Mah Johngg Tile Set

File Name: FOLKMUS.TIL
Subject: Folk music instruments, etc.
Created by: Dick Wales, Leominster, MA

I've been involved in a couple of coffee houses - Northern Lights in
Fitchburg, MA and John Henry's Hammer in Worcester, MA - and I do a radio
show, Music for a Shady Grove, on WICN-FM in Worcester every other Saturday
evening. I own a number of the instruments pictured (1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14,
16, 18, 19, and 20), and can do a passable job playing 8, 14, and 19.

Folk instruments seemed a natural subject, and the brown color is perfect
for them. On this scale, strings aren't possible. I couldn't come up with 42
instruments unless I wanted to get very obscure, so 22 through 42 is a mix of
scenes, record labels, radio shows, and dances.

The tiles, with brief descriptions, are:

1. Bodhran - an Irish drum
2. Limberjack - a folk toy. Suspended above a board on a stick, it dances when
   you drum your fingers on the board.
3. Guitar
4. Fiddle
5. Harp - Harpists spend half their time tuning, the other half playing
   out of tune.
6. Banjo - this one's a five-string
7. Autoharp - as played by Mother Maybelle Carter, Stevie Beck on "A
   Prairie Home Companion," Harvey Reid, and others
8. Bowed Psaltery - 25 strings, with a distinct medieval sound
9. Kalimba - thumb piano from southern Africa
10. Hurdy Gurdy - not the kind with a monkey. The crank turns a rosined
    wheel against strings, and keys along the top make the notes.
11. Bones - hard wood, actually, they're good Celtic percussion
12. Cittern - I only show 6 tuning pegs, but they usually have 8-10 strings
13. Pan pipes - from South America
14. Tin whistles - a staple of Irish music
15. Squeeze box - a concertina, but I couldn't squeeze the word in one line
16. Kantele - a Finnish instrument. Mine has 10 strings, some have 36.
17. Hammered Dulcimer - mucho strings. Pictured sideways, it is played
    from the right side. Bill Spence plays one on the Victory Garden theme.
18. MacArthur Harp - Someone rescued an old harp zither from a barn and gave
    it to folksinger Margaret MacArthur of Marlboro, Vermont. Her husband
    restored it and she started using it in performances. Several people make
    them now. 12 strings on the left form 3 chords, and 11 melody strings
    slant off to the right over the sound box.
19. Mountain Dulcimer - a 4-stringed Appalachian instrument rescued from
    obscurity by Jean Ritchie. Lorraine Lee from the Boston area can play
    anything, including jazz, on hers.
20. Jaw Harp - a very old, very simple instrument, best ones are from Austria
21. Spoons - percussion popular in French Canada
22. Coffeehouse scene
23. Steeple - many coffehouses are run by volunteers in church basements
24. Fiddler - adapted from a rubber stamp, he also forms part of the logo
    for the Northern Lights Coffeehouse
25. Jeannie Teal - the schooner in Gordon Bok's story "Jeremy Brown and
    Jeannie Teal" on his Folk Legacy album of the same name. Gordon is from
    Camden, Maine.
26. Lighthouse - "The Keeper of the Light" is a tune by guitarist/autoharp
    player Harvey Reid and tin whistle player Sarah Bauhan (both from New
    Hampshire). It's on Harvey's CD "Of Wind and Water."
27. Passim - Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA is THE Boston-area coffeehouse.
28. Caffe Lena, Saratoga, NY is another famous coffeehouse
29. The Folkway, Peterborough, NH a favorite of performers and audience
30. John Henry's Hammer is in Worcester. Unlike 27-29, which are commercial,
    JHH is run by volunteers in (you guessed it) a church basement.
31. Rounder - a folk music label with great performers and a simple logo
32. Green Linnet - another label with lots of Celtic music and more
33. Front Hall - Andy Spence, wife of Bill, started a folk music mail order
    business in their front hall. It's grown, they put out records, and
    put on the Old Songs Festival near Albany, NY each June.
34. Fogarty's Cove - the label for the late, great Canadian singer/songwriter
    Stan Rogers. It's also the name of a song and album.

Wildcard set 1:
Radio stations and shows
35. WICN - Music for a Shady Grove. Mollie O'Connell is the host every other
    Saturday when I'm not there.
36. WADN - Would you believe a commercial folk station on AM? Believe it. It's
    in Concord, MA. Dick Pleasants is the weekday morning host and a founder.
37. WGBH - The Folk Heritage. Dick Pleasants' long-running public radio show
    in Boston.
38. WERS - Coffee House. Mornings on Boston's Emerson College station.

Wildcard set 2:
Four types of folk dancing you're likely to see at the New England Folk
Festival in Natick, MA in April.
39. New England Contra Dancing (most fun you can have with clothes on!)
40. English Country Dancing
41. Scottish Sword Dancing
42. Irish Step Dancing

Now that you've waded through all this explaining, I hope you enjoy using
this set. I read in another tile text file that the creator spent nine hours
on his set. This took quite a bit longer, spread out over a week in January,
1991. Thanks to Nels Anderson for Tilemaker. It makes the game, already
interesting, much more so.

Dick Wales