Forum Activity for @razyn

razyn
@razyn
10/15/10 12:24:15AM
40 posts

"John the Balladeer" Stories


OFF TOPIC discussions

Hey, that's cool -- we were talking about him, about a year ago. Didn't know he was online now.I changed my avatar, because my youngest grandson changes so fast, at two and a half, that last photo was obsolete. The other two are 7 and 8, and seem a little more stable, somehow. I'm also fairly stable.
razyn
@razyn
06/25/10 01:21:44PM
40 posts



One time I made a hammered dulcimer for my wife; and since at the time both of our sons were active high school thespians, I carved the little tragedy/comedy masks, as inserts or "rosettes" for the fairly large-diameter holes one makes on an HD. For a pattern, I borrowed a pair of earrings owned by my younger son's girlfriend (a thespianette). Basically, I just enlarged what somebody else had already worked out, in terms of stylization and contours.Sometime, I can excavate that instrument and photograph the holes -- but not at the moment. Also, at my limited skill level, it would be fairly hard to carve those at the smaller scale of most MD soundholes; but there are people in our community who could easily do it. They do make a nice pair, visually.
razyn
@razyn
06/08/10 08:06:22PM
40 posts



Robin the Busker is from Snowdonia, Wales. He's active on the ED forum -- don't remember if he's on here, also. Ptarmigan is from County Antrim, and set up the Dulcimer Ancestors Group, here -- haven't seen him for a while.
razyn
@razyn
06/08/10 09:14:01AM
40 posts



I wouldn't know about lessons; but an old friend of mine who was making dulcimers in Nashville around 1967 or earlier lives at Herstmonceux, kind of between Brighton and Hastings, but inland on A271. He is a custom cabinetmaker, makes and repairs instruments, and has made a dulcimer quite recently -- though I don't know if he does that very often. Anyway, his name is Barry M. Murphy. No revival of mountain dulcimers in the UK would be complete without him. http://www.oldtimeherald.org/archive/back_issues/volume-8/8-8/fullcircle.html
razyn
@razyn
06/14/10 11:36:59AM
40 posts



In case anybody wants to see Flint Hill's noter "on the hoof," so to speak -- I have a pretty big American hornbeam tree in my yard. Maybe 30 feet tall, and it's often more like a shrub. The post at left in this photo of it (from my deck) is 5 feet tall, or so.

razyn
@razyn
04/17/10 01:19:04AM
40 posts

The Kitchen Sink - talk about food


OFF TOPIC discussions

We tried your basic recipe last night, and enjoyed it. (Finished enjoying it today, actually.) Technically we didn't have Porcini mushrooms, but at least they were fresh ones -- of whatever generic species the grocery store had. I guess if I cared enough, I could have gone down to Dean & DeLuca, but I don't. Just wanted some chicken for dinner, basically. And it was quite yummy.
razyn
@razyn
04/07/10 10:42:39AM
40 posts



Strumelia said:
In my 20's I lived in Puerto Rico for 13 years
Pretty good trick. I've been in my 40s for a little over 30 years, now. Also, I can play most brass instruments (of the band type); most fretted strings (but concentrate on kontrabass balalaika, mainly because the Washington Balalaika Society orchestra keeps me too busy to have time for many other musical activities); some keyboards, including bayan (Russian B-system chromatic button accordion), which doesn't have the piano type arrangement of keys; several recorder-like flutes (but not the transverse ones); twangophones, such as Jew's harp and mouth bow; jug, washtub bass, etc.
razyn
@razyn
05/31/10 05:03:37PM
40 posts

Party Time coming for 700 !!


OFF TOPIC discussions

I was afraid we were going to have to have a wake, for the 40.
razyn
@razyn
05/27/10 09:08:21AM
40 posts

Party Time coming for 700 !!


OFF TOPIC discussions

It is conceivable that FOTMD will have to squeeze in an 800 Member party before grocery shopping for the big 4th of July cookout. I just peeked, and the number this AM was 784.
razyn
@razyn
04/10/10 12:03:22AM
40 posts

Party Time coming for 700 !!


