Forum Activity for @ken-longfield

If you send me a personal message and provide me with you email address I can send you two scans for articles about Walt Martin and Sunhearth dulcimers. Walt was quite a character. He could be very cordial and at other times acerbic. I met him at festival and talked with him for a bit mentioning that my in-laws lived near him. He invited me and wife to stop by to visit him and see his workshop. When we did, he wanted to know what the h*ll we were doing there. We did manage a brief but somewhat antagonistic (on his part) visit.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Sunhearth instruments are fantastic!  I had one and passed it along to a young person-- I was the caretaker for awhile and it was a privilege to have the instrument.  Enjoy your Sunhearth!  

Thank you very much for the link

Yes those are wonderful pieces with a very "big" sound!

https://www.bearmeadow.com/about/history/sunhearth.html

Those Sunhearth dulcimer are top quality instruments.  Have real good rep

Hello,

1st Post

I bought a Dulcimer at an estate sale. inside one of the star holes it reads:

Sunhearth #526  6-19-79   W. Martin

Looking for history or information on builder etc.

Any direction would be great

I've heard many old hymns (my mom was a church pianist for many years) yet this one is unfamiliar to me-- I look forward to hearing you play and sing it, John.  

I have not heard this John, so I really look forward to you sharing it!  I love the words!

This is a beautiful rendition of that song. Thanks for sharing it.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Love this, and Sarah! Thank you for posting Robin

My bad. It is the last Saturday in March which is the 25th. Note; the 25th not the 28th. I will go back and edit my post.

Ken

The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Yes, the 'official' International Appalachian Dulcimer Day in 2023 is Saturday 25 March.  In a thread here at FOTMD, we landed on choosing the last Saturday in March as the day.   

Yep. So you're also saying the 'official' day is the last Saturday of March, right?

Wonderful resolution indeed!

It also means that if you're home all day you should... help yourself!  To what is up to you, of course. 

@ken-longfield & @leo-kretzner I just checked my calendar and the last Saturday in March in 2023 is the 25th.  

Yes, better to plan ahead than plan behind, always.

I was trying to remember if it's the last day of March or the last weekend - but the 28th is a Tues, so I remain confused on that. 

In any event, there will definitely be an open jam in Claremont, probly on Sun the 26th, to be finalized.

Dulcimer Day rocks!  

That's strange, Ken! I thought us New Yorkers were supposed to be rather rude, but almost everyone here says ThankYou when you hold a door open for them. Or they wave thanks when you let them into traffic in front of you when driving.

@ken-longfield I'm happy you gave this thread a bump!  I need to plan a tune to celebrate.

Just giving everyone a heads up on IADD which will be on March 25th this year. It's not too early to begin planning both your music and fun for International Appalachian Dulcimer Day.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

John, I look forward to your video. This is a new hymn to me. Thank you for sharing it.

Randy, it has always been my practice to hold the door for anyone following me in to a building. Unlike you Nebraskans, there are few people who say thanks. On our trip across country in October I can count on one hand the number of people who thanked me for holding the door open for them. That would be at truck stops, gas stations, rest areas, restaurants, motels, etc.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Help somebody today---what a wonderful way to pattern your life. Time was, and still is in some of the smaller more rural communities in America, that this was something very normal for everyone. Would it not be a wonderful world if more folks would do this kind of thing and remove themselves from the primary focus of their lives. Some say it takes a Village. I say it takes a neighbor whose focus is on others rather than himself.

Real life Lisa! : ) Yeah the chorus does say 'befriend ' someone  huh?

This is a good resolution John not too hard to keep. : )

If I  may? In my hometown Lincoln NE we almost invariably: hold the door for the next person even if they're 15' away, and they'll thank you for it. Let you merge lanes at rush hr. Put grocery cart in corral or back inside. 

These small everyday kindnesses set the stage for a more general teamwork atmosphere and make for a better place to live. 

Those sound like positive developments and omens, Leo.
I was surprised to see a huge bald eagle flying over my village a few weeks ago. They sometimes hang out at the Hudson river which is near to us, but are seldom seen actually in our village. I saw one in a corn field here about 15 yrs ago while riding my bike. Snowy owls are equally majestic! I think i read there was one in NYC's Central Park last year.

