in our ballroom dance class, and Barbara's idea of a 60th birthday party was a big costume and dance party. They aren't contra dancers, and I don't write ballroom dance tunes. The only common denominator in our repertoires is waltz. The tune, a legato "sailor's waltz," is intended to be played slowly enough for a box-step waltz. I wanted to include some variations in the 3-beat rhythm pattern, and threw in a brief key change in the "B" part. Title: It honors the fact that Barbara and David love dancing with each other.
BG	Who: Bronwyn Malicoat is one of my partner Sarah's nieces. She is a remarkable combination of caring (emotional and ability-wise) and strength. Tune: I wanted something that characterized this, falling back on my penchant for combining major (sweetness) and minor (strength) keys. In this case, I tried the switch halfway through the second phrase of both the A and B music. In terms of dancing, reels can be very exciting and wild, but my favorite for contras are march/walking tunes, because of their smooth precision. To get the upbeats, the tune required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi) Title: I'd originally decided on "Bronwyn's Grace" for a title because it so accurately characterizes her. But then, since I've always had the impression the name Bronwyn had a mythological background, I thought I ought to look it up. I couldn't find any basis for that impression, but the closest I came was the story of Branwen. After reading about her situation, I decided I'd better stick with the original title!
BGG	Who: Robena ("Bena") Malicoat is one of the trio of daughters of my partner Sarah's sister Anne (abg,bg,bvvb). Her early career was in the film industry as a "grip," one of the people who handles equipment, sets things up, and does all kinds of trouble-shooting. Title: My initial awareness of Robena was as a film industry grip, and the most common phrase involving "grip" is "get a grip." Tune: My (perhaps incorrect) image of a grip's work involves scurrying and grabbing hold of things, a da-da-da-da-bump da-da-da-da-bump. Only a jig has that kind of behavior, and I tried to incorporate that in the tune.
BOE	Who: Beki, one of my partner Sarah's nieces, is a clear-headed Nurse Practitioner. Tune: Beki is a solid base of support for her parents. Having written a jig and a walking tune for her two sisters, I was looking in her case for something different, steady and positive, but with a bit of dark reality woven in (see the Title description below). A waltz suggested itself. Title: Beki is one of the few (if not only) people in her extended family (or in my circle of friends, for that matter) who has been able to avoid being trapped in the mainstream Narrative that misstates many of the realities with which we're having to deal. Her eyes are open while those of many others are covered with pulled-over wool.
BR	Who: Buggy Rock is a physical landmark in West VIrginia, near where an all-night contra dance Sarah and I attended was held (late 70's or early 80's); PG was one of the bands. . Tune: This is the first tune I can remember making. Jigs always seemed to me easier to play than reels, and were especially lively, given that the PG had had a musicians' workshop with Marshall Barron of the Country Dance Society in which she drilled into our heads how important emphasis on the upbeat is; it radically changed the way jigs sounded. Title: I'd show you a picture of Buggy Rock, but all the images on the net are of rock buggy off-road vehicles.
BSH	Who: Joanna was my (former) sister-in-law. Tune: She spent a formative high-school year in Sweden; one of the many things that she fell in love with there was the universal Swedish couple dance, the hambo. (I also wrote a Norwegian pols for her.) Because ABCMus can't do "1&3" rhythm, I had to resort to the rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Another, more local traditional dance, the Bodapolska, from the town of Boda, though much slower in tempo, has the same rhythm superficially, but with a very different feel. The second beat is pushed a bit into the first beat, making the first beat shorter and the second longer. ABCMus has a "Rhythm" setting (i.e., tune-type) called "polska K1," which actually implements this. It doesn't work perfectly with the triplets in this tune, but you can get an idea of the rhythm. It's the "~Boda" MIDI file linked in the "Other" column, which was made using the playback version of the tune and the "polska K1" rhythm and the tempo slowed from 120 to 100. Title: For many years, Joanna ran a professional personal-organizing ("decluttering") business called Breathing Space.
BT	Who: In honor of the many wonderful Thanksgiving dinners held at Keith Davis's and Susan Pink's house "in the woods." Tune: Commissioned by Sarah, who asked for a waltz with "drive." Title: From the words of the Selkirk Grace that opens traditional Scottish Burns suppers, incorrectly attributed to Robert Burns: Some hae meat and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it; But we hae meat, and we can eat, Sae let the Lord be thankit.
BVV	Who: Sarah's niece Galen Malicoat married Beau Vals some thirty years after they'd kissed in a kindergarten rendition of "The Tempest" and had then lost track of each other. Tune: I was sitting on the elevated back deck of a deserted house on Cape Cod the day before the wedding. The tune came out of nowhere, a "driving" kind of waltz unlike anything I'd written before. Title: Too obvious to pass up.
BW	This tune is a mystery. I'm not sure when or why it was composed, though there had to be a reason. There's also the possibility that I wrote out a tune by someone else, but I've been unable to locate the tune anywhere else.
BW1	Who: Bari Haskins is one of the nieces of my good friend Ashley Bryan, who keeps a close and caring eye on him in his later years. Tune: When I started out, my fingers/ears led me into a jig, but while that tune had some nice phrases in it, they just didn't coalesce into a credible tune. I realized that Bari's steadiness and good humor deserved something a bit more stable, obviously a waltz. I've found myself more and more in the world of legato "sailor waltzes," and this is no exception. Title: Self-explanatory.
C	Who: Lisa Robinson is a fiddle player with the Peascods Gathering. Tune: There is a definiteness about Lisa that prompted me to think of a solid rhythmic form, of which a Norwegian reinlendar is one of the best examples. I started off thinking of Jannes Reinlendar, but couldn't resist the temptation of incorporating a bit of syncopation, and then a quick descending run to surprise the listener. It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi) Title: In recent years, Lisa has been taking serious courses in classical composition. Some of her work can be heard on her YouTube channel.
CAT	Who: Alan Lord is an unusually capable man. He has served many roles, from captain on down, on large ships and ferries. His knowledge is encyclopedic, and his ability to fabricate and repair things is sometimes hard to believe. Tune: Alan is a solid, steady guy, but he easily thinks outside the box. Although he isn't into this kind of music, a march seemed to fit that solidity, with some odd twists and a key-change to aknowledge that not-in-box-ness. The tune required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi) Title:Alan has traveled the ocean far and wide and near, with many a hair-raising experience.
CC	Who: Conrad Malicoat was the husband of Anne Malicoat, one of Sarah's three sisters. Tune: Like the Chock-Chock Jig-a-Jig Jig, this tune makes use of a pedal-note scalar pattern in an inverted way, with the pedal rather than the melody on the beat, producing the neat syncopated sound that a duple pattern produces against the triple rhythm of a jig. Title: Conrad was a master stone craftsman, whose fireplaces and chimneys have been much sought after for their unconventional -- sometimes downright whimsical -- style. I wanted to incorporate that whimsy into the tune (hence the unconventional scalar pattern mentioned above). I also wanted the title to reflect his work with bricks, the most notable (to me) being the moebius strips he made of suspended, glued-together bricks. A cute example of his thinking can be seen in a brick-tree Christmas card he sent to an elderly relative.
CCJ	Who: Carl Minkus was the inveterate marimba player in PG; he also played hammer dulcimer for a while. Tune: Among the tunes I've written, this is one of my favorites. It makes use of the always-cool descending chord sequence (A-G-F-E) and, in the B-music, an attempt to use the standard pedal-note pattern in an inverted way, with the pedal rather than the melody on the beat. This not only gives a syncopated feel to the tune, but the duple nature of the pedal melody against the triple of the jig's rhythm was an attempt at hemiola . Title: Carl loved playing Balkan music, and since among the odd-meter rhythms of Balkan music, the 6/8 rhythm of the Serbian čačak is virtually the same as a jig, and one of PG's standard Balkan tunes was Godečki Čačak, I started the tune in that style and had fun in the title with a transliteration of "čačak."
CGR	Who: Larry Stettner is a community activist in my town. He has been a mover/doer in activities involving food, music (he has at times been a veritable impresario), and croquet (he's nationally rated), among many other things. In his wife's final years, Larry was a remarkable, attentive caregiver, and her death in February 2017 was a hard blow. Tune: Larry is particularly fond of the Pig Ankle Rag (midi) -- so much so that musicians can manipulate him by playing it, which invariably drives him to get up and dance. So it seemed that a rag tune would be the most appropriate, though I didn't risk trying to duplicate "Pig Ankle's" driving repetitiveness. It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi) Title: Perhaps Larry's crowning achievement was his founding and development of The Common Good Cafe, an all-community soup-kitchen famous for its Sunday popover breakfast in the summer.
CK	Who: Carl Karush has been a fixture of the contra/folkdance scene in near-Downeast Maine for a long time. In addition to teaching folk dancing, he plays mandolin, guitar and tamboura. Tune: A Serbian čačak (how-to) has the same rhythm as a jig (6/8) but is much faster, and many of the tunes are wildly driving. I tried to get a bit of the wild in here, but I don't know if I could ever play it as fast of some of the dancers go. I tend to like shifts between major and minor (usually in that order), but in this case (and Jon Archer's) I found it nice to go the other way. (This my second attempt at a čačak, the other also written for a Carl.) Title: Self-explanatory
CO	Who: Linda Powell was the nurse in charge at The Cambridge Homes, the assisted living facility in Cambridge MA during the five years my father lived there. Linda was unfailingly patient and kind with both my father and me, which at times I'm sure was a challenge. While there were many wonderful staff members at TCH, Linda was the rock to which I was anchored during that tricky time. While it would have been the usual pattern to write a tune for her 60th birthday, I inadvertently missed it. However, I wanted very much to honor her. Tune: When I asked her what kind of tune she would like, she demurred, being unfamiliar with the kind of dance music I live in. It seemed to me that a waltz was appropriate to the kindness she showed us -- a gentle one rather than a driving one. I like the "E7" measure, which came out of nowhere, and the "dada dum dum" rhythmic theme which gives a danceable lift to each measure. Title: I wrestled with this, through titles referencing her name or TCH. But in the end, "caring" sums up how she was for us, and I imagine many other people.
CR	Who: Jim Vekasi is a wonderfully versatile mandolin player in my town who has played with the Green Mountain Railway and Big Moose contradance bands, the Dog Mountain bluegrass band, and "Ralph Stanley and Friends," in which group I had the great pleasure of playing with him. He is by no means limited to the genres implied by these various groups. Tune: I've only written a couple of other tunes that might be considered rags, and because Jim is so versatile, I wanted something that was to an extent outside the sterotyped realm of contras and bluegrass. Title: This tune was composed for Jim's retirement from the National Park Service, in which he spent many decades, the last several being at Acadia National Park, where he retired from long service as head of maintenance of an incredible variety of facilities, roads, and trails. Although he wasn't aware of it while it was happening, his reputation for competence spread throughout the Park Service.
CRL	Who: Carl Minkus was the inveterate marimba player in PG; he also played hammer dulcimer for a while. Tune: It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Title: "Charlemagne" is no understatement. Carl was probably the greatest member of the band -- solid, dependable, organizer of events, missing almost no practices or gigs, carrying more than his share of responsibility during much of PG's long history. The ruby light is a reference to the fact that he worked for the Library of Congress, and at the time was doing scientific literature searches in Russian journals for information on lasers.