OFF TOPIC discussions

Strumelia said:
I would LOVE to be able to dance like those teenage clog dancers in that video
I didn't bring any party food, so I guess I'll just bring Leah (my first cousin, once removed); there won't be a better time to run one of the video ads for her business, Grumpy's Bail Bonds. She was Miss Tennessee, some years ago, and her talent in the Miss America pageant was clogging. I'd guess she's around 42, now -- but she's still right limber. I couldn't do this when I was 22. (And I do love that Middle Tennessee accent.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ZfAI8L9RQ&feature=player_embedded If any of you have read the Stephanie Plum detective series, they are kind of alike: two young women in the same unusual line of work, but with substantial ethnic and regional differences. Oh, and Leah is a real person. Stephanie is a figment of the imagination of Janet Evanovich.
razyn
@razyn
03/22/10 09:17:44AM
40 posts

Do You Have A Favorite Irish Song?


General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Paul Rappell said:
Well, I have a new favourite Irish song... It's "John of Dreams" performed (perhaps written?) by Mick Moloney... Anyone else know it?
Don't know the song, actually -- but I used to know Mick pretty well, and he's an approachable sort of person. He has a very nice website, and it has an "email Mick" link, if you want to ask him. http://www.mickmoloney.com/index.html
razyn
@razyn
02/08/10 08:45:41AM
40 posts

cats & songs


General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I was hoping somebody (else) would remember the poignant "Nobody's Moggy;" and that has come to pass. But since Flint Hill only posted the sheet music, here's the audio of a performance by its Down Under creators. A very sad tale.
"The Intoxicated Rat," often credited to Doc Watson and nearly as often to Cisco Houston, is I believe by Dorsey Dixon, of The Dixon Brothers. May be mistaken about that; anyway, I'm sure it was recorded before Watson came along. The plot has to do with a rodent who gets drunk -- and belligerent about cats, until one actually shows up -- at which time he quickly gets sober."Pinkle Purr" by A.A. Milne has latterly been set to music at least a couple of times, but I don't know if the music is good. The poem is.
razyn
@razyn
02/03/10 02:19:28PM
40 posts

dogs & songs


General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

But, isn't the best dog song EVER, "Old Blue?"And you banja pickers ought to know "Cumberland Mountain Deer Race," with various dogs being called by name, and imitated on the banjo. More acoustically realistic is DeFord Bailey's harmonica rendition of "Fox Chase," on the same general theme, only the dogs are chasing a different critter.I regularly have deer and foxes in my yard, but almost never a dog (chasing them, or otherwise). Fairfax County has a leash law, applied pretty strictly to dogs, but not to wildlife. Hardly seems fair.
razyn
@razyn
01/12/10 12:10:33PM
40 posts

wow...it's party time again... REVISITED :)


OFF TOPIC discussions

I think I'll bring Gelusil this time.
razyn
@razyn
01/03/10 11:25:11PM
40 posts

Favorite accessories to go with MD


General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

But the term "possum board" historically refers to a pelt stretcher. Also works for cats, btw, or any similar sized critter, the hide of which one wants to use. For several of the appropriate uses, verses of the song "Ground Hog" are informative. Here is an actual possum board; some dulcimer player realized long ago that it was also an acoustically useful accessory. http://www.museumofappalachia.org/veWebsite/exhibit1/e10342a.htm
razyn
@razyn
12/31/09 02:52:21PM
40 posts



I think it would make more sense to string the dulcimer backward and turn it around. Might have to re-notch the nut and bridge, or make a new bridge if it's compensated (longer VSL for the bass string). Very few dulcimers have anything like a bass bar inside, that would cause reversal of the string gauges to mess with the actual sound of the instrument.
razyn
@razyn
12/28/09 09:32:49AM
40 posts



Just curious, but are you noting with your right hand and picking with your left, reaching across? Your avatar photo looks that way, to me. That's already adding a little... variety.
razyn
@razyn
12/19/09 12:32:04PM
40 posts

