Forum Activity for @kevin63

Hello,

I came a across a beautiful hour glass dulcimer made in 1976. I was wondering if anyone is familiar with John Frazier dulcimers made in South Bend Indiana.

I'm finding almost no info on them or possible value. I have found that he was active around 1970 on, built only around 20 a years during the dulcimer boom. (See photo)

Thank you for your help.
Kevin 

 116C9F00-1133-4611-83A6-6EE75D29CC93.jpeg - 11KB

Hi Ken, good to meet you, Brother. Thanks, I will.

Great news, Ken!  So glad your heart is healing and you're able to return home.

Welcome home, old friend!

HOORAY!  Our Ken L. is back!

Thanks for the welcome back. I had thought of taking my MacBookPro with me, but decided not to do so. I tried to use my iPhone, but frankly the text was too small even after enlarging a little and I had a difficult time concentrating anyway.

Gradually I will be back in to the swing of things. There is still a lot of healing to do.

Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Ken, it's good to see you back here! Thankful things are going well for you. You've been in my thoughts and prayers.

So glad to hear from you, Ken.  You just need to tell the docs that it's not "an irregular beat."  You're a musician; it's called "syncopation."

Ken, so happy to see your post and know you are 'fixed' and back home again for recovery. We missed you and we worried!   Yaaaaay Ken is back. 

Ken, glad all is better.  A bit of daily dulcimer is the best medicine.

After 10 days in Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, PA, I am finally home. The mitral valve repair went well and my pain was well managed. I could have come home three days after the surgery, but my heart began an irregular beat. The cardiologists worked to nudge the heart into normal rhythm and three times was within a couple hours of discharge when the irregular rhythm began anew. The problem was that often the beats dropped to less than 40 bpm and the doctors felt that was too dangerous condition under which to send me home. Today after about 22 hours of a racing heart (115-125 bpm) they gave me the option of returning home. Since this was my tenth day in the hospital I was ready to go. As I waited for discharge, I sat and watch TV. One of the nurses rushed in to my room and announced that I was back in normal rhythm. I looked up at the monitor and I was! There still may be irregularities as my heart heals, but everything is looking positive.

Thank you to all who offered prayers, kind thoughts, sent cards, and telephone well wishes. I am deeply grateful for the dulcimer community; especially all of you.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Welcome to FOTMD, Kevin, from another Lutheran pastor who has been retired since 2010. I built my first dulcimer, an hourglass, from scratch back in 1974. Let us know if we can help you along on your dulcimer journey.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Hello, @winks!  How exciting to have a Blue Lion on the way! 

Welcome Wink!

We love Dolly. Such a wonderful performer, talented song-writer, smart business-woman, and awesome philanthropist. 

Thanks for the welcome. I'm Kevin. Lutheran pastor for the past 45 years (I'm 70) and still fulltime pastor of a church. Been playing around with the dulcimer since I was 18 - built one from Hines' book. Decided that it is finally time to get serious about learning to really play.  Have a McSpadden teardrop, a Yocky that he built for me in '04 using wood I found in an old barn (chestnut) and a Blue Lion coming this next week. The Yocky is a wonderful instrument, too bad Tom quit building dulcimers. Looking forward to being a member here.

We were given a phone number to call. Answered at Cerner: took our shots the next day at Cerner Worldheadquarters.

No side effects.

So  happy my husband got his first vaccination today.  I asked him if he felt any different (since he rarely reacts to any kind of a shot) and he said, "Not even a sore arm";  that's good news!

In Toronto you jog every morning.  12 degrees tomorrow in KCMO.  No way....of course I stroll.

@kjb I liked your Snowdrop! 

Hearts of the Dulcimer Podcast - Episode 50 
Jim and Betty Woods: The Longtime Owners of McSpadden Dulcimers

https://dulcimuse.com/podcast

In this episode we feature our conversation with Jim and Betty Woods, longtime owners of the renowned McSpadden Dulcimers. Over the last two decades, Jim and Betty were able to maintain and raise the reputation of McSpadden Dulcimers. In 2020, Jim and Betty transferred ownership of McSpadden Dulcimers.

You can listen to all the  Hearts of the Dulcimer Podcast  episodes directly on our website:  https://dulcimuse.com/podcast  or in most podcast apps.

