Thanks for my laugh of the day, Robin!  

Irene....all i can say is wow. Wonderful and amazing little peek into your music playing life.    And.. 14? You go, girl.

 

--
Site Owner

Those irritated by grain of sand best avoid beach.
-Strumelia proverb c.1990

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'm ate-up by mountain dulcimer.  My husband is ate-up by guitar.  I think mountain dulcimer can be an acquired taste.  I've forced my husband to acquire a taste.  

Almost every day, I am sitting playing the dulcimer and my wife smiles lovingly and then closes the door to whatever room I am in.  I get the hint.

--
Dusty T., Northern California
Site Moderator

As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
-- Dizzy Gillespie

My wife didn't mind the dulcimer, but when I got a bowed psaltery....

This is funny to me because it is similar to my wife’s comments. She just doesn’t get my love of old time traditional music, especially music played noter-drone style on a traditional dulcimer. Either I play very poorly or it is such a different sound to her ears that she doesn’t “get it”. Hahaha I have been playing guitar and singing for over 30 years. She likes and understands that. She also doesn’t understand that my music room is slowly being overtaken by so many different dulcimers. Soon I will have to take over more closet space in another room. But...I love it. Isn’t music great?!

That’s how my wife described my dulcimer playing earlier this week. I am a beginner, and I only began playing about a month ago. That was the first time she had heard me play the dulcimer. I have been waiting until she goes to bed to play, so as not to bother her.

Later that evening, I asked her what she meant by that. She said she didn’t mean it in a bad way, but that “it was really different than your guitar”.

How did your spouse/significant other react when they first heard you playing?