Bess Lomax Hawes, 1921-2009


General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Well, not so much a span of years, but a cast of characters -- and they got off the ground in the late 1930s. Almanac Singers (Bess was one), Weavers... Burl Ives, Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, et al. A few influential regional festivals (such as White Top, and the one Jean Thomas traipsed around) were begun a little earlier than the public careers of these New Yorkish types -- but they didn't really cause any national movement, that I can see. Since actual folk music was alive and well in the 1930s, it didn't need to be revived; but The Folksong Revival was a national pop culture phenomenon -- and those take something like air time on the (radio) networks, coverage in the major print media, and all that.What did Allen Smith say ("Pre-Revival Dulcimers")?
razyn
@razyn
12/19/09 11:24:10AM
40 posts

Bess Lomax Hawes, 1921-2009


General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I was on the road around the end of November, and didn't catch up with the news very well when I got home. I had missed the fact that another former colleague, who was one of the last surviving members of the original "folksong revival" cast, had passed away. I've looked at several of her obituaries, on Mudcat, and I think this one from the Huffington Post is the most complete and sensitive: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/bess-lomax-hawes-1921-200_b_373423.html Almost all of my dealings with Bess had to do with NEA Folk Arts grants (applying for them, accounting for them, reviewing others' applications for them, etc.). But I knew her earlier, when she was still teaching at Cal State Northridge; and the last time I ran into her, we were in the produce section of a Safeway -- we lived in the same Arlington neighborhood after she retired. She was a fine person -- not as well known as her flamboyant brother Alan Lomax, but having many of the same gifts and credentials -- in conjunction with an open, pleasant personality.
updated by @razyn: 06/09/16 08:21:50PM
razyn
@razyn
10/27/09 10:22:57AM
40 posts

John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry


OFF TOPIC discussions

Jill Jalbert said:
Hey are you another banjo player?
Assuming you meant me -- I have had a banjo (or several) since about 1963-64, but never got especially good at playing them. Basically, I played guitar, and collected other old folk instruments (not guitars). I learned to play something on all of them -- both sorts of dulcimer, fretless banjo, mandolin, fiddle, balalaika, Jew's harp -- just whatever turned up. I sometimes participate in the "Minstrel Banjo" world, because those guys are interested in the earlier, historical instruments -- they learn the tunes from early method books (pre-1865 ones, because a lot of them are CW reenactors) and generally strive for an authentic 19th century sound. Which is very different from modern banjo styles, played on modern instruments.Dick
razyn
@razyn
10/16/09 10:46:59AM
40 posts

John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry


OFF TOPIC discussions

The Battle Hymn of the Republic was written to fit the tune of (some would say, partly inspired by) the more or less comic song "John Brown's body;" which in turn was based upon the camp-meeting hymn "Say, brothers, will you meet me, On Canaan's happy shore;" which was also newly in print around the time of John Brown's raid, i.e. 150 years ago. (Actually, I think that hymn was published in 1858, but I'm a little fuzzy on the details w/o looking it up.)Dick
razyn
@razyn
10/16/09 10:24:57AM
40 posts

John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry


OFF TOPIC discussions

... was 150 years ago today (well, tonight), if anyone cares.I mentioned this yesterday on the (Ning) Minstrel Banjo forum, and the only responders so far are a couple of yahoos who think I'm trying to honor the memory of a terrorist. I'm not, OK? It was a watershed event, it happened 150 years ago, and I'm pointing that out. So, dress up and do your 1859 thing. Starting in just a couple of years, it will be the 150th anniversary of some Civil War event, most all the time -- for four years. Think of the gig possibilities.Dick
updated by @razyn: 01/13/19 05:09:18PM
razyn
@razyn
10/07/09 06:03:33PM
40 posts

I just made a twelve string guitar


Adventures with 'other' instruments...