I'm wishing positive new things for all FOTMD friends for this new year!

This is a wonderful thing to practice for the new year- both on your dulcimer and in real life!
There's an interesting lady I know who will be at our small knitting group this weekend, and i have been planning to exchange contact info to get to know her better. She came to this country during the pandemic and likely does not have many friends. She has many fascinating stories to share!

Thanks so much for the suggestions, very helpful.

Well, Happy New Year to all!! 

I have to say, mine has had an auspicious start 'on steroids': Copies of my new album, 'Mixed Colors,' arrived 12/31 and on New Year's Day I saw the wonderful snowy owl, an arctic circle bird making the NYTimes etc for being in Southern California. Yes I am a birder too. AND, so over the top, I saw a rainbow on the way home from that. 

So, I'm either going to have a really good year, or I'm being set up by the fates for a big sucker punch! (Time will tell...)

I'm starting to put some of the tracks from the new album on YouTube, and am working on it 'streaming' and such. My YouTube channel is: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9OT1F765UQHoyaB2ChzxeQ  

I can also tell you there will be a '4-Equidistant Strings Dulcimer Day' on March 11 and 'read all about it': https://4-equidistant-dulcimer-day.simplerosites.com/     More information coming on all this.

Let's hope for another great year for mountain dulcimers!! 

Leo 

 Mix'd Clrs Cover.png - 476KB

I have used some of the free programs on line with good results. I have to do that so seldom relearning every time slows me down a bit.

Looking forward to it John. I vaguely remember that hymn.

I just came across an old hymn by Mrs. Frank M. Breck entitled: "Help Somebody Today".          We used to sing it in Sunday School in the 1940"s and its message is as relevant today and makes a good New Year's Resolution. Here is the first verse and chorus: "Look all around you and find someone in need, Help somebody today. Tho' it be little a neighborly deed Help somebody today! (Chorus: Help somebody today Somebody along life's way. Let sorrow be ended the friendless befriended. Oh help somebody today!.)  I'm planning to share this hymn in a video on FOTMD soon but until then: Happy New Year Everyone

In the office at my employer we have a a license of pdf xchange editor: 
https://www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-editor

Most of it's features even works in the free version, otherwise you might need to buy a license. 

The nice thing is that, once licenced, you are free to use it as long as you like, no subscription costs like with Adobe. I'm quite sure splitting pages should work with the free version though.

Another nice thing is that it works with Linux too with the help of the wine emulator. 

Although Linux has it's own tools for such jobs (e.G. pdftk, okular just to name two) I tend to use pdf xchange since I'm used to its ways (I use Linux on my home pc and Windows on the job).

Best regards, Jost.

I use PDFSam Basic it's open source [free]. Be aware that you will need to go back and merge any multiple page tunes.

Another crude workaround way of doing this is to make many copies of the pdf and name each for a different included tune. Then open each one and delete the pages of all but the desired tune page, then save.

Adobe now offers something online called Adobe Express .  I believe it is free.  It is basically a scaled-down version of the full Adobe Creative Cloud, so it includes the ability to create and edit pdf files.

In Windows, with many .PDF files you can Right-Click on a page, turning it blue. Then select Copy Image. You then go to your favorite graphics program and use Paste As New Image, then save the song as a page image. This assumes that the pages are, in fact, images, it won't work with straight text.

Drag-&-Drop would probably work, too, but I haven't tried it. You might Drag-&Drop into a Word file and save as .PDF, but I haven't tried that either.

The technique probably also works in other operating systems.

Nice playing, Lisa.  And what a nice way to honor Gwen.  She was a member here and was pretty active in spurts. I had no idea she had passed away.

Lisa, I don't know if that is the correct person. I did a search on her name an that is one of the options that came up for Spartanburg, SC. The photo looked like her likeness from her videos. I never met Gwen and only know her through the dulcimer videos.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Gwen had a membership here on FOTMD as well- there are a few of her music and videos she posted here
https://fotmd.com/gwen-caeli

Ken, you do have the correct person.  Will look into LinkedIn to see how much is there (beyond the seeming 'introduction' the public sees).  Richard and Robin, thanks to you also for kind wishes.  While I hope more information surfaces here, I always appreciate the kindness of fotmd.  Happy New Year to all!