DA	Who: Anne Lord is one of my partner Sarah's three sisters. She is a Provincetown artist who drew beautiful horses and excelled at whimsical ceramics. Tune: Anne has experienced a long progression of Parkinson's. In recent time she has been unable to walk. Having already written a waltz for her, I was looking for a nice, sprightly walking tune that represented one of the many things she might be dreaming of, or that her daughters and friends might dream for her. Although many of my tunes have had shifts from major to relative minor, recently I've been interested in key shifts from tonic to subdominant. I'd fallen in love with harmonicist Bruno Kowalczyk's rendition of Galop a Lionel Simard, and that piece's G-to-C shift and its use of double 16-bar phrases both found their way into this piece. Title: (mentioned in the tune description)
EP	Who: In her later years, my mother, Elinore Atlee, received the gift of a two-headed African-like drum from my sister-in-law, Joanna. Ellie thought that getting into drumming might be spiritually therapeutic. What turned out to be therapeutic, however -- for both of us -- were the countless sessions over the next decade-plus of her playing drum to the folk music I played on accordion. When our physical locations separated in 1998, we kept up by doing it over the phone with headsets. She had a knack for classy percussion, and to an extent, the eventual decline of that musical side of her was a key measure of her slide into Alzheimers. Tune: ABCMus's problems with upbeats in 2/4-4/4 seem to disappear when you call a tune a polka, but it can't produce the ties which make the B-music interesting. Title: Most of what we played was Scandinavian. Ellie loved waltzes, but for playing percussion accompaniment, she was at her finest with 2/4 and 4/4 rhythms; hence this polka.
ETF	Who: Ellie Atlee, my mother (see the Elinora Polka note). Tune: ABCMus's inability to handle ties, and teatment of all 3 beats as equal makes the MIDI sound more jumpy and plodding than the tune actually is, and ABC2Win's inability to handle more than two endings requires a note that the final time should use the "second" #2 ending. Title: A pun on the fact that a waltz is in 3/4 rhythm, and 81 (her birthday) is 3 to the 4th power. Note:In July 2021, while reducing my cassette tape collection, I came upon a tape on which I had recorded this tune for my mother back in 1999 (the year it was composed), for her to accompany with her accomplished drumming. I've transferred it to an mp3, which you can hear here.
FD1	Who: Margaret was one of the PG's two long-time recorder players. Tune: This waltz is the original version of the tune. The MIDI file is hampered by the plodding effect of ABCMus's rendition of all three waltz beats as equals. Title: Margaret was married to an Australian. They had recently divorced when this tune was composed.
FD2	Who: Margaret was one of the PG's two long-time recorder players. Tune: The original tune was a waltz. However, one day I was playing around with playing tunes in different styles from the intended ones, and this one was great as a march. Playing it over that summer on a yard-sale accordion I'd bought as a "throw-away" to withstand the salt atmosphere of the Maine coast caused me to fall in love with that accordion; it's now my main instrument. For this presentation, the tune required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Title: Margaret was married to an Australian. They had recently divorced when this tune was composed.
FF	Who: Brian is a remarkable man, a softspoken singer-songwriter. He plays guitar and is wonderfully flexible on keyboard, especially with jazz. Tune: I have a great affection for minor key tunes that make brief forays into major mode. There's something about this that reminds me of Finland's Metsäkukkia. I also ended up with a last measure that takes after the dominant-minor / dominant-7th / tonic-minor final measure of various English Country Dances. Title: At the time this was written, Brian was preparing to completely replace the rotting foundation of the old farmhouse his family lived in.
FFE	Who: I hired Willie Brown back in 1992 as a help-desk staffer specializing in the then fairly-new-to-our-center IBM PCs. He is a quite remarkable man, and became my friend and eventually my boss. Tune: This was an interesting experience. I started out to write a march (4/4 time). After writing the A music, I discovered that the tune had led me into a key change. After trying for a while to figure out how to get out of that, I decided it sounded fine and left it till after the end of the B music to recover the original key. More seriously, when I finished the tune, I put it into ABC notation and played it with ABCMus, and it sounded ALL WRONG! I finally realized what I'd been hearing in my head (while writing a 4/4 dum-dum-dum-dum march) was a 6/8 (dum-dee-dum-dee) jig. There are marches that sound like jigs, such as The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and that's what I had had in mind for this one. All my work to force triplets into 4/4 march time was foolish -- they're perfectly natural in 6/8 jig time. I reworked the ABC's into jig time, and this time ABCMus played it the way I'd envisioned it. Title: Rising from humble beginnings, throughout his remarkable career, Willie says he has always felt he was different from the people around him, which I think is probably quite accurate. He has seemed to be able to fix almost anything, whether hardware or administrative. We used to half-joke about him coming from outer space, hence the title.
FFT	Who: Jennifer Atlee is my neice. Tune: I definitely wanted a waltz. But I tried three times, and couldn't decide. The first was, well, characterful, with no clear "A" and "B" part. The second had an unusual number of measures. The third was more normal. I asked Jennifer and her partner Marko (a musician) to see if any of these appealed to them. I was gratified that they each independently decided on the "characterful" one. Title: The "back forty" is an old phrase relating technically to the forty acres at the rear of a farm, but generally referring to something somewhat removed from this place or notice. This being her 40th birthday, the "front forty" was simply a play on this, referring to the first 40 years.
FK	Who: Katrina Van Dusen is one of my partner Sarah's many nieces. Tune: Katrina is an active, vibrant person, for whom a jig seemed more appropriate than a waltz. As is often the case, I couldn't resist a mode change between A and B musics, but I tried to do one better -- a brief mode change in the middle of the A music. What was tricky was getting back out of it in the last half of the 12th measure. Title: She has lived in Freeport, Maine, for many years. No one calls her "Kat," but the play on words was too tempting.
FSH	Who: Lorraine was one of the PG's two long-time recorder players, a long-time friend and one of the early members of the band. Tune: I present this in two keys because I love the effect of a transition from one minor key to the next one a full step up. The MIDI file is hampered by the plodding effect of ABCMus's rendition of all three waltz beats as equals. Title: A homonymic play on the fifth shift into a new decade.
FSL	Who: Ralph Stanley is an icon on the Maine coast, a long-time builder of wooden boats who received a "national treasure" award from President Clinton. He is also a remarkable storehouse and researcher of local history, and has for years played fiddles (most of which he made) solo and in local old-time music ensembles and dance bands. Tune: This is in the languid style of a Swedish "sailor's waltz." Title: Although originally written with someone else in mind, in the end it seemed more appropriate to Ralph. He built many boats, particularly lobster-fishing craft, but for me he will always mean Friendship sloops, to me the sweetest boats in the harbor. The sweetness of this tune, and the maritime connection of its style, insisted that it be named after them.
FSS	Who: Ruth is a local naturalist, piano player, and long-time violin and fiddle player, having her own classical trios and playing in various old-time and contra bands for many decades. A spunky lady, and a veritable force of nature. Tune: Ruth loves playing Balkan and Israeli/Klezmer music, and I thought a quiet Lesnoto was appropriate for an octagenarian (though she'd always be playing it rather than dancing it). It owes a lot in its feeling to Reflections of Arcadia, a tune that talented PG folk-dance-teacher/accordionist Fred Aalto wrote for his wife. I was tickled to learn that Ruth loves to play it on the organ for services at her church. People don't notice or get confused by 7/8 rhythm if you don't mention it. The tune is in Macedonian Lesnoto 7/8 meter (3 ‑ 2 ‑ 2, sometimes counted as "slooow quick quick"). Because ABCMus can't handle odd meters, the ABCMus rhythm fix was required: Tune: (abc, G P; unfixed midi, rhythm "once per beat"). Harmony: (abc, G P; unfixed midi, rythm "none"). Title: An acknowledgment of the meter and the birthday, with a nod to the Gettysburg Address.
GM	Who: Madeline Uraneck is a good friend. My connection with her goes back to the relatively early days of Folklore Village in the early 1970s. Madeline became what I had been, a kind of do-everything person, taking on many roles, and remaining involved for a much longer time than I had. In the last few year we've been resurrecting the long-quiescent "Folklore Village Games Book" project. Her next decade birthday isn't until December 2017, but I thought it was long since time to acknowledge her in this way. Tune: On my last games-book visit, I broached the subject of a tune, and with a bit of leading, she said she'd like a waltz, and liked the idea of a major-minor shift. The minor-key B music feels different from other such parts, and goes lower than anything I'd written previously. Title: Madeline worked for years with international students at the University of Wisconsin, and then joined the Peace Corps, working in Lesotho and then Turkmenistan, with a stint in the DC HQ. In addition, she travelled to many other countries. I was tempted to call the tune "The Wanderer," but decided that her own self-applied moniker, "Global Maddy," was more appropriate.
GTL	Who: April Hall-Hough is the daughter of Chris Hough, a long-time friend and accordionist who has been with PG since its inception. We played at his wedding, and when his daughter got married, and circumstances prevented me from playing with PG for that, I wrote this waltz for April and her groom, Steve Davis, to dance to. Tune: I was hoping to find a tune that would fit that scene I have seen at many weddings. Title: When Steve was told by April that he was going to have to waltz with her at the wedding, he was disinclined for some reason :-). However, April told him that a guy needs to waltz, even if only twice in his life -- once at his own wedding, and once at his daughter's. I gather he rose to the occasion. Who knows what the future will bring...
H	Who: Susan Pink is the editor/gardner/horticulturist wife of Keith Davis (for whom "Miss Susan's Favorite" was written). They are good friends who have shared their Thanksgivings and hospitalites with us for almost two decades. Tune: The grapevine told me that Susan likes waltzes, and likes major-to-minor transitions. The tune I wrote for Keith (and implicitly for her) was laid back, in recognition of Keith's approach to life (when he isn't being incredibly and competently industrious). Susan is more intense. Given that gardening is subject to weather, and there are sudden changes in that in Maine, I was aiming at portraying nice gentle weather interrupted by sudden not-so-nice weather. The chromatic moves in measures A7 and B6 just popped up insistently and added a tiny bit of edginess to the tune. The dissonance of F#7 in measure B3 does the same; I argued with myself about using Bm, but I ended up loving the dissonance. Title: Obvious. She manages not only beds of plants in the wooded area around their house, but a major small gardening operation (carved out of a wooded area by Keith) in which she's making use of permaculture techniques. She's not "just a gardner."
HAL	Who: Holly Lord is one of my partner Sarah's nieces. Tune: Holly has always seemed to me to be a serious, steady woman, and I was looking for something steady and comfortable, which suggested a walking tune. I've always written these "marches" in 4/4, and thus always have the ABCMus problem of no upbeats, so I decided to write it in 2/4, which looks strange to me, but has always been the way to force ABCMus to play upbeats, and will probably please true music readers. Title: One of the liveliest of the not-so-well-known English Christmas carols is The Holly and the Ivy -- not the ancient version, but the tune collected by Cecil Sharp. It's a jig, but still, I couldn't resist the name.
HC	Who: Marilyn Lowell was for years the town clerk for my town, Southwest Harbor, ME, and eventually became the town manager. Most of my interaction with her was as a poll worker under her role as election supervisor. She was totally impartial, suffered no fools, and was a pleasure to work with. And often when she wasn't on the job she was off astride her beloved Harley. Tune: I started out differently (see the original :-( ), and after fighting with extra measures and phrases that went nowhere, I finally let my predilection for major-to-minor shifts take over. Basically, I wanted something to portray her upbeat approach during much of her working day contrasted with her clear love of getting on that powerful bike. Title: Self-explanatory.
HF	Who: Eva Sommaripa was a college roommate of Sarah's. Tune: Eva operates at an unbelievable pace, so it seemed appropriate to have a nice, quiet "sailors" waltz as a calming influence -- except for a little twist at the end. Title: Eva founded Eva's Garden and became the premier herb farmer in the Boston area, supplying herbs and edible greens and flowers to restaurants over a wide area.
HP	Who: For my partner Sarah. Tune: Because ABCMus can't do "1&3" rhythm, I had to resort to the rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Title:"Haras" is "Sarah" backwards.
HT	Who: Anu Partanen, my Finnish step-daughter-in-law. Tune: The most beloved traditional waltz tune in Finland is Metsäkukkia, as I discovered when I played it at Anu and Trevor's wedding celebration in Helsinki. It has three parts -- a G-minor sandwich with a B-flat/G-minor in the middle. This tune is a nod to Metsäkukkia, in its initial notes, its sandwich nature, and a bit of the character of the third part. Title: Anu is certainly the "Star of Helsinki," in the same sense as the "Star of the County Down."