That trick worked like a charm -- when Matt stepped into the restaurant, he said to his wife and son, "That guy looks a lot like Pappy." (It's true, I do.) I'll post a couple more shots -- the first, taken by Matt's wife Nancy, showing the happy camper after he got it home:

That's to show off the kid (Kathy and I made him, too); and the quilt on the wall behind the kid (Kathy also made that, about 15 years ago). Here's one closeup of the axe:

That inlay is my "Kolibri" maker's mark, since 1992. This guitar is only Kolibri #4; I spend much larger amounts of my life not out in the wood shop. Kolibri is "hummingbird," in Russian (and many other languages). There are, technically, no hummingbirds native to Russia; but the first two Kolibri instruments were balalaikas (a sekunda for Kathy, and a kontrabass for me). Those larger sizes are hard to find for sale, so I just made them. Kolibri #3 is a regular (six string) dreadnought guitar, and is featured on some tracks of the CDs recorded by our other son, Ben: http://www.myspace.com/benhulanmusic That 6-string was the first guitar I made, but Matt was the first kid we made. And all of the above -- wife, kids, various instruments and whatnot -- even 12-string guitars -- have given me a lot of joy, over a lot of years. Here, for example, is one from the summer of 1965:

I rest my case.Dick

razyn
@razyn
10/05/09 10:08:47AM
40 posts

I just made a twelve string guitar


Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Well actually I started it in 2002, but got distracted... these things are a lot of trouble to make, and after I got the basic box made I put it away for a looong time. It was supposed to be a Christmas present for my elder son, then 33. This summer I decided it was time to get off the dime and finish it; so for over a month, unbeknownst to him, I've been doing stuff like drilling the holes for the tuners (trouble), cutting out the pearl and inlaying my hummingbird maker's mark (trouble), sanding out all the little scorch marks left by the hot bearing on the router that cut the channels for the binding (trouble), putting on three coats of sealer and six coats of varnish (lotta trouble -- and I couldn't do it in the air conditioned house, because my wife gets migraines from the fumes), gluing on the bridge (scary trouble), fitting the 12 little boxwood bridge pins (easy, but tedious), fitting the saddle and nut, and filing 12 notches in the nut (trouble), setting and gluing in the neck (more scary trouble), and stringing it up. You never really know if the action and intonation are OK until you do this -- and it's the last step. I strung it late Saturday night. Then I had to file and recrown two frets (they were done in 2002) -- but other than that, it was fine.Today we are going to Roanoke to give it to him on his 40th birthday. He totally doesn't know it -- we cooked it up with his wife. She's taking him to a restaurant out of town, and (surprise) we'll be sitting in the restaurant. And sometime during dinner I'll remember that I had this out in the car. Basically, it's a Martin D-12-28 (it began with wood from their shop), only a lot more handmade.

Dick
updated by @razyn: 06/11/15 07:21:53AM
razyn
@razyn
11/10/09 10:23:36PM
40 posts



I followed the exhibit link, and the page that played it had a link to a very nicely done video tribute to Homer Ledford, that I hadn't seen. The counter only shows 58 views -- which doesn't seem right, if it's been up since May 14th. Anyway, I recommend this:
Dick
razyn
@razyn
11/01/09 08:57:24PM
40 posts

Bowing a dulcimer


Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Richard Graham said:
... the bridges on most older dulcimers do not easily lend themselves to good bowing technique. Besides, the fiddle was already present throughout Appalachia, and was in fact already the premiere instrument of the region.
I was mostly alluding to earlier forms of the dulcimer -- zitters and such -- that seem to have been used more for hymn singing than for hoedowns; and more by German-American radical sectarians than by either Anglo-Americans, or more mainstream Protestants of any ethnicity. There was some documentation of that tradition just as it was fading from the scene, perhaps about as late as WWI, but mostly in the 19th century. What little we have about it in the written record has been reviewed on various ED threads, especially by Greg Gunner (Banjimer, there).But even the links with German pietists, Mennonites etc. may be more apparent than real; the people who saw fit to write on this obscure topic (the bowing of diatonic zithers) were after all in Pennsylvania, and surrounded by those folks. If Henry Mercer had collected in the vicinity of Burkesville, KY or Red Boiling Springs, TN around 1910, he might have found Scotch-Irish hillbillies bowing dulcimers. And btw calling them Frog fiddles.Anyway, it was done here and there, in Appalachia and elsewhere, a few generations before Ken Bloom was on the scene. The need perceived by violinists and their sympathizers for "good bowing technique" is fairly irrelevant, if one is using a slack, homemade bow -- and letting one's drones be drones. So the flat bridge is OK, really. On an old TMB, it's built-in (the "bridge" is a piece of sheet metal bent over a nail, as is the nut). That didn't keep people from bowing a TMB.That's not quite the same as bowing a psalmodikon -- an instrument that normally has one string, and frets at every semitone (though it may also come with a set of diatonic transposing sticks, painted with the gapped scales for playing in several different modes). With one string, the top of the bridge can be flat, arched, concave, or whatever.Dick
razyn
@razyn
11/01/09 06:14:14PM
40 posts

