Dutch Dice

Dutch Dice is an addictive family game for two or more players. It may have come to North America from the Netherlands.

The game is played with six standard dice. Each player is provided with pencil and paper for scoring. To start, each player prints the numbers from 1 to 12 in a column down the edge of the scoresheet. Score is kept by tally marks beside the numbers. Roll dice to see who goes first; play proceeds clockwise.

To begin a turn, a player rolls all six dice and declares which number she is going to score. If the number is six or less, she sets aside dice with that number; if the number is seven or more, she sets aside pairs of dice that total that number. At least one die must be set aside. A point will be claimed for each scoring die or pair of dice. She then rolls the remaining dice after which any scoring dice may be set aside and the remainder rolled again. This procedure continues until one of three things happens:

1) A roll produces no additional points. The turn ends and the points are added to the tally for the appropriate number. Play passes to the next player.

2) All the dice are rolled and they are all scoring dice, only possible if the number being scored is seven or more. All the dice are rolled again and the turn continues.

3) The tally for the number being scored -- that is the points already tallied plus the points won on the turn -- reaches five. The score is tallied and the player takes an extra turn. It's possible for a player to take several extra turns.

No tally can exceed five. The winner is the first player to score five points for each of the 12 numbers.

Example: A player who throws 1-5-5-5-6-6 may claim: one point for either one, five, six, seven, ten, eleven or twelve; two points for either five, six, or eleven; or three points for the fives. If the choice brings the total tally for that number to five, another turn is taken.

The round ends when a player has five points for all twelve numbers. Each player's score for the round is her total points less sixty. One player's score will therefore be zero, the others' all negative. Scores for each round may be accumulated to reach a final score. The supreme winner is the one with the highest grand total at the end of the game.

Bees

Pedigree of a Drone

The chart represents the pedigree of any semiparthenogenic creature such as a honeybee.  The males -- from unfertilized eggs -- are symbolized by black squares; the females by white squares.  A drone has one parent, two grandparents, three great-grandparents, five, eight, 13, and so on -- the Fibonacci series.

I'm sure you know that but do you know this?  The top row of the chart bears an amazing resemblance to an octave on the piano keyboard.  Each row, from the bottom up, represents in turn: a single note; a horn fifth (popular in ancient Rome); a major triad (causing such alarm to the early Christians); a pentatonic scale (of Oriental fame); a diatonic scale (major, of course); and a chromatic scale.  Thus we have the entire history of harmony summarized in a beehive.  No wonder bees hum!

Now if you want to know what the future has in store for music, just extend the generations upwards.

Okay, I know it's contrived -- but it's still rather amazing, isn't it?

Silent Night

Jim Martin has an excellent site on Jazz Arranging at jazzarrangingclass.com. Here are his chords for Silent Night.

| CM69         | G13sus           | CM69         | G13sus         |
| D/F#         | F9(#11)          | C/E          | Gm7 / C7(b9)   |
| FM7 / FM7/E  | Dm7 / G9         | CM69         | Gm7 / C7(b9)   |
| F#m7(b5)     | B13(b9)          | Em7 / A7(b9) | Dm9 / Ab7+(#9) |
| G9sus        | G#dim7           | Am9          | Bb13(#11)      |
| Am7 / A7(b9) | Dm11 / G7sus(b9) | DbM9         | C69 / G13sus   |

First Steps

Some time ago Fran and I got slightly lost on the Trans-Canada Trail. We met a couple of tourists from Louisiana who were also confused. But while we had food, water, proper clothing and all the time in the world to find ourselves, our new friends were poorly shod, in pain (one of them had fallen) and feeling abandoned by the bus driver who had dropped them off in the wilds of a foreign land. We eventually found our car and took the couple to the Seabus which ferried them back to their hotel. A few days later they e-mailed us this cartoon from their local paper.