HTF	Who: Sarah Corson. Tune: Between May and October, when her skiff is in the water, Sarah is passionate about trying to row as often as possible, sometimes just around the harbor, where she daily increases her knowledge of the fishing boats and fishermen, sometimes as far out as around a nearby island. I wanted a tune that reflected the quiet joy that activity can bring her (the major key parts), with the hint of the always-present possibility of sudden danger (the minor key parts). Title: At low tide, it is impossible to get the skiff out. High tide is a beautiful time to be out, but even better is somewhat before high tide, when there is still an incoming tide to return with. But fog cancels everything -- going far out entails the risk of getting lost, and staying in the harbor entails the risk of being hit by a fishing or recreational boat that can't see the skiff.
IIC	Who: Joan Johnston of West Virginia is one of Sarah's three sisters. Tune: I like the idea of transitions from major to minor. Title: Joan, a marvellous potter, made most of the beautiful bowls, plates, platters and mugs that we use.
IJ	Who: Iris Atlee is my grand-niece. Tune: I tend to write tunes for later decade birthdays, but with the uncertainties of the future, I decided it would be nice to make one for this young lady now, for a half-decade birthday. Having decided that, I woke up in the middle of the night with a jig rhythm pattern in my head -- dee diddely dum de dah... dee diddely dum de dah... dee diddely diddely diddely diddely diddely dum de dah. It's pretty stereotypical, but I'd never (I think) used it, so I scribbled it down. I think the resulting tune is nicely upbeat. Title: I asked a person who knew Iris well what adjective would best describe her that I could use in naming the tune. After several days, I was told it really was an impossible task. So, given the earliness in her life, I figured the only way to go was up.
IKT	Who: Becky Rehl. Tune: When writing a tune for someone, it is sometimes hard to figure out what kind of a tune would be appropriate, so I sometimes ask. In this case, at the 2016 Jane-Farwell/Folklore-Village centennial celebration, Becky was pushing hard for zwiefacher, the Bavarian dance form that mixes 2/4 (pivots) and 3/4 (waltzes) time signatures. So when I suggested a zwiefache, it was readily accepted. This tune is more in "my style" than the traditional zwiefacher, and the B music has an odd number of waltzes, so at the end of the first repetition the dancers are on the "wrong foot" (this is not unique to my tune), but after the repeat they are back on the "right" foot. (ABCMus is not fond of multiple-time-signature tunes, requiring that a chord be placed in the first measure of the changed time signature even if it is the same as the chord for the previous measure -- trivial enough but necessary, and this provided the opportunity to offer a twice-through without repeating the intro (abc, pdf). Even so, the midi that ABCMus produced is hard to follow unless you dance it or simultaneously look at the music.) Title: Originally this was going to be "Zwei-dee Drei-ree Becca," but that was a bit ridiculous. Becky and her husband Carl Fredericks run a sheep farm in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin, known as Cold Valley Farm; the title is German for In the Cold Valley. Pattern: (for Zwiefacher lovers) D=drehe/pivot, W=waltz -- (d2w2)3 w2 / (d4w)3 w2 .
IMF	Who: "Nurse Julie" Fernald dispensed care, kindness and humor during her 39-year career at our local medical center. Tune: I wanted a tune that reflected her kindness mixed with business-like-ness, and tossed in some semi-chromatic runs for humor. Title: Julie's career produced a storehouse of medical knowledge about the community extending back long before computerized records. Sometimes she could tell people history of their family of which they were completely unaware. When she retired, a lot of institutional memory left with her.
IR	Who: Warren Fernald was an institution, the elder statesman of the lobstermen on Islesford, Maine -- a fierce fisherman in a relatively small wooden boat, out in all kinds of conditions. He was not a music person, and was NOT a dancer, but he had a fundamental kindness, a good sense of humor, and a remarkable knack of connecting with all kinds of people. His wife Ann had a complementary sweetness, steadiness, and kind generosity. On the other hand, she loved to dance, and was going to off-island ballroom dance classes in her seventies. Together, over many years they had encouraged a remarkable number of people "from away" to settle on Islesford and become integral parts of the year-round working community. I wanted to honor their big anniversary, but since there wasn't much I could do for the Warren half of the couple, I made this tune with Ann in mind. Tune: Ann liked all kinds of dancing, but to me a waltz "fit" her. Title: Ann was a "rose person" -- she liked them and had them about her in image and reality. She was positively stunning with a Rugosa rose (one of the predominant flowers on Islesford) in her hair.
IWW	Who: Jennifer Wriggins is the daughter of long-ago acquaintances of my parents and a lifelong friend of my partner Sarah. She is also a superb law professor and dean at the University of Maine School of Law. Tune: I originally wanted something legal-ish, stentorian. But Jenny can be quite whimsical, and stentorian didn't really fit. So while there is a stentorian half note at the start, and others do put in guest appearances, they are countered by whimsical runs of eighth notes. With regard to major/minor, I tend to like to keep them within their own 16-bar phrases, but here they for some reason decided to split those phrases. It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi) Title: I couldn't resist edging "Wriggins" into something that sounds a bit illegally shady (call it the last election, if you like). I'd started out with "Unobstructed Justice," but halfway through the tune I realized I was looking for whimsy.
JAG	Who: For my stepson, Ash Corson. Tune: Ash is not into dance music or folk/contra dancing. He's a wonderfully steady, insightful guy with a warm sense of humor. The tune is deliberately light-hearted in a skippy kind of way, which is NOT characteristic of him :-). It embodies the pedal-note sequences (especially nice in jigs) and chromatic runs that I so much enjoy. Title: At the time this is written, Ash has been working for several years at Konami, a publisher of video games.
JEM	Who: Jenny Lord is one of my partner Sarah's nieces. Tune: Jenny has a long history with the outdoors. For many years she worked with the Fish and Wildlife Service, in roles that had her out in nature much of the time. She and her family do lots of major hiking and camping. So it seemed like a tune that kind of went up and down mountains might be appropriate. However, I ran into a problem I face frequently, in that a phrase at the end of the A-music that I liked ran on an extra measure, for a total of nine. I tried hard to fix it, but wasn't happy with any of the solutions that arose. So, since most of these tunes will never see a dance floor, I decided to give in to a fait accomplis and also write a B-music with nine measures. I find that, in playing it, hitting that last measure in each phrase, and having to move on immediately and a bit unexpectedly on an odd count, is a neat experience. (This is in a way a nod to the Scandinavian Fynbo type of tune, which has unexpected numbers of measures — although never quite this odd. Title: Since the tune referenced hiking over mountains, and Jenny is gung ho for such endeavors, I decided to have her to go-that-extra-mile, which she has done frequently in many aspects of her life.
JF	Who: My niece Jennifer is an avid contra dancer with a lot of pizazz. Tune: I wanted a tune with pizazz that would have some of the classic reel pedal-note runs mixed with the reverse of that pattern (pedal note on the downbeat, as I used in the Chock-Chock Jig-A-Jig Jig. To get around ABCMus's chose to render reels as a fast "dotted-flagged" hornpipe instead of straight reel, the main MIDI file was done as a polka. The "reel" version is linked from "hp" in the "Other" column. Title: I was using the tune Old French (midi) as an inspiration, and it tacked on to "Jennifer" rather nicely. These two tunes and Morpeth Rant (midi) make a nice medley.
JGR	Who: John Gleason is the husband of one of Katrina Van Dusen. He's a thoughtful, wonderful man (despite the reputation of his lawyer profession :-)) who could be classified as a singer-songwriter. I owe him a lot for non-legalist help he has given me. Tune: I asked John what kind of tune he'd like, and from the rather long menu he chose a rag. Although I've written a few tunes I'd called "rags," the name chiefly meant syncopation to me. This time I listened to a few Joplin rags, and while it isn't possible (at least for me) to create that kind of incredible music in 32 bars, I think this is the closest I've come. I'm completely unaccustomed to writing syncopation, and was thrilled when I put it into ABC and listened to it and it was exactly what I'd intended! I'm very happy with the key change in the middle.. Title: I don't think anyone would call John "Johnny," but it makes a much catchier title.
JH	Who: I first encountered Jamy (John) Lasell back in late 2006. He was a member of the "Downeast Democrats" email discussion list, and his contributions showed him to be an independent thinker. We were on the same wavelength on many things, but I developed a serious level of respect for him on another level -- the many different jobs he's taken on over the years working with down-to-earth "real" people, as he's moved from Maine to New Hampshire to Vermont (and probably other places I've lost track of). I learned only relatively recently that he is a solid harmonica player (e.g., here and here). Tune: Jamy said he likes the laid-back nature of waltzes, so I gave him one that I hoped would lend itself to laid-back playing. I couldn't figure out his description of the effect of major/minor shifts in a tune on the harmonica, so while I couldn't resist such shifts, I avoided any accidentals creeping in. Title: Some of these tunes have titles relevant to the person for whom they were written, but the connection might be obscure to people who don't know us. I wanted an explicit connection here to Jamy and his mouth harp.
JJ	Who: Jake Carrera is the lively son of a friend of Ash Corson. When I heard his first decade-birthday was coming up, I couldn't resist this, having never done a "first" before. Tune: I was looking for a lively jig. Despite this, the pattern of the first measure immediately forced its way into the tune, but the rest of it stayed lively. I think my favorite parts are the "different" (syncopated) 13th measure and the holding patterns in the B music. Title: Pretty straightforward, but it harkens back to the English Country Dance Jacob Hall's Jig (midi, sheet) which our band used to call "Jake's Jig."
JJJ	Who: Julia Johnston was one of Sarah's many talented nieces, who was changing from a career in architecture to one in teaching at about the same time as she was getting married. Tune: I wanted a jig that made "jazzy" use of accidentals, in the style of jigs like Phillipe Bruneau's Lancers and Doug Clark's Digging Dutchman. Title: The combination of the similarity of "Julia" and "jewel" with the resulting alliteration was irresistible.
JL	Who: Julie Speakman was a long-time friend of ours, a former actress who retained her spiciness in her advanced years. I used to sit in her backyard and play Norwegian "troll tunes" for her on a sopranino recorder. Tune: I originally composed this as a brudmarsch, a very slow processional tune. I liked it that way (see the "slow" link in the "Other" column), but Sarah pointed out that it was a bit doloroous for someone like Julie. Speeded up, it's a good walking tune. It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Title: "Låt" (pron. "lote") is the Swedish/Norwegian word for "tune."
JOG	Who: Joan Terry is a neighbor who, in her 90's, is still going strong -- spry, active, good-humored, ready to help many friends and relatives in need, and an accordion appreciator. Tune: I wanted something that reflects her steadiness and ability, something that is relatively easy to play (so I can play it for her any time), and yet has a few quirks to make it interesting to play. And, of course, I fell back on my penchant for major/minor combinations. Title: It generally seems nothing can stop her, and she has been through some tough and challenging times.
JSQ	Who: Julie Russell was the sister of a friend of mine, and on the staff at our library. Tune: Julie was a remarkably sweet and caring person. I wanted a tune that would convey that kind of feeling, which suggested a waltz in the legato "Swedish sailor's waltz" style. It did get a bit livelier as it went on. Many of my favorite Scandinavian waltzes are in the key of A, and one of them, Lordags Kvell, walks into a D chord in a way I love; I couldn't resist doing that in the A and B phrases of this waltz.. Title: I was sorely tempted to include her beloved beagle "Peanut" in this -- e.g., "Peanut's Fancy." But it just seemed a bit too oblique. For a short time, the tune was called by her nickname, Jules (though spelled "Julez"). But at Julie's memorial service, in the middle of a long monologue, her son happened to mention something that he described as quite "Juliesque." I knew instantly that was the right name.