Bowing a dulcimer


Adventures with 'other' instruments...

razyn said:
Psalmodikons were also bowed, and still are
Here's a clip of that (in Sweden, I think): http://www.stthuset.com/tidning/film/viavinga/psalmdiakon/index.htm I can read Swedish, but this clip is just a link -- and there's no caption, that I could see, telling where the group is playing. Some of the members of this organization are in Norway.Dick
razyn
@razyn
11/01/09 04:55:27PM
40 posts

Bowing a dulcimer


Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Diane said:
There are less than 100 of those floating around the US... Most of them seem to be below the Mason Dixon line
I just looked at the "About Ken" page on http://www.boweddulcimer.com/ and found this:"He has presented these programs at National battlefields, Living History sites, Highland Games, and schools all over North and South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky."Seems to be a correlation between seeing Ken Bloom and owning, or playing, a bowed dulcimer.I think there may be a great many more old dulcimers floating around that have been bowed, but not lately -- and we just don't know it.Those who bowed them a little deeper in the past than 1972 were not necessarily also violinists, or cellists; some bowed them noter-and-drone style, and some leaned them on a table with the head away from the seated player.Psalmodikons were also bowed, and still are -- mostly well to the north of the Mason-Dixon line, because that's where most of the Nordic population settled. http://www.psalmodikon.com/AnnualMeeting.html Just a little grist for the mill.Dick
razyn
@razyn
01/25/10 12:25:03AM
40 posts

Who made this dulcimer?


Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

I think you've got it -- the one in this latest eBay ad has the scroll knocked off, and it's probably a lower-end model, but many of the details are right.Mako guitars are mostly Japanese knockoffs of Gibson and Fender electrics, last made in the early 80s. Label looks like the same Mako, to me. That's OK by me; my son speaks Japanese, and when his buddy comes over again to buy his next American guitar, they can show him their Japanese dulcimer.
razyn
@razyn
01/21/10 11:17:02PM
40 posts

Who made this dulcimer?


Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

Where was the antique store, and do you still have it? I don't remember seeing a name in the one I bought in Oregon (also at an antique store) -- don't think it was all that antique, but that's where it was. I didn't hang onto it very long, but I still have visiting rights.
razyn
@razyn
09/28/09 12:13:24PM
40 posts

Who made this dulcimer?


Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

I posted this spruce and rosewood dulcimer in the Photos area 2-3 days ago -- also brought it to the attention of the Dulcimer Making group -- but haven't yet had a nibble.The "Photos" listing has a long comment, if anybody bothered to click on it. I guess I'll paste that in, too. The photo ID of Lisa(1 or 2) is not the name of the instrument, but of my daughter-in-law in CA, who owns it. Anyway, I just figured out how to post a picture, as distinguished from a Photobucket url, within the text of a message. (Click on the little camera... duh.) So I'm doing that.

