“Shinga Shing Shinga Shing Ching Chang”
General mountain dulcimer or music discussions
I play a lot of instruments as I wanted to teach our children the joy of knowing many instruments and we did a lot of caroling at Christmas time. So when I got the dulcimer over 30 years ago, I got Jean Richie's book and one night I thought I was doing really well, and played for almost 2 hours....then I got this shout out from my husband in the bedroom, "LEARN ANOTHER INSTRUMENT!" I still laugh at that one. I found the remedy for that scene. I brought home a very old autoharp (it had typewriter keys) and he picked it up as if he played it for years. I bought him a new autoharp. We began playing together and that changed everything on him liking or disliking the dulcimer sound. However, he doesn't like the minor keys. Polynesians don't do a lot of minor songs....almost none for the Tongans. We play our music daily. He's taught me to play by ear by him choosing the songs 1/2 the time. It is such a JOY to play music with each other. I posted on this site in one of the other discussions of our family playing for a little T.V. show with 8 of our 14 children 30 years ago in Hawaii. It's on youtube somewhere. ha.
I've been looking for that book for years and I don't know why it never occurred to me to post a note here. I'll send you a personal message right away. You're the best!