KK	Who: Peter Lord is my partner Sarah Corson's brother, and he and Suzanne celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. Tune: I'd originally written a waltz for them, but Peter is more attuned to bluegrass. I'm not so much a reel person, so I thought a jig might be more appropriate. For many years they have spent a half year at a small house they purchased in Motueka, New Zealand. I thought it might be interesting to adapt the New Zealand national anthem. It turns out there are two: "God Save the Queen," and "God Save New Zealand," also known by its Maori name, "Aotearoa." The NZ government's site had information about it, and even a guitar-piano arrangement (original image). I put it into abc, and created a midi for those interested in hearing it. If you want to see how a 4/4 tune was converted to 6/8, see this comparison. Title: "KiwiKids" was the email address they used when they were in New Zealand.
KM	Who: For Margaret Eccles, one of our PG recorder players. Tune: There's nothing programmatic about this. It just makes use of the minor-major-minor shift and pedal-note patterns I love so well. It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Title: At the time this is written, Ash has been working for several years at Konami, a publisher of video games.
KR	Who: Ruth Rohl is the mother of celtic harpist Carol Rohl. Their decade birthdays fell in the same month. Tune: I wanted to do a waltz for Carol, but the tune that developed went through several transient key shifts, which seemed to me would be virtually impossible on a Celtic harp, particularly when played basically one-handed. So I dedicated it to Ruth, to whom the music world owes a debt of gratitude for Carol. Title: I hadn't initially intended it, but it just kind of happened, a wandering off of the key of G -- to E, A, D, G, and C all within 7 measures -- not to mention my love of wandering into the relative minor key in a major key piece. The tune ended up being all about keys, and struck a chord with the title of a spy thriller -- The Keys to Rebecca.
LB	Who: Gordon Bok is a well-known Maine-based folk singer/song-writer and wood carver. Tune: When we get into our later years, it is sometimes appropriate to slow down and take things legato. Gordon and his wife Carol Rohl have each had cause to do this, though their remarkable creativity and force of life sometimes makes it not at all apparent. I chose a walking tune to express this because of its ability to be either laid back or brisk and upbeat. Take your pick — the mp3 has one round of each. Interestingly, when I played this tune for his 82nd birthday, he commented that it reminded him of an Eskimo dance tune that he and Ed Trickett and Ann Mayo Muir had recorded on their 1980 A Water Over Stone album. I went back and listened, and he's right! That tune, North-South Handy, which Gordon suspects has a Danish origin, does indeed have a similarity, in its shifting between major and minor and its general lively sound. I hadn't heard it in perhaps thirty years, but who knows, maybe there was some subconscious connection. Title: I pondered this for quite a while. I didn't want it to be too cute a play on "Bok," but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity, either. The tune played slow feels reflective and could easily represent looking back at a life that has had high points and challenges. The actual pair of words chosen probably was an unconscious reference to Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward...
LG	Who: For my partner Sarah. Tune: She likes minor-key waltzes, and loves the drive of Beau Vals' Vals. This was an attempt to make something that could work for either dancing or faster playing. Title: She and her sisters, daughters of Milton and Rosamond Lord, are collectively known as "the Lord girls." But Sarah has always been The Lord Girl for me.
LOK	Who: Anne Lord, one of Sarah's sisters. Tune: When times are difficult, it can be helpful to have an upbeat tune to hum. In this case, it turned out, quite inadvertantly, to have the double-time nature of a Finnish humppa (foxtrot) or Danish hopsa.
LOR	Who: Peter Lord is my partner Sarah Corson's older brother. Tune: Peter is fond of bluegrass music. A few bluegrass tunes are jigs, but most of the non-ballad type pieces are reels. I don't tend to write reels; my attempts to do so usually turn out as what are called in the Irish tradition "polkas." That's what I ended up with in this case. (ABCMus note: In order to get a non-hornpipe even-sounding rhythm on the midi file, I had to say explicitly that it was a polka rather than a reel.) Title: Since he was in college, Peter has been an avid rower. Almost anywhere he has gone, he has found ways to row. He competed in river races into his 80s, and it was inspiring to watch him. Almost anywhere he has gone, he has found ways to row.
LS	Who: Sarah Corson, my life partner. Tune: I've had a tendency to write waltzes that are legato, with a major-key A music and minor-key B music. But I've always been intrigued by upbeat eighth-note waltzes, despite their generally being harder to play. So for a change, I decided to reverse the modes and offer an upbeat tune to a still-lively lady. Title: Sarah is the youngest of her sisters. She had an elderly shut-in aunt, who also happened to be a little sister. To entertain her aunt, Sarah set up the "Little Sisters Club." Membership didn't require dues, or meetings, or an oath, or an obligation, or anything other than being a little sister (but was "good to put on your resume" :-)). In the ensuing years, the membership has expanded significantly beyond those initial two. Wherever Sarah goes, she can often sense -- in her remarkable way -- which of the women she meets are also little sisters. She invites them to join the Club, an invitation that is sometimes at first met with perplexity, but then almost always with good-humored assent. While her aunt was alive, Sarah would then dutifully report to her the latest new member of the Little Sisters Club. So in the same sense that a short boy nicknamed "Shorty" may not escape that nickname for the rest of his life, even if he becomes taller than anyone else in his family, "The Little Sister" seemed a good name to give to a tune for an 80-year-old lively member of that Club.
LV	Who: Vanessa Robinson is a niece of Renaissance-man Ashley Bryan. Ashley has lived with her family in Texas for several winters when Maine's winter ice and snow became too difficult to manage. Vanessa, going far beyond the call of duty, has been a true blessing for Ashley and all of us who care deeply about him. Tune: I had written a waltz for Vanessa's cousin Bari Haskins, the two of whom had done yeoman work in helping Ashley during his incredibly busy summer visits to Maine. Bari had a convenient decade birthday, but Vanessa's was far off, and I wanted to honor her amazing work. I asked whether she would prefer a lively upbeat tune or a calm laid-back tune. Given the intensity of the summer, I wasn't surprised that she chose the latter. I laid the basic tune out readily, but had the same kind of rhythm concerns I'd had with Starfish. The final result was the product of letting it lie and doing periodic revisits. Title: Vanessa IS very much a lady, and a force of nature when she has to be.
MCG	Who: Carl Minkus was the inveterate marimba player in PG; he also played hammer dulcimer for a while. He loved playing "odd"-meter Balkan tunes. Tune: Gankino is family of Bulgarian dances in 11/16 meter (2 ‑ 2 ‑ 3 ‑ 2 ‑ 2, sometimes counted as "1 2 3 and 4 5" or "quick quick slooow quick quick"). Because ABCMus can't handle odd meters, the ABCMus rhythm fix was required (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Title: There's only one Carl Minkus!
MDF	Who: Michael Marion is long-time acquaintance from folk-dance circles, who has taken up concertina and button accordion. Tune: Michael is a recently-retired lead education park ranger from Acadia National Park. At one point, he was part of The Dragonfly Mercury Project, which I found out about 4/5 of the way down an article about Acadia Park. I wanted to capture the erratic quick-then-stop movements of dragonflies, all the better if they're mercury intoxicated :-). A jig is the best vehicle for that kind of musical behavior, and I threw in a lot of rag-ish syncopation to begin to approximate that.. Title: See above.
MDI	Who: Tim Garrity has done wonders as the head of the Mount Desert Island (MDI) Historical Society and enjoys his Irish heritage. His wife, Lynn Boulger, is Dean of Institutional Advancement at the College of the Atlantic and a poet. I mistakenly thought I'd written a tune for them, and when I realized I hadn't, I wrote this to acknowledge the many things they've done to enrich life on MDI. Tune: I told Tim I'd like to write an Irish dance tune and gave him a menu of possibilities. He said Lynn could dance anything, but he'd probably be limited to a waltz :-). I was looking for something sweet and airy, which I think I got, but there's perhaps a larger dose of a Swedish sailor's waltz cadence in it than should be present in a strictly Irish tune. Title: The local newspaper is the Mount Desert Islander, known affectionately as the MDIslander. The potential to do the same thing with "Irish" was too strong to resist.
MF	Who: John Forrest was a long-time and tremendously successful head of the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory (MDIBL), an institution with an over-120-year history here on MDI in Maine. His wife Catherine has been a friend of my partner Sarah since they met back in the 1950s as teenagers baby-sitting in Little Compton, RI. Tune: As the Forrests get on in years, I was looking for a smoothly flowing walking tune with few idiosyncracies. As I came to the last two measures of the A-music, I was delighted to find the chord/melody walk-down that appeared out of nowhere. I decided not to cop out with a repeat for the next eight measures of the A-music, and instead have them echo the first, but as a variation. It came together nicely, as did the Em-Bm-Em-Am-D7 chord walk in the B-music. Title: This was tough. I wanted to honor the Forrests, but I also wanted to acknowledge the strong MDIBL connection. It is usually referred to as "the Bio Lab," which is pretty lame in a title and certainly doesn't fit into any play on words with "forest." I finally gave up, thinking of the cookbook The Enchanted Broccoli Forest and decided to play on an edible forest with a spelled-out version of the lab's acronym.
MIC	Who: Molly Lyman was a solid, kind and thoughtful person, dedicated to peace and social justice, and with many friends. I appreciated her presence in our local peace vigils for years. When she began seriously struggling with cancer, she shared her experience from time to time, and her positive approach to a very hard situation was truly inspiring. Tune: In the tune I was trying to include the mixture of sadness and sweetness of her departure and memory. Title: Molly was a strongly religious person. Something about the thought of her smiling "up there" defined this tune after it was finished.
MP	Who: Doleta was a music teacher from the high school in Montfort WI, about twenty miles west of Folklore Village Farm who became, as a dancer and clarinet player, very involved in the musical life of the Farm. I very much enjoyed playing duets with her. Accordion later became her primary instrument. Tune: I wanted a minor-key waltz that could be danced slow-and-sweeping. Title: Her son's name was Paul; he was a great participant in all the Farm's activities.
MPH	Who: Charlie Bookman was for a long time a concertina player with the Peascods Gathering before escaping to the Pacific Northwest. Tune: Part of his career was spent messing with (i.e., Commissioner of) the streets of Seattle, during which I believe he was (at least at one point) referred to as Mr. Pothole. So I thought I'd honor that with a programmatic tune of the same name. During the minor-key A music the melody falls into a couple of potholes, but in the minor-to-major-key B music it goes through a lot of fixing activity and ends up on a victorious note (which is probably not strictly accurate, given how inevitable and persistent potholes are, but whatever). Title: Should be self-evident.
MR	Who: Maria is one of Sarah's sisters. Tune: Maria is dynamic, which suggested a reel. She enjoys climbing mountains, hence some of the melodic patterns. When she gets on a project, she pursues it powerfully. One of the most famous of these was her work on preserving rivers in her home state of Massachusetts. Sometimes her focus on a project would exclude focus on others; I tried to capture that in the tune. Title: Her Massachusetts rivers project.
MRF	Who: Jay Speakman (Julie Speakman's son) was once a lobster fisherman out of Little Cranberry Island (Islesford) in Maine. As also a poet, he eventually helped found the annual national Fisher Poets Gathering in Astoria, Oregon. Title: In my opinion, the best poem Jay has ever written (and he's written some excellent ones), is A Tale of the Old Muddy Reef, about a fishing accident in a December storm that almost killed him during off-shore fishing in an area of the Gulf of Maine called the Muddy Reef. The poem is a beautiful construction in the style of the poet Robert Service over a century earlier, with perfect meter and internal rhyming. Tune: When I asked Jay (a year early) what kind of tune he would like, he hemmed and hawed and finally settled on a jig. Various patterns have gone through my head since then. I knew it had to be in minor key because of danger of the storm. I considered making it programmatic, with a major A music to represent his cocky everything's-cool overconfidence in the first part of the poem. But in the end, danger and chaos are what color everything about that experience, so the tune ended up all minor and relentless, with a few rhythm inversions thrown into the B music as a nod to ocean chop. The Downeast Friends of the Folk Arts (DEFFA) accepted this tune as their July 2019 newsletter's Tune of the Month.
