1997 – Massachusetts & upstate New York – with Roger Nicholson – read about Roger
Cambridge, MS - house concert
Blue Mountain Lake Arts Centre Theatre, NY – concert
North Eastern Dulcimer Symposium, NY - dulcimer festival

1998 – Florida
Eustis – Women’s Club Theatre – concert to standing ovation 
Yalaha Bakery – concert
St Francis Inn, At Augustine – concert

2000 – Kentucky
Blowing Green – Theatre On The Green – concert
Bardstown - Kentucky Music Week – dulcimer festival
Fox 41 TV – live broadcast
Urquoise Park Ampitheatre, Louisville – Kentucky Music Weekend - folk festival
read more

2001 – Texas
Houston - SAMFest – folk festival
read more

2002 - Ireland
Tullamore - Tullamore Arts Festival

2003 - Ireland
Cork - Cork Dulcimer Festival

2003 – Indiana
New Harmony – Dulcimer Chautauqua on the Wabash – dulcimer festival

2005 – Kentucky
Bardstown - Kentucky Music Week – dulcimer festival

2005 – Kentucky
Elizabethtown – Heartland Dulcimer Festival - workshops & concert to standing ovation

2005 – Indiana
New Harmony – Dulcimer Chautauqua on the Wabash – dulcimer festival

2007 – Indiana
New Harmony – Dulcimer Chautauqua on the Wabash – dulcimer festival

2010 – Kentucky
Bardstown - Kentucky Music Week – dulcimer festival
read more

Kentucky Music Week (KMW) – 21st to 25th June 2010 - Bardstown, Kentucky

Friendship
This was my 3rd KMW dulcimer festival.  Read about my 1st trip to Kentucky. It was great to be back in Kentucky again, to connect with many old friends and meet a few new ones too. To mention but two: Butch Ross and Stephen Seifert are both great mountain dulcimer players. Butch is a consummate performer and Steve is, in my opinion, the finest player in the world.

New friends I met this time included the excellent musician Dan Landrum, a hammer dulcimer player and editor of the Dulcimer Players News (DPN) magazine. Dan has taken the DPN forward with contemporary graphics and quality printing.

I also met and enjoyed the company of Bing Futch, a handsome and very cool man and I shared a room with Steve Eulberg, a great guy and knowledgeable musician. Reads Steve's blog on me and my playing.

Diary
I flew into Louisville, Kentucky on the Saturday and stayed for the 3rd time with old friends and lovely couple Karl & Scottie Sebree, who are members of the Louisville Dulcimer Society. We were joined on the Sunday by Robert Force, a mountain dulcimer player who uses a strap and plays standing up. We made our way to the festival at Bardstown for a tutor briefing with Festival Director Nancy Barker.

Workshops ran Monday to Friday and I lead four classes each day: three on mountain dulcimer in DAA tuning (the Ionian mode), from beginner to advanced and a song class based on my UK voice workshop: Everyone Can Sing.

The tutors gave concerts on Monday and Tuesday evenings. Everyone I spoke to felt that Butch Ross’ performance was outstanding. Butch also gave an informal presentation using multiple dulcimers and a sampler to create layers of sound from a solo performance – it was very well thought through and enthusiastically received. The techniques he used are similar to my own electric guitar work.

On the Wednesday evening we found ourselves at Weavers Corner, the home and business premises of friend and hammer dulcimer player, Martha Richard. The weaving machines were impressive and her fabrics were lovely looking and soft to the touch.

Nancy Barker puts on a great festival – there’s so much going on – it’s hard work, but relaxed and great fun. Each day has a different theme, culminating in a Mardi Gras party on the Friday night at which I danced with (new friend) Jeff Furman’s wife. I don’t dance well – I hope I didn’t step on her toes.

As well as the workshops there were special events scheduled, including a tribute to the late David Schnaufer and a tribute to the late British dulcimer player, Roger Nicholson. It was an honour for me to lead the tribute to Roger. Read more about Roger.

My own concert performance received favorable comment and my voice class students gave two performances at short notice, including a round in French - they acquitted themselves very well indeed. We had a few tears on my voice workshop during a session on how to connect with the emotion of the song. This is very rewarding work.

Excellent hammer dulcimer player Rick Thum is also a maker of the instrument – his craftsmanship is superb. He arrived in a beautiful old green van, which he had restored himself.

Highlights
Looking back on the week, two highlights stand out for me …

Long standing friend, Alice Burton and I learned some duets for mountain and bowed dulcimer – the two instruments complemented each other beautifully. We performed a lovely arrangement of the Beatles’ song Let It Be to an attentive and appreciative audience.

On Friday night Steve Seifert and I swapped dulcimers and improvised non-stop for over 30 minutes without a word being spoken. It was original, innovative, flowing and flawless. Steve is not just the leading dulcimer player, he’s also a very funny guy. Earlier in the week he said to me: “I want to play with you this week. If my theory about the after-life is wrong, we may not get and other chance.”

You only live once and I’m really glad I made the trip.   