[Previous caption:] "Does anybody recognize this -- by maker, or otherwise? Top is spruce, with binding like a nice guitar. The fingerboard, head and tail are (I think) walnut. Back is rosewood, perhaps even Brazilian, though I'm not sure. I bought it at an antique store in Gresham, OR in about 1995 or so, and gave it to my son's girlfriend as an engagement present. (And she's now the mom of 2/3 of my grandchildren, including the cutie in my avatar.) I thought someone here might be able to identify its source."It just seems reasonable to me that somebody, most likely on the West Coast, might recognize the work of a luthier (or, if there is such a thing, a dulcimier) this competent. In the absence of actual knowledge, any hints or theories are welcome.Dick
updated by @razyn: 06/08/16 09:24:05PM
razyn
@razyn
12/27/09 03:20:09PM
40 posts

Only 10 to go till 200 members


OFF TOPIC discussions

The next new member will be #400.The next big FOTMD virtual food party might include blackeyed peas. It's a New Year thang.Anyway, happy New Year --Dick
razyn
@razyn
11/06/09 05:51:37PM
40 posts

Only 10 to go till 200 members


OFF TOPIC discussions

Here's some individually wrapped leftover Halloween candy -- not everybody on FOTMD is so @#$% healthy...
razyn
@razyn
11/02/09 11:07:31AM
40 posts

Only 10 to go till 200 members


OFF TOPIC discussions

In case y'all aren't counting, it's almost time for the 300-member international picnic and dulcimer jam.Pickles and cookies, hmm... what else would be good with that?Dick
razyn
@razyn
08/23/09 07:04:03PM
40 posts



Carson Turner said:
There's a story out there from another musical experiment wherein Joshua Bell went busking in DC with his $2,000,000 strad violin.
Here's a version of the Joshua Bell story that ran in the Washington Post (Sunday Magazine): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html Another thing you learn is that Metro stations get a big volume and turnover of pedestrian traffic -- but almost all of the people are rushing somewhere.Dick
razyn
@razyn
08/18/09 11:27:10AM
40 posts



I have a ten-string one, but it's not large. About 20" long. It's very nicely made, by Edward and Anne Damm of Bar Harbor, ME, in 1977. Soundhole cutout is a fairy. It has a case, tuning wrench, some extra strings, and a couple pages of instructions. If anybody wants it, I could be talked out of it -- I never play the thing. Bought it on a whim, some years ago.I used to hang out with Finns a lot more than I do now. But I still wear the purple on St. Urho's Day!Dick
razyn
@razyn
08/30/09 10:48:29PM
40 posts

Any banjo players out there?


Adventures with 'other' instruments...

I don't play very often, but I started a long time ago. I have a few old banjos, say 1870-1900 or so, with and without frets -- and one reproduction "minstrel" banjo, made within the past ten years (an eBay coup de foudre). I've been to the Antietam Early Banjo Gathering, twice, and really enjoy the fellowship of those guys even though many of them are certifiable (i.e., dedicated Civil War reenactors). There's a Ning group for Minstrel Banjo, and I was lurking in it about a year before Strumelia started this dulcimer one.My best banjo is an open back S.S. Stewart "Universal Favorite" tenor (a Nashville pawn shop purchase) that Homer Ledford converted to a 5-string for me. He added his special tone ring, as well as making the new birdseye maple neck (fitted with the old inlays), in 1966. One of the earlier Ledford banjos, I guess. He didn't sign it or anything, but I have letters from him when we arranged for it. I swapped him a nice early Washburn mandolin he wanted -- didn't pay actual money for the conversion, but he costed it out at $75. (More than I had paid for his standard dulcimer, in 1963.) I also got Pete Seeger to autograph it, when he did a workshop in Nashville around 1968 -- so now I can't change the dang head. Mike Seeger also played it, not long after that -- guess I should have asked him to write on it too, but we were actually friends, so that just seemed odd.Back in the day, about 1915-20 when Uncle Dave Macon was a wagoner and there was not yet a radio show in Nashville (the Grand Ole Opry), my paternal grandfather was one of his employers. (I just checked the Wikipedia article about Uncle Dave, and it discusses The Macon Midway Mule and Wagon Transportation Company.) So my dad and my grandmother had some anecdotes about him. I knew two of his sons, but he had died when I was about twelve -- and he had long since been a professional entertainer, rather than a wagoner. I got into folk music a few years later. I do have a banjo that Uncle Dave broke in about 1892, when he fell off a friend's porch in Lascassas. He gave it to the boy who lived there -- who got the broken neck fixed, and about 70 years later I bought it from him. And I also got some good banjo tunes from him (Elbert F. Pilkington).Dick
razyn
@razyn
08/26/09 09:55:09AM
40 posts

Dulcimer or Guitar?