MSF	Who: Keith Davis is a wonderful singer, guitarist, and recently a fiddler, as well as being a can-do-almost-anything kind of guy, building a major part of his house, clearing trees for his partner Susan Pink's garden, resurrecting the famous-but-defunct Bar Harbor Bar ice-cream bar. Susan is a spunky editor, an excellent Indian cook, and Keith's solid better half and dancing partner. The two of them have for many years hosted a large gathering for wonderful Thanksgivings, including many musicians. This tune was written for one of those Thanksgivings. Tune: Many interesting tune fragments came through my head at a time when I couldn't work at them. When I finally could, they were all gone, and this quiet tune developed, in the legato style of Swedish "sailor waltzes," which I guess is more of a nod to Keith's courtliness than to Susan's spunkiness :-). Title: This is a nod to the old English Country Dance manner of naming tunes and dances for someone by saying that person was another person's favorite person. Keith, in his courtly manner, refers to Susan as "Miss Susan," even in her presence.
MWL	Who: Lorraine Silsbee. Tune: When you are being asked to do more with less, it seems an uncomplicated, comfortable, predictable but sprightly tune is in order. I was looking for something like the sweet När Vandet Fryser i Hanerne. I hope I hit it. Title: Staff is being shrunk, and more is being asked.
NFP	Who: Joanna Rueter was my (former) sister-in-law. She spent a formative high-school year in Sweden. Tune: I wanted a tune to acknowledge her fondness for Scandinavian music. In the end, I wrote two -- this pols (Norwegian) and a hambo (Swedish). Because ABCMus can't do "1&3" rhythm, I had to resort to the rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Title: The title reflects the different sound of this tune from a "normal" pols, and the fact that Joanna lived in Newfane VT at the time.
NR	Who: Joel Edelman was a perennial fixture among the various PG guitar players that came and went. He was absolutely solid, and, watching the kind of trance he would go into while playing, we would insist he could play in his sleep. Tune: It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Title: The German word Edelmann means "nobleman."
NWB	Who: Alan Rosenquist. Tune: I wanted something lively that would represent Alan's sense of humor. Jigs are usually the best for that. It starts out similarly to Just A Game, but I found myself in chromatic mini-runs instead of pedal runs. Title: Alan is the former head of the neuroscience department at the University of Pennsylvania. He has a great, wry sense of humor.
OHC	Who: Our neighbor Cora Olgyay (ole-zhyay) is a high-energy landscape architect who, in addition to professional contracting, has been teaching landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Tune: Cora is of decidedly Hungarian background, and it seemed fitting to offer a csardas. Csardases tend to have gypsy feel, and, not being a fiddler, cymbalom player or clarinetist, I tried to make up for it with (apologies!) some Balkan-like melody. (Note: The MIDI file is, as usual, hopeless. A csardas should start off very slow, with implicit pent-up speed, and after a bit of a gradual acceleration, kick into high gear. Auto-generated MIDIs don't do that.) Title: Although I also have Hungarian in my background, I know nothing about the language, and since it is allegedly related to Finnish -- which I have tried and utterly failed to make more than a start -- I will continue to know nothing about it. But it seemed appropriate to toss in the Hungarian word for sixty, "hatvan."
OLS	Who: Suzanne Lord is my partner Sarah's sister-in-law. Tune: The other tune I wrote for Suzanne was quite complex. This time I wanted something sprightly, and I wanted an intro modeled after the one used for the Swedish tune "Polkan Går." But the intro's end edged into a rag, and I couldn't prevent the rest of the tune from following suit. It is still a challenge for me to write syncopation, and I'm grateful to Henrik Norbek for his ABCMus program that keeps a careful check on my composing. Title: That other tune didn't mention the family name, and since the title of the tune I wrote for her husband Peter did include it, I wanted to connect them properly this time. As to the overall title, Suzanne has both a strong faith and a good sense of humor, and I couldn't resist it.
OM	Who: Fred was one of the three main accodion players in PG. A Finnish-American, he had a long history of teaching international folk-dancing, and a remarkable ability to compose tunes that fit seamlessly into the traditions they seek to emulate -- particularly Balkan and the various Scandinavian countries, a number of which are included on my Balkan rhythms page (asterisked in the "Country" column). Tune: Because ABCMus can't do "1&3" rhythm, I had to resort to the rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Title: This was as close as I could come to a Norwegian version of "over the hill in the middle of the day."
PBC	Who: I worked with Brian and several others in opposing an unwise and Machiavellian plan to consolidate Maine schools. He created and managed a website for the effort, and was a workhorse par excellence, who could accomplish three times as much as most of us. Tune: I wanted to write a tune in his honor. He's a runner, not a dancer. I don't know why it came out as a rag. Since the tune as written doesn't give the "ragginess" I wanted, I did a separate version with a lot of rests to induce ABCMus to make a proper-sounding MIDI. Title: Brian always said that he often didn't take time to eat a regular meal, and would instead have his favorite -- peanut butter out of a jar.
PHH	Who: For many years I have been taking Pilates under the tutelage of Linda Stahl Homer in her Downeast Pilates studio. Linda brings to Pilates a combination of remarkable teaching/coaching competence, warmth, uplifting enthusiasm, and an eagle eye for what each of her charges needs. Title: The Hundred is one of the signature exercises in Pilates. It involves lying on your back with your legs elevated in any of several positions and your arms stretched straight down along your body. You move your arms up and down rapidly in small motions in ten groups of five inhale/exhales, while keeping the body core tight, stable and motionless. (examples: for real, and Linda's logo :-)) And then, of course, there's the 50th birthday (half-hundred) angle. Tune: I wanted a lively tune that would mirror Linda's general vivaciousness. And the Hundred starts out easy and then suddenly is VERY hard, like a large number of crunches -- hence the switch from major to minor.
PM	Who: Phil Steel was a well-known artist who painted (among many things) the commercial fishing life in Key West and the Chesapeake Bay and, in his final years, the Maine coast. In each of those places he painted the fishermen/watermen and their environment, and eventually made books about them, using his art to bring their lives to the general public. In Maine, he organized the production of a play about life on an island, "Living on the Edge," written by Eva Murray and performed by former fisherman and State senator Dennis Damon, for which Phil's art served as a stage set. Phil played music (mostly French) on his 2-row diatonic button accordion, and was a devoted impresario of live music events at his Southwest Harbor gallery, The Salty Dog. These events covered a remarkable range of music. The last, a gathering of seven quite varied Maine accordionists, never occurred; Phil was hospitalized a couple of weeks before it was to take place. Tune: I composed this tune for Phil four days before he died. I'd gone to the rehab facility the day before to play a few accordion tunes for him, and asked if he'd rather hear quiet or sprightly music. He opted for the latter, but as I played, he seemed more appreciative of the quieter ones. So to honor his honoring of the maritime scene, I wrote him a waltz in the style of the Swedish Sailor's waltz -- sweet and relaxed -- with a little bit of sprightliness thrown in. I played it for him and some of his family the next day, and he gave me two thumbs up. Title: Phil painted so many boats I always thought of him as having his own virtual marina.
POM	Who: Dr. Clarke Baxter succeeded Tom Adams as my primary care doctor. He has been another in the mold of small-town doctor, resisting (at least in my case) the pressures from large-scale consolidation to minimize patient face-to-face time, and has been unfailingly responsive in responding to communications. His wife Kathy, a unique person in her own right, was a nurse at the small clinic in our town. The consolidated corporation decided to close down that clinic, leaving 1600 patients scrambling for an alternative. I was hoping I'd be able to stick with Dr. Baxter in a new venue, but in any case, I wanted to express my appreciation to both of them before that clinic closed forever. Tune: Clarke plays the Highland pipes, and a strathspey seemed the type of tune most uniquely associated with Scottih dance music. Note: This was the first tune I composed after a long hiatus, due to several years of physical challenges, so my approach here may have been a bit sterotypically programmatic, relying as it does on inverted flagging of notes and a few common melodic fragments. Title: Self-explanatory, constructed to be confused with "pyramids" :-).
PV	Who: Trevor Corson is one of my partner Sarah's two sons, author of The Secret Life of Lobsters and The Story of Sushi. He lives in Finland with his Finnish wife Anu Partanen and their daughter Aava. Tune: At their wedding celebration in Helsinki, Trevor and Anu danced a stunning swing-like waltz, despite the fact that Anu had never danced such a dance before and they hadn't practiced. I still have the image in my head, and I wanted a waltz that really moved, like Mary Lea's Cascata de Lagrimas (but not as complex!). I chose G-minor as a key in acknowledgment of the famous Finnish waltz Metsäkukkia. I hadn't planned on the pedal phrases when I started, but they quickly insinuated themselves, probably because they were giving the tune the driving sense I'd wanted. I also wasn't expecting the very-brief dip into major key. Title: Finnish for "half a century."
PW	Who: Peg Beaulac was a long-time Physician's Assistant at our local medical center. She was considered a gem by everyone I knew. Many times she talked me through health concerns or prompted me to address things I'd rather have ignored. A lot of people will miss her. Tune: During my last appointment with Peg before her retirement, I told her about writing tunes and said I wanted to do that for her, and asked what kind of a tune she'd prefer. A waltz it was. At the risk of sticking to a pattern, I wanted to do a major/minor split. I enjoyed the way the last half of the A music played on the last half. I suspect the last four measures are a reprise of another tune, but I can't figure out which. Title: She's gone. What more is there to say?
RQ	Who: Carol Rohl is a sweet Celtic harp player whom we got to know because she married a good friend -- Maine folk singer Gordon Bok. Many years ago, Carol experienced a stroke which disabled much of her left side, but through intense and truly inspiring perseverence and patience she recovered the use of it, with limitations. Tune: As mentioned above (KR), I wanted a sweet waltz for Carol that could be played on a harp with limitations on the left hand. The Swedish "sailor waltzes" are peaceful, laid-back legato waltzes with a sweet sound, consisting mostly of quarter and half notes, without a lot of overt drama or key changes. My first attempt was anything but! However, I think this second attempt succeeded, giving way to fooling around only in the use of a couple of alternating-pedal-note sequences usually reserved for reels. Title: Carol learned something during her recovery that has become a watchword in our own lives. Some of us, as we get older -- or injured -- find that our energy is limited. There's only so much we can do in a day. Learning to live with that, and deciding which of the many possibilities of things that might be done in a day you will actually pursue, is like being given a finite number of quarters to spend in the day. As you go through the day, you use the quarters (shares of energy), and acknowledge when you have run out of them. "I haven't got that many quarters," or "I've pretty much used up all my quarters" are wonderful ways to express the obvious situations. A tune for the woman with a name like "roll" who gave us this concept just had to be called "A Rohl of Quarters."
RR	Who: Chris was one of the three main accordion players in PG. We were long-time friends, brothers-in-arms of a sort. Tune: I'm not generally partial to reels. But I do like pedal-note sequences, and I decided I'd like to combine these with a "rag"-like feeling. I really like the result. To get around ABCMus's tendency to render reels as a fast "dotted-flagged" hornpipe instead of straight reel, the main MIDI file was done as a polka. ABCMus's native hornpipey version is linked from "hp" in the "Other" column. Title: I think the melody accomplished my desire to have something that combined a reel and a rag.
RRR	Who: Becky was an indispensible member of the Folklore Village team, both as a fiddler, logistics person, and program planner, with a lot of hard common sense when some of the rest of us might be displaying off-in-the-clouds tendencies. Tune: It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix All: abc, G P; unfixed midi G: abc, G P; unfixed midi C: abc, G P; unfixed midi Title: Becky's husband, Carl Fredericks, was a railroad buff, and "The Rehlway" was a runner up for the title, but I couldn't resist the play on "really, really real."