Every episode has its own resource page with photos, videos, and song lists.

Here's the resource page for this episode: https://dulcimuse.com/podcast/resource/050.html

Thanks for listening!

I enjoyed the video.  I learned a few chords on mine years ago, but now I tune it to CEA like a 3 string ukulele.  Lots of fun.

Here’s a link to me playing Snowdrop on it:

Be sure to pop into fotmd's chat room now and then- you may run into a new friend! 

My wife and I had minimal reactions; some what of a sore arm for a day and a bit of fatigue for a couple of days. Other than that all went well. Hopefully the reactions will be mild for the majority. 

Betty, your vaccine reaction sounds just like what I went through with my second shingles vaccine last year. I woke up with a high fever and my teeth were chattering for several hours even though I was covered with heavy blankets. It was no fun, but like you I felt better the next day pretty quickly. It's good that we all know what to expect when we do get the covid vaccine- particularly the second shot which is the one that really kicks your immune cells into high gear so that they will be prepared for combat if you're later exposed to the real virus.  BTW there is no covid virus in any of these vaccines, so folks needn't worry at all about 'getting covid' from a vaccine.  :)

Well, husband and I got our second shot of Pfizer. He faired better than I did. We received our shot about lunch time this past Monday. I began to chill by about 7:30 that night. I took my temperature at 8:30 and it was 99.5. That's fairly high for me. At midnight my joints started aching. I got a headache and chills. I felt just like I had the flu. Next morning my temp was 101.9. I knew that taking Ibuprofen, acetaminophen or aspirin was a no no. I was temped but thought I've come this far, don't blow it now. By that evening symptoms went away and I was back to normal. My husband didn't feel bad until the middle of that night. He got chills and a fever of 99.5. He got up the next morning and was fine. 

Bottom line is, I would do it all again if it meant I could stop this horrible virus that has taken so many of my friends, their friends and family. We have lost so many good people who had to die alone and that is the most heartbreaking thing I've ever experienced. No funerals allowed when I lost my 82 year old aunt who was the last of my mother's family. 

The time changes soon. The days will get longer. The music will be sweeter and we will get through this. We all sound better when we play together. 

Please stay safe out there.

I've just heard of 4 families where everyone has Covid-19.  I am praying they will survive.

The father of a friend of my brother just died from COVID. He got it on work (he was a MD at a rehab hospital). The sad thing is, that he would got his first vaccination shot two days after his test result was positive

I didn't know him and neither his family (friend of my brother not mine) but I can imagine this must be quite hard on the family.

@Kusani - you have built very beautiful dulcimers!

A few days ago I have heard a Macedonian folk tune in 7/8 measure and am working on it - it is quite challenging since we "West Europeans" are not very familiar to uneven measures - but I can't get that tune out of my head ...a recording will come soon

Thank you Ken, I just wish I had thought of the other variable you brought up re the internal volume.  However even if I had, I don't have the math skills to calculate the volume of either of the two shapes.   Anyway, both do sound pretty good to an amateur's ears. :) 

Beautiful job Kusani!

Thank you Strumelia!  And I'll go over to the Building group, Ken!  I already started researching wood dealers in my area.  Just being prepared.

Sure ocean-daughter, ask away. Best to do it in another thread, not this one.  If you Join the Dulcimer Building Group, I have a thread there called Sawn-Frame Dulcemore which details how I started the construction.  You have to Join to be able to read and write comments on the threads.  You can ask questions there if you like.

@ocean-daughter I enjoyed reading your post about your story in building your Cripple Creek kit dulcimer.  :)

Those are beautiful!

Thank you all! And Strumelia, I appreciate the advice about careful application.  I wouldn't have thought about that danger. 

Dusty, I was concerned about the fretboard having lighter rectangles under the stickers, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  So I was thankful for that!

The journey has been, and still is, very joyful and satisfying!  Also, Ken, I saw your holly leaf dulcimers in a group on Facebook a few weeks ago--I commented there--and I'm hoping to try making a dulcimer or three from "scratch" one of these days.  I may ask you questions about the holly leaf. 

We got a nice gift card to our local pizza place today, from a friend that Brian helped with computer issues.  And they deliver!   

I found a 25.00 gift card from back in 2007 while cleaning and decluttering today--and it hadn't expired!