General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

That's just the regular Swiss Army noter, I think.Dick
razyn
@razyn
09/18/09 06:36:15PM
40 posts

How did you first discover the mountain dulcimer?


General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Patrick O'Brien said:
he said yea there was a feller up the holler from his home place had one sumptin like it,
only it was slimer and he played it with a bow but he dident recall what he called it.This would a been about 1924 or so.
I'd kinda like to know where in WV his home place was. A bunch of O'Briens and their kin are in Gerald Milnes' book "Play of a Fiddle," but as your dad said, they were playing fiddles and other stuff besides dulcimers. Milnes does discuss (p. 139) bowed zitters or "scheitholts" that were played in WV.Dick
razyn
@razyn
08/17/09 06:54:48PM
40 posts

How did you first discover the mountain dulcimer?


General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

The most costly four bits I ever spent:(Initially, this is pasted in from the ED forum, where it was buried in a Scheitholt thread in the summer of 2007.)"I was a freshman at Vanderbilt in 1957. One of the first things I bought in the campus bookstore was Richard Chase's paperback, American Folk Tales and Songs, which was new in 1956. [My copy is the first printing, and the cover price was 50 cents.] In the back, it said, ask the old people in your family if they know anything like this... I did, they did, etc. When I sent one of the songs to him (Banner Elk, NC) he sent back a postcard telling me to share it with John Putnam, who was in grad school across the street at Peabody. John also wrote one of the early dulcimer history/method booklets (later), published at Berea College. And we were friends until he died, about 20 years ago."That's all I said on the other forum. But I should also mention that the song I sent to Mr. Chase was "Old maids, old maids, all ragged and dirty, You'd better get married before you are thirty," which my great-aunt Launa had told me she sang at the age of fourteen while playing the (hammered) dulcimer that my grandfather-to-be had made, and brought with him while courting her sixteen year old sister. This tale was told with a serious twinkle in her eye, since her sister (my grandmother) was also in the room, at the time. They were crocheting; I was interviewing my older relatives -- per Chase (1956), pp. 228-30, "Amateur Collector's Guide."So, that's when I heard about the hammered dulcimer; I eventually learned that my grandfather and two of his brothers had made these instruments in the 1890s and sold them in the lower Cumberland valley, mostly to the north and west of Nashville. I never found one of theirs, but I did get my first Cumberland valley hammered dulcimer in 1966 -- and many others after that. I think the most HDs I owned was 12, maybe 13 (not all at one time), by about 1970. I used to clean up an old one (they never cost more than $50), give it new strings, show someone the rudiments of how to play, and sell it for about $15 profit (and it was still well under $100). This hobby was more like salvage archaeology than a business.But this is a "Mountain Dulcimer" forum. I'm not sure whether anyone in my family even knew what that was, before I met John Putnam in the winter of 1957-58. He had a couple in his dormitory, and those were the first I ever saw. And played. I saw Tennessee Music Boxes in 1963 (the first was a "whatsit?" written up in the Elmer Hinton column of the Nashville Tennessean newspaper; I answered that query, and also tracked down the owner of the one illustrated). But I didn't find a TMB for sale until the summer of 1964. The first MD I owned was Homer Ledford's #738, bought at his home (after some correspondence with John Putnam, and then with Homer) with my Christmas money at the end of December, 1963.Getting back to my "four bits" topic: seeds sewn by the perfidious Richard Chase continued to grow. I dabbled in folklore for several years -- and also managed to stay in school, for most of them -- until one day I discovered, to my horror, that I had become an academic folklorist. This is not a wise career move. Luckily, I had married much more wisely. We had a nice little collection of American folk instruments -- which mostly went into storage, while our kids grew up. For a couple of years now (since I'm and old coot, and our kids are the ones who have to protect their instruments from little boys), I've been writing about our older mountain dulcimers on ED.And we do occasionally still play them.Dick