RUR	Who: Ruth Grierson is our indefatigable local "Ancient Fiddler" (or here) among many other things. Every summer for the last several years she drives up the Newfoundland coast with her daughter, stopping in at pubs to play with whomever is playing. They all know her. In the summer of 2017, one of them had arranged a many-hour gig for her. Tune: When asked what she wanted this time (as opposed to the 7/8 tune I wrote for her 80th birthday), she decided on a rag. At one point I had a kind of calypso syncopation in measures 2, 4, and 8 of both the A & B music, but decided that when written out, it was too intimidating -- but I still think it's worth playing the second quarter-note beat a bit early. Title: This went through several title versions before I checked with her and she wisely decided on a much more straightforward one.
RVR	Who: Charlie, one of the two PG English concertina players, was one of early members of the band. Tune: Hornpipes are the quintessential concertina tune, and Charlie clearly enjoyed throwing in triplets, so I thought I give him a real load of them. The tune required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Also, I wanted a concertina sound rather than the "accordion" setting I've used as the default for most of these tunes. ABCMus has no "concertina" setting, but it has a "22 (Harmonica)" setting which sounds a bit more like a concertina than the "0 (Accordion)" setting, so I used it. Title: Charlie lived quite close to the Potomac River, of which we always very much aware when coming to practices at his house. I wanted a tune that rolled along like the Potomac, and I think I got it.
SAT	Who: Ash is Sarah's younger son, by far the most physically strong and adept -- and probably the steadiest -- of our family. Tune: He isn't into this kind of music, but I decided to honor him, anyway, and chose a march because of his wonderful steadfastness. It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Title: This is the closest I could come, with the Swedish Embassy's help, to "Man of Steel and Ash" to honor his strength and, in later years, flexibility.
SB	Who: This was made for the family Christmas card somewhere in the late eighties. Tune: To fit on the card, it was short. Title: Above it on the card was a sketch of a spruce twig, of about the size that I used for making Advent wreaths at Folklore Village (later changed to yew for PG Christmas events).
SBW	Who: I first met Temple Blackwood when he was the headmaster of the Queen Anne School in Maryland, involved in the K-12 technology I was working on for the University of Maryland. He was remarkably supportive of the efforts and became a good friend. He subsequently moved to Maine and, besides a stint of teaching at Maine Maritime Academy, has devoted his 2nd career profession to his long-time true avocation, fine wood turning. Tune: Temple's heritage is Scottish, and, having written him a reel for his 60th birthday, I wanted to try a strathspey for this one. It is the first one I've attempted, and admittedly departs from pure Scottish tradition in including a couple of out-of-tradition chord progressions. The latter of these echoes in reverse the one I used 10 years ago, and was a bit tricky getting out of and back to the right key. Title: I originally used "Strathblack Woods," to play on his name and hint at a Scottish forest. However, thinking of Burnham Wood (moving to Dunsinane), it was clear that removing the final "s" would be more accurate and could drag in a reference to the materiele of his profession.
SF	Who: Marta Ferro is the partner of our son Ash. She is the founder of Starfish Impact, a consulting organization that serves "hundreds of organizations and philanthropists on their road to growth, collective impact, and addressing systemic challenges." Tune: I queried Ash about what kind of tune would be appropriate for Marta -- lively and upbeat or more quiet and laid back. He chose the latter, so that's what this tune set out to be -- not quite as quarter-note legato as a Swedish sailor waltz, but relaxed. It aims for relaxation by means of more frequent use of phrase-ending 3/4 notes than is my normal approach. I enjoyed making use of an ascending final half of the B-music (C-Dm-Em-F-G), somewhat related to the recently completed Little Sister. I spent a couple of weeks trying variations on the use of quarter notes versus dot-flags, and finally settled on one, though any musician may prefer to make different choices. Title: The origin of Marta's organization's name is the allegory of a girl who, when asked why she is throwing a starfish back into the sea, says she is saving it. When it is asserted that this is a hopeless waste of time, that she can't save all the beached starfish and make a difference, she replies that she can make a difference to this particular one.
SG	Who: Ralph Stanley is a Southwest Harbor wooden boat builder of significant fame. He also has been playing fiddle for dances for many decades, has written a couple of tunes, and makes fiddles. Tune: This was one of the trickier of my efforts. I originally composed a jig (thinking to name it "Ralph's Other Jig" after the jig Ralph composed called "Ralph's Jig" (jpg, pdf). My tune had A-music in G and B-music in Em. But they didn't fit together. So I scrapped that A-music in G music, moved the Em to A-music, and composed a different Em tune for B-music. But the result was a bit heady and just didn't feel like a tune Ralph would like to play. So I went to a waltz, and as with the Friendship Sloop tune I wrote to honor Ralph's career, I wanted a Swedish-style "sailor's waltz" with its traditional laid-back legato style. Title: I originally was going to call this "Ralph's Waltz," since the two tunes he composed were "Ralph's Jig" and "Ralph's Hornpipe" (jpg, pdf). But in the end, it seemed a better fit to name it after the boat Ralph himself uses, the 33' lobster boat "Seven Girls," which he built in 1960 for his father, with a name referring to Ralph's seven sisters. [Note: I'd originally misnamed the tune "Seven Sisters."]
SG1	Who: Gretchen Van Dusen is a niece of my partner Sarah. Tune: Gretchen did a lot of competitive rowing, known as "sculling," as a member of the women's crew first at Philips Andover and then at the University of Maryland. As an architect, she later designed the boat house for OAR (Olympia Area Rowing) in her home town. What I was looking for here was a pattern that would in some way relate to that of powerful rowing: a strong pull and then a quieter recovery. This seemed to me to work best in 3/4 time, with three eighth-note pairs in a measure for the strong part, and quarter notes (or half+quarter) for the quieter measures. There was a risk of monotony here, and at one point I tried a triplet for the middle note of the "quiet" measures. But it seemed to betray the whole point of the pattern. A little bit of serendipity was the first note in the penultimate measure, which was supposed to be a low A, but a typo in creating the ABCs made it a high A, which I didn't notice till all the work was finished. And I ended up liking it as a little departure from the rest of the steadiness, almost a little yodel. Title: A play on words, this was a cross between sculling and the name of a traditional tune called Kitchen Girl, of which there apparently no known variants. Since a back kitchen is the "scullery," it wasn't a long step to the scullery maid or scullery girl who frequently shows up in literature.
SGI	Main entry: https://dickatlee.com/music/dick/#sgib Sheet music: https://dickatlee.com/music/dick/pdfs/still_got_it.pdf Played: https://dickatlee.com/music/dick/sound/still_got_it.mp3 Who: Ashley Bryan is a Renaissance Man who lives and works on Islesford here in Maine. He is a widely published children's book author whose Black/African/Caribbean-themed books have received numerous national awards. He is a poet and a reciter of stories and poetry whose dynamic performances all over the world or around his dining table are not forgotten by those who hear them. He is a graphic artist working in oils, watercolor, pastels, collage, and block printing. He has produced complex religious-themed stained-glass panels made of beach glass matrixed with black-painted papier-mache. He has created dozens of wildly fascinating and idiosyncratic hand puppets primarily from detritus washed up on the shores of his island. And his house is a stunning collection of thousands of toys and dolls from all over the world -- toys that move and do things. Tune: I wanted something that keeps moving on, and a walking tune seemed like the most appropriate form. As anyone familiar with my music knows, I'm partial to mixing major and minor keys. But perhaps most importantly, Ashley recently decided to illustrate a book dedicated to the song "Lord of the Dance". The poet Sidney Carter composed the words to go with the tune (pdf, played) of the Shaker hymn, "'Tis A Gift To Be Simple." So I took the beginning and ending of that tune and messed around in the middle. Title: I spent as much time wondering about this as I did composing the tune. There are so may terms that relate to Ashley, as mentioned above. Color, Form, Light, Voice. No combination of them worked. Eventually I thought of one of his favorite-to-recite poems, "Things," by Eloise Greenfield, about how purchases and sandcastles are transient, but if you make a poem, you "still got it." And at age 95, Ashley most certainly has Still Got It!
SGR	Who: Eva was Sarah's college roommate and long-time friend, an herb farmer in MA. Her husband George, one of the principals in the Nuclear Freeze in MA, dealt very effectively thoughout his life with the crippling effects of childhood polio. He died of it shortly after this tune was written. The mp3 file is what I played for Eva the day after her and George's 50th wedding anniversary. Tune: Eva had a sprightly, enthusiastic different-drummer personality, which this tune tried to capture. As with many of these waltzes, this tune is far smoother when freed of the hammering rhythm of ABCMus's MIDI. Title: George was Russian Orthodox, with what seemed to me Unitarian leanings. Among his unpublished writings was a fascinating treatise on Jesus Christ.
SH	Who: Noreen Dolan is the Nurse Practitioner for Dr. Martin Maron at the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. Both she and Dr. Maron (and many others there) were instrumental in changing my life for the better cardiologically several years ago. Noreen stood out -- sweet, competent, and caring, and became a friend of ours. Tune: I wanted something light and sweet, but which would have a bit (but not a major role) of minor key. I particularly like measures 3-4 in the B music. Title: The kindness and generosity-with-time of both Noreen and Dr. Maron were particularly remarkable in that they were seriously overworked during the time I was under their care in the hospital. I'd sometimes encounter Noreen leaving the hospital late at night. She had no time for "a life." Fortunately, the hospital administration recognized the value of their service and enlarged the staff at the HCM Center, which gave her some of that time.
SHD	Who: I worked with Carol on K-12 technology issues in Maryland. She was a remarkably indefatigable, well-connected and effective person, starting all kinds of insightful projects, and sticking with them to make them happen. Tune: Since Carol didn't seem to be a dance person, I felt I could get away with a not-identifiably-dance tune -- i.e., a rag, perhaps something to express the lift one gets when one sees a welcome dance partner show up. In order to get the upbeat sound I wanted, I had to use the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; basic midi). The original tune (in 4/4) was written a bit more legato, with only a few "pizzicatos" (created by the use of rests) -- abc, G P, midi. Title: Just a takeoff on "Hyatt" = "Hi At."
SI	Who: Sarah is my very-much-better-half partner of almost three decades. Tune: I wanted a very sweet waltz. This is that, though you might not recognize that fact through the shrillness of the MIDI. The B music originally was just a repeat of the first 8 bars you see here, but it quickly became impossible not to play the variation that now makes up the second 8 bars. Title: A friend of mine once said of his wife that if you put her down on a deserted island, she'll have met 20 people in the first half hour. Sarah is like that, and though she has lived in a number of places, she has been an integral part of the Little Cranberry Island (Islesford) community for many years.
SJJ	Who: Joel has been the Peascods' longest term, most competent and dependable guitar player. Tune: I wanted something sprightly, hence the jig. Melodic features that I'm fond of that were thrown in here include (a) the almost syncopated feel of pedal-note patterns in jigs, (b) chromatic runs, (c) wandering through a descending chord sequence, and (d) brief but relentless repetition of a note pattern. Title: Joel was so good at internalizing chords (sometimes complex) for dozens of English Country Dances that we would sometimes look over and see him playing with his eyes closed and his face slack, and when we'd say something to him he would come to as if he'd just woken up, playing all the while. It got to be a standard joke that he was playing in his sleep; I still half believe it.
SPS	Who: Suzanne is the wife of Sarah's brother Peter. Tune: Suzanne has a lot of pizzazz. She is passionate about many things, which can show up as pizazz, but also as great seriousness. To acknowledge her consistency in attending Mass wherever she may be, I've included in the B-music some melodic and rhythmic patterns from the beginning of the "Gloria" in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. I chose that piece because it was my mother's favorite classical work. (further background) Title: It's intended to emphasize Suzanne's pizazz, with a left-handed nod to the Missa Solemnis.
SR	Who: Jon Archer has been a fixture in Downeast Maine folk and contra dancing. He is an extremely versatile guy, teaching and calling dances and playing flutes (especially the kaval), bozouki, and drums). Despite all this, he's humble, nice guy. Tune: I originally started out trying to write a paiduško (5/16 rhythm). But it became frustratingly clear that something different was in my head. I finally gave up, counted what I was hearing in my head, and realized it was 11/16 -- a Bulgarian gankino horo (music, dance. It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi) Title: I couldn't resist the play on his last name. (And if you want to see an archer to knock your socks off, try this!)
SSB	Who: Sarah is my very-much-better-half partner of almost three decades. Tune: I wanted the other Sarah waltz (Sally of the Island) to be gentle and sweet, but it turns out Sarah likes driving waltzes (one of her favorite among mine being Beau Vals' Vals ). So I tried to comply in making this one. Title: One of her nicknames is Sarah Sea Blue, and I hoped that dancing to this waltz would feel like soaring.
SSP	Who: Sarah Corson. Tune: In late summer, the load of events and visitors can become overwhelming. What was needed in this case was a perky, cheerful tune to counter the occasional oppression of overload, and I'd written enough waltzes for her by now. Title: A sesquicentennial is 150 years, half of that (a 75th birthday) obviously must be a semi-sesquicentennial.
SST	Who: Our friend Ellen Church is a painter of gorgeous Maine landscape water colors. I was initially drawn to her work by its similarity in natural feel to that of my partner Sarah's mother, though Ellen's goes far beyond that in detail and color. Tune: Ellen does a lot of walking on the trails here in Acadia National Park. I was thinking of doing a waltz, but I've done a lot of waltzes, and Sarah suggested a walking tune. The A music is aimed at a casual stroll, the B music (minor) looks at the sometimes-breathtaking beauty of the Park. (Technical note: The tune also marks a distinct change in time signature; I've always done marches in 4/4, but ran into a wall with a couple of classical musicians who said the "double time" upbeat way I was playing these tunes meant they should be written in 2/4. It looks strange to me, but it does solve the "fixing" problem I've had with the ABCMus program failing to include upbeats in its midi output.) Title: This could have acknowledged Ellen's painting. But beyond being an artist, she is also an accomplished knitter and a master collector of Sasha dolls, for whom she knits and sews incredibly detailed clothing. She's also very good at setting up realistic scenes for these individuals to populate. So the title acknowledges two of her principle non-art activities, the dolls and walking.
ST	Who: George "Sandy" Campbell is a nephew of Ashley Bryan. Tune: I asked Sandy what kind of a tune he would like, noting that I didn't do ballroom, just folk dance and contra tunes. I expected him to mull it over, but he wrote back immediately saying that because the pandemic isolation had gotten him addicted to Hallmark romance movies, he thought the best tune would be a tango (!). I told him I broke out laughing when I saw that. But I agreed to try it. I warned him that my Scandinavian orientation might make it come out more like a Finnish tango (the dancing Finn's love tango) — cool Nordic rather than hot Argentinian. As a starting point, I took some of the patterns from La Cumparsita, "el Tango de los Tangos." There's a wonderful rendition of it here. However, I suspect some Eastern European idiom crept in, since when I presented my draft to him, he told me it sounded "different" from what he was accustomed to, but he could imagine his Jewish grandmother having a ball with it. But he did emphatically claim to love the tune. He's a very nice person :-). To try to bring it closer to a tango, I tried recording it without chords, and then playing it with a "tango-like" accompaniment. Oh well... :-) Title: There were all kinds of possibilities, but I just wanted to connect it directly to him.
SU	Who: Marjory Russakoff founded and for years coached the competitive Speech Team at my local high school, hosting various speech events and even winning the state championship one year. Tune: There are a variety of genres in which participants can compete, hence the switch from major to minor and back. The A-music just came out of the pencil. The B-music is a nod to the repetitive-yet-downward progression (EDCB) I use in my adaptation of Bob McQuillen's Dancing Bear. Title: The worst fault a public speaker can have (other than using a hopelessly boring monotone) is to fail to project in the absence of a microphone.
SZ	Who: Jon has been an on-again off-again flute player with the Peascods Gathering. Tune: I would have liked to do something jazzy to honor Jon's wonderful ability to toss in jazz-like riffs that really enrich the experience of playing tunes, but I'm not a jazz-literate person. It was interesting, however, coming up with this tune, in the sense that I don't think I've ever worked over and modified a tune after initially committing it as "finished" to ABCs as I have this one. Title: Kinda self-explanatory :-).
TAT	Who: Pam is a good friend of ours, mother of an incredible young fiddler who is also an animal farmer of sorts (at one point there were 30-40 free-range chickens, two miniature horses, a nice goat, a dozen or so ducks, two cats, and four greyhounds) and a supplier of excellent eggs. Tune: Given a choice of tune type and major vs. minor, Pam chose a waltz and minor. I tried to add in just a bit of major. Title: She had been thinking a lot about life and changes and her closeness to the sea, the moon and the tides. Thinking of this, her daughter chose the title.
TFSE	Who: Carl was one of the original Peascods, playing first hammer dulcimer, then marimba, making the band unique among bands with our repertoire. Tune: The A music is sweet, in honor of Carl's disposition. The B music is a bit edgy, in a nod to the "unusual-ities" that would sometimes crop up in the tunes Carl composed for fellow band members. Because the tune is in 7/8, a MIDI file with appropriate rhythm required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Because ABCMus handles neither 7/8 nor ties, and the "slow" notes have a beat in the middle and thus must be broken into tied notes in order to force a 7/8 rhythm. So the 7/8 rhythm version ("midi") has the "slow" notes broken into two, which sounds choppy. The melody as it should sound, but without the 7/8 rhythm, can be heard in the unfixed version. The mp3 has the proper melody and rhythm. Title: Three quarters of a century in Lesnoto 7/8 rhythm.
TLH	Who: Andy Cline has been for many years a stalwart supporter of progressive activities in my town, helping out in a variety of ways. This tune was written in memory of his wife, Jennie. Tune: When I asked Andy what kind of a tune might be appropriate for such a purpose, he commented that they liked to swing dance, and foxtrot. Although I have some limited experience with both dances, this was a bit out of my usual composition range (with the exception of the Finnish humppa/foxtrot Vilea Svengaa). What appeared on paper works well for East Coast Swing, though I'm not sure what an experienced swing dancer would think. Played a little faster it could also be used for a foxtrot. And I've become enamored of major-to-minor-to-major tunes. [P.S. When I played it for him, Andy felt it was a bit fast for Swing, so I put up a version at 100 in addition to the original 120.] Title: This started out as "Andy's Fancy," in the tradition of English tunes indirectly honoring the person liked by the person named in the title. But that's perhaps jargon for other people. The "love" in this title has the ambiguous advantage of maybe referring to Andy, maybe to the dancing.
TR	Who: Carl Minkus is one of the original members of the Peascods Gathering band. With the exception of a brief period of playing hammer dulcimer, Carl has played a full-scale marimba. For over 40 years Carl has managed to dismantle, transport, and reassemble that marimba for almost every dance and practice the band has been involved in, not to mention other musical opportunities. Tune: Carl is noted for his fondness for minor key melodies, as well as for "prime-time" rhythms. So the tunes I've written him have tended to run in that vein. This one is a simple lesnoto in 7/8. It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P) Title: I wanted to acknowledge his instrument, but references to mallets sounded harsh. This reference to the marimba's blocks is a lot more fun, and when Carl really gets going, it really does sound like he's tickling them.
TT	Who: Temple was the superb head of a small private school in Prince George's County, MD, and also the head of the Association of Independent Schools of Maryland. He was a strong advocate of the use of technology in K-12 education, and became a good friend in our mutual efforts in that arena. Beyond that, he was a highly-skilled professional wood turner, creating everything from fine goblets to large columns. Tune: I wanted something that gave the sense of a chisel working on turning wood. I think it worked. To get around ABCMus's chose to render reels as a fast "dotted-flagged" hornpipe instead of straight reel, the MIDI files were done as a polka. I've included a fingering that makes it possible for me to play the tune. Title: It honors his wood-turning side.
TW	Who: Deb was the head of the keypunch group at the University of Maryland Computer Science Center when I started working there in 1982, soon moving on to be the head of the documentation group. She was a good and helpful colleague and friend during my years there, and was the only one of my many colleagues who was attuned to the kind of dancing whose music I play. (She also made a great Santa Lucia!) Tune: The waltz honors Deb's affection for dancing, and my liking for major/minor pieces. As with most ABCMus waltzes, it is smoother than the hammering MIDI rhythm makes it sound. Title: Deb became the head of the training group at UofM's Office of Information Technology.
UBL	Who: Lorraine was one of the PG's two long-time recorder players, a long-time friend and one of the early members of the band. Tune: It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Title: Lorraine's two sons were Ben and Sam. Låt (pron. "lote") is the Swedish word for tune.
VS	Who: Trevor is Sarah's older son. In addition to being the author of two lively narrative-nonfiction books, The Secret Life of Lobsters and The Story of Sushi, he was an avid contra and swing dancer, lately engaged to a beautiful Finnish journalist. Tune: To honor the Finnish connection and Trevor's dancing, I wanted a fast-moving, driving Finnish tune, and the Finns' version of a foxtrot, a humppa, seemed appropriate. These tunes tend have an instrumental section followed by a vocal ("laulu") section. The third part of the tune is intended to sound like a typical vocal section, though it is a bit shorter and has no words. ABCMus's MIDI lacks of upbeats, making it sound a bit plodding instead of lively, so I created a "rhythm" version, telling ABCMus it was a 2/4 polka to get the upbeats, though doing so unfortunately requires using ties, which are rendered as separate notes. (For the fun of it, I've also included an MP3 of one of my early attempts to play the tune.) Title: This was the Finnish embassy's translation of "Still Swinging," to honor Trevor's dancing at that supposedly-over-the-hill age.
WFN	Who: Bill (in addition to having written the EPA's asbestos rules) was a low-key but excellent Scandinavian turning-dance teacher. In the early 80's, he prevailed on the PG English Country Dance band, all of whom had a liking for Scandinavian music, to start a monthly Scan Gamaldans, which went on for almost two decades, and still emerges every December in the form of a candle-lit Santa Lucia dance party. Bill eventually became bedridden from prostate cancer, and I wrote this tune to lift his spirits. Tune: It required the usual ABCMus rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Title: The tune is an attempt at a cross between a Norwegian reinlendar and Finnish jenkka (which are otherwise indistinguishable :-) ).
WG	Who: George was the husband of Sarah's college roommate, Eva. One of the principals in the Nuclear Freeze in MA, he dealt very effectively thoughout his life with the crippling effects of childhood polio, but died of it shortly after this tune was written. The mp3 file is what I played for Eva the day after her and George's 50th wedding anniversary. Tune: This waltz was written after I visited George in the hospital; I was looking for a tune that would give his wife Eva pleasure after his death.
WR	Who: Lorraine was one of the PG's two long-time recorder players, a long-time friend and one of the early members of the band. Tune: Because ABCMus can't do "1&3" rhythm, I had to resort to the rhythm fix (abc, G P; unfixed midi). Title: One might have said (Lor)Raine was as refreshing as rain after a drought.
WN	Who: Gordon Bok is a sailor/singer/songwriter/woodcarver beloved by many all over the country and world. Sarah and I have known Gordon and his wife Carol Rohl for many years; they are a strong and wonderful pair of people. Tune: I found it hard to believe that in all these years I hadn't written a tune for Gordon, and while I usually do it for significant birthdays, none of us is getting any younger. I'd recently sent him an old handwritten transcription (by my mother) of his gorgeous song Tune for November, and he'd sent back a set of alternative words that he said would more fit how things have turned out. So that tune has been on my mind. Tune for November is in a major key and not a waltz. But in my ears it has a minor-key feel and a lyrical quality which prompted me to write this minor-key waltz, which, for those familiar with Finnish waltzes, has roots there that are immediately obvious. Title: The song described a kind of idealized quiet woman who "knows her heart like she knows her name." In the end, Gordon found a woman who has proved far better than the idealized details he'd described so long ago. His birthday is on the cusp of that month, and the woman in his life is the right one for that time of year.

In Honor Of...

(Note: with the exception of Sarah Corson, the number of songs for any given person reflects not their importance to me, but whether I was self- or band-reminded of their birthday and had the time to work on a tune.)

Aalto, Fred	omb, ahpb
Adams, Dr. Tom	apb
Archer, Jon	srb
Atlee, Ellie	epb, etfb
Atlee, Iris	ijb
Atlee, Jennifer	jfb, fftb
Atlee, Tom	3db
Baxter, Dr, Clarke & Kathy	pomb
Beaulac, Peg	alrb
Beck, Dottie	alrb, acpb
Benson, Fred & Ann	bdrb
Blackwood, Temple	ttb, sbwb
Bok, Gordon	wnb, lbb
Bookman, Charlie	rvrb, mphb
Bradbury, Lynn	ab
Brown, Willie	ffeb
Bryan, Ashley	sgib
Campbell, Sandy	stb
Carrera, Jake	jj
Chapru, Doleta	mpb
Church, Ellen	sstb
Cline, Jennie	jagb
Corson, Aava Usva	asb
Corson, Ash	jagb, satb
Corson, Sarah	hpb, htf, lgb, sib, ssbb, sspb, lsb
Corson, Trevor	vsb, pvb
Corson/Atlee family	sbb
Davis, Keith	msfb
Dolan, Noreen, NP	shb
Dyer-Stewart, Brian	ffb
Eccles, Margaret	fd1b, fd2b, kmb
Edelman, Joel	nrb, sjj
Fernald, Ann & Warren	irb

Fernald, Julie	imfb
Ferro, Marta	sfb
Forrest, John & Catherine	mfb
Garrity, Tim & Boulger, Lynn	mdib
Gleason, John	jgr
Grierson, Ruth	fssb, rurb
Hall-Hough/Davis, April/Steve	gtlb
Haskins, Bari	bw1b
Homer, Linda	phhb
Hough, Chris	rrb
Hubbell, Brian	pbcb
Hyatt, Carol	shdb
Johnston, Joan	iicb
Johnston/Lanoie, Julia/Brian	jjjb
Karush, Carl	ckb
Lasell, Jamy	jhb
Lord, Alan	catb
Lord, Anne	abgb, lokb, dab
Lord, Beki	boeb
Lord, Holly	halb
Lord, Jenny	jemb
Lord, Peter and Suzanne	kkb
Lord, Peter	lorb
Lord, Suzanne	spsb, olsb
Lowell, Marilyn	hcb
Lyman, Molly	micb
Malicoat, Bronwyn	bg
Malicoat, Conrad	ccb
Malicoat, Robena	bggb
Marion, Michael	mdfb
Mateik, Deb	twb
McLeod, Barbara	bdw
Minkus, Carl	crlb, ccjb, mcgb, tfse, trb
Olgyay, Cora	ohcb

Partanen, Anu	htb
Pecson, Dottie	ahb
Pink, Susan	hb (and msfb)
Powell, Linda	cob
Rehl, Becky	ihtb, rrrb
Robinson, Lisa	cb
Robinson, Vanessa	lvb
Rohl, Carol	rqb
Rohl, Ruth	krb
Rosenquist, Alan	nwb
Rueter, Joanna	bshb, nfpb, adwb
Russakoff, Marjory	sub
Russell, Julie	jzb
Silsbee, Lorraine	fshb, ublb, wrb, mwlb
Simon, Jon	ssb
Sommaripa, Eva and/or George	hfb, wgb, sgrb
Speakman, Jay	mrfb
Speakman, Julie	jlb
Stanley, Ralph	fslb, ssb
Steel, Phil	pmb
Stettner, Larry (& Fran)	fslb
Thanksgiving 2009	btb
Terry, Joan	jog
Unknown	bwb
Uraneck, Madeline	gmb
Vals/Malicoat, Beau/Galen	bvvb
Van Dusen, Gretchen	sg1b
Van Dusen, Katrina	fkb
Van Dusen, Maria	mrb
Walsh, Emma	edb
Walsh, Pam	tatb
Warren, Bill	wfnb
West Virginia landmark	brb
Wriggins, Jennifer	iwwb

Update Notes

10 Oct 2024	Joan On the Go
27 Sep 2024	The Harley Clerk added an mp3
24 Sep 2024	The Harley Clerk (no mp3)
Aug 2024	Pair-o-Meds added an mp3
25 Aug 2024	Pair-o-Meds (after a 3-year creative hiatus)
3 Jun 2022	The Horticulturist (finally added an MP3)
23 May 2022	The Activist
21 Apr 2022	Arbor Harp -- added mp3 of midi, not sure adding an accordion mp3 would convey what I originally wanted.
16 Mar 2022	Beki Open Eyes
1 Nov 2021	Barbaradav Waltz -- added mp3, finally! Also a note on Gordon Bok's observation of the similarity between Looking Bokward and his North South Handy
28 Sep 2021	added Lady Vanessa, re-ABC'd Saying Hi At the Dance
18 Sep 2021	added Starfish
10 Aug 2021	added Jennifrench mp3 (found it sitting on my computer since 2012)
1 Aug 2021	The Little Sister
13 Jul 2021	Jamy's Harp, added 1999 recording of Ellie's Three-Fourthed
21 Jun 2021	Peanut Butter Cakewalk -- added mp3 (after 14 years!)
7 Jun 2021	Midible Forrests
6 May 2021	corrections of numerous birth months: Arbor Harp, Farewell to Down Under I, Farewell to Down Under II It's In the Clay, More With Less, The Sasha Stroll, Time and Tide
24 Mar 2021	Scullery Girl
26 Feb 2021	Oh, Lord, Susie!
21 Sep 2020	Trainer's Waltz mp3 (14 years late!)
26 Jul 2020	Sandy's Tango
29 May 2020	Added Maria of Rivers mp3 (9 years late!)
25 May 2020	The Horticulturist
26 Apr 2020	Jenny's Extra Mile
30 Oct 2019	Looking Bokward
8 Aug 2019	The A.D. Waltz
15 Jun 2019	Puolivuosisadan Valssi
10 May 2019	The Muddy Reef
16 Apr 2019	Bari's Waltz
11 Feb 2019	Seven Girls
5 Jan 2019	Mercurial Dragonflies, The Holly and the Lively
26 July 2018	Strathblack Wood
14 May 2018	The Caring One
15 Apr 2018	Dream of Anne
30 Mar 2018	Added mp3's: Phil's Marina (2x), Mr. Pothole (Dm,Em,Dm-Em)
29 Mar 2018	The Composer
28 Mar 2018	Tickle the Rosewoods
22 Mar 2018	Phil's Marina
7 Mar 2018	Mr. Pothole (midi-mp3s)
3 Mar 2018	The Sasha Stroll
10 Dec 2017	Ruth's Rag
31 Oct 2017	A Woman for November
1 Oct 2017	Johnny G's Rag
29 Sep 17	The Peggone Waltz, Irising Jig
31 July 17	corrected spelling: Aallon Hoijakka Polska,
26 July 17	Aalton Hoijakka Polska, Aavan Sävelmä
5 July 17	Added mp3: Herbs Forever
28 May 17	The Freeport Kat
3 May 17	Juliesque
22 Apr 17	It Was Wrigged, changed "play" to "midi"
6 Apr 17	3-D Wise
13 Mar 17	The Common Good Rag (w/temporary "midi mp3")
5 Jan 17	Jake's Jig
6 Dec 16	Fixer From Elsewhere
22 Sep 16	Added MDIrish
11 Sep 16	Added Lord Only Knows
1-2 Sep 16	Added The Front Forty, Global Maddy, The Kiwi Kids
26 Aug 16	Added She Has the Time...
22 Aug 16	Added SemiSesqui Polka, Im Kalten Tal (and mp3's two days later)
19 May 16	Added mp3s: That Love of Hers, Speak Up!; edited That Love of Hers
16 May 16	Speak Up!
27 Apr 16	Bena Gets a Grip
24 Apr 16	That Love of Hers
26 Nov 15	Miss Susan's Favorite
18 Nov 15	Added mp3: Bronwyn's Grace
12 Nov 15	Added Bronwyn's Grace
8 Sep 15	Added Institutional Memory's Farewell
19 Aug 15	Added The Adams Pairadocs
24 Jun 15	Added Molly In the Clouds (w/mp3)
10 May 15	Added Čačak Karush, Sagittarius Rising
30 Mar 15	Added More With Less
11 Mar 15	Added Captain Alan's Travels, mp3 mix of Helsingen Tähti and Metsäkukkia
16 Jan 15	Added mp3: Cerama-Cubism ala Conrad
4 Apr 14	Added Helsingen Tähti, The Pilates Half-Hundred
10 Nov 13	Added Sleepin' Joel's Jig and The Barbadav Waltz, without mp3s
27 Sep 13	Added Simon Sez, without mp3
27 Aug 13	Added The Neuro-Wit, without mp3
14 Aug 13	Added Suz Pizzazz non Solemnis mp3, High Tide and Fog w/mp3, and extra column-head bars to the tune list.
27 Jul 13	Added Keys to Ruth (w/mp3), Olgyag Hatvan Csardas, A Rohl of Quarters
14 Jun 13	Added Three Fourths in Seven Eighths
23 May 13	Added mp3's: Charlemagne and the Ruby Light, Chock-Chock Jig-a-Jig Jig, Ellie's Three-Fourthed, Stålman och Ask Trädet Also added Conrad Malicoat's brick tree card to the notes to his tune.
16 May 13	Added mp3's: A Leksand's Riamarsch, Be Thankit, Beau Vals's Vals, Blue Winter, Breathing Space Hambo, Nobility Romp
13 May 13	Added mp3's: Arpeggichrome Polka, BeenSome Donesome Rag, Friendship Sloop, It's In the Clay, Julie Låt, The Klezmarch, Sally of the Island
9 May 13	Added mp3's: Competence Rag (replacement), Farewell to Down Under 2, Just A Game, Lord Girl (replacement), Time and Tide
7 May 13	Added People table
3-5 May 13	Added Arpeggichrome Polka, Em-Dash, Firm Foundation, Just a Game and The Klezmarch. Created and added PDF files, making an entry for them in the Sheet column. Made a Live column for mp3's, moved the extant ones from Xtra. Updated the All-Tunes files (first time since April 2010). Made various changes to the introductory material. Corrected massive erroneous overuse of asterisk for tunes not requiring fixing
9 Apr 13	Added Lord Only Knows
9 Dec 11	Added Competence Rag
28 Nov 11	Redid some of the introductory notes to the page
7 Sep 11	Added The Lord Girl
6 Sep 11	Added Annie Through Breeze and Gale
20 Jun 11	Added Herbs Forever
8 Mar 11	Added Maria of Rivers, renamed Ceramic Cubism to Cerama-Cubism ala Conrad, put a second "z" in Suz Pizzazz non Solemnis
28 Jan 11	Added Suz Pizazz non Solemnis
14 Jan 11	Added Ceramic Cubism
09 Apr 10	Added a scanned copy of an example of raw pencil work, and scanned copies of all the hand-drawn tunes done prior to the "advent" of ABC notation, linked as "orig" in the table's "Xtra" column
25 Mar 10	Added Håraspols from 1992, which I discovered lost in a file
04 Jan 10	Major but superficial change in terms used to describe and link files: abc for "abc", play for "midi" (and 2x for "mdid2x"), and sheet for PNG or "screen-shot sheet music."
01 Jan 10	Corrected a problem with ABC files resulting from their having been saved from a Windows partition to a Mac shared folder, which resulted in their not opening in ABC2Win when downloaded in Internet Explorer; Corrected problem with undesired-centered text resulting from Internet Explorer's poor implementation of HTML; Slightly reorganized home page and settings pages.