More images    

how to have strong, healthy nails to fingerpick with

Nail care
Manicure your nails a couple of times a month by:
pushing back the cuticle
buffing the upper surfaces to remove ridges
filing the nails (not cutting or clipping) into a smooth curve avoiding any sharp corners—using a nail file
profiling the tips such that the plucking edge is sharp but the upper edge is rounded

Nail length
On your left hand (assuming you’re right handed) your nails need to be short enough so that they don’t touch the strings, even under pressure. Push you left fingers vertically onto a hard, smooth surface. Your nails should just miss touching the surface if they are the correct length. To long and they will inhibit your playing and damage your fingerboard, too short and they will become misshapen.
How long your right nails are is more personal and may vary according to the musical style. As a general rule, long nails give a sweet, soft sound, whereas short nails will give more volume and allow for greater speed.  Your nails should be short enough to allow your fingertips to touch and dampen the string when it is plucked but not so short that you have to hook your fingers to play.

Problems & repairs
If you suffer from nails that tear, split or chip on a regular basis - it could be due to a lack of calcium in your diet. Many guitarists eat raw jelly (jello in the USA) on a daily basis to increase their calcium intake. Massaging nail-oil into the cuticle when you manicure might help too.
Cracks and fissures can be repaired with nail-glue or superglue. More extensive repairs can be achieved using false nails. There are many types of false nails but the type that uses a powder and liquid mix works particularly well. False nails are only recommended for repairs not for regular use. The glues they use drain the nail of it’s natural oils and the nail will be weaker for a while after the fault has grown out.

Finger picks sound great, albeit at the expense of sensitivity, if you can get along with them.

I’m writing this article sitting on a Jumbo Jet, flying economy-class back from Texas to England. The reason for this trip was to teach and perform at the 7th SAMFest (Summer Accoustic Music Festival) in Houston.

As you might imagine, it’s hot in Houston in July so I really appreciated the air-conditioned environment we worked in. The festival was held at the Westchase Campus of the First United Methodist Church. ‘Campus’ is the right word as the venue includes a college, chapel and a large theatre space. The premises are only a year old and this was a first-class facility for the event. To give you an idea of the scale of things: the First United Methodist Church has 25,000 members.

The festival director is Peggy Carter, herself a fine musician on mountain and hammered dulcimers, having won both the Texas and Southern Region Hammer Dulcimer Championships. Peggy was assisted by her husband Chuck, who developed and sold fine instrument cases as well as providing accessories for the players at the festival. I arrived early with Peggy and Chuck and folks started arriving from the surrounding areas of Houston, Texas and neighbouring states. In no time there was a sense of community that pervaded throughout the 3-day event.

I was commissioned to give a concert performance and to teach 7 classes. On the first day of the festival I lead a 3-hour ‘power workshop’ on guitar, teaching modal music in the Open-C tuning. I then gave three very well attended dulcimer classes: one on chords in the Ionian mode, one on the Dorian mode and one in the Bagpipe tuning. Peggy also asked me to include a class on arranging traditional music as well as a session on chanting and rhythm, which I lead sitting the group in a circle, cross-legged in the campus Chapel. Finally I lead a dulcimer ‘play-around’ on much the same lines as an English sing-a-round. I was really lucky to have good students, some of whom are graduate musicians, performers or teachers themselves. They were interested in my approach, asked good questions and participated eagerly in the lessons.

My concert performance was warmly received and resulted in very healthy CD sales. Just before hand, while I was warming up, a lady called Anita Bustamante started singing along with me. During the performance I invited Anita to the stage and, with minimal preparation, we sang a song together that sounded very rehearsed indeed. It’s always a pleasure to meet and work with new musicians. I also met David Moran and Rick Thum who are master hammer dulcimer players. Rick is also an expert maker of the hammer dulcimer and one of his instruments was raffled and won by a student of the festival.

One lunch-time a novice player asked me to help her decide which one of two dulcettes (small dulcimers) she should buy. She gave me one to evaluate and gave the other to Linda Brockinton, another player/teacher. In no time we were making really nice music together and soon had a dulcette duet of the Beatles song: Let It Be. Later that night we performed this at three of the jam sessions. At the biggest of these the room lights were put out and we were lit be cigarette lighters being gently waved from side to side - it was a lovely moment.
I swapped (Americans say traded) CDs with some of the performers there and came back with a number of interesting new records to add to my growing collection of dulcimer albums of American musicians that I’ve had the privilege to work with. One of my favourites this time is a CD given to me by a student called Cindy Angel who plays flute in a group called Briar Rose.

I already knew three of the tutors/performers from my tour of Kentucky last year: Maureen Sellers, Lorinda Jones and Steve Seifert. All three play mountain dulcimer and Lorinda also plays harp. Steve flew in from Nashville, Tennessee whilst Maureen and Lorinda flew in from Indiana and Kentucky respectively. Coincidentally both Maureen and Lorinda were up-graded to first-class seats on their flights to Houston. They became known as the ‘first-class dulcimer players’ and lived up to their name, in their individual ways, by performing with grace and aplomb. As I write I’m lying, stretched out across three seats on the plane, which is only half full. It’s not first class but does this make me a ‘laid-back dulcimer player ‘?  Steve and I shared a room at the hotel, which was very comfortable, and got to know each other a little better this year. We joked a lot and got on very well. 

On the last night of the festival there were problems with the sound system. They were short of staff and the ‘gremlins’ were out in force. Because of my experience of sound engineering, I was asked to help out. With a little re-scheduling, some straightforward mic-ing techniques, a pinch of common sense and a lot of hard work we got a good sound for the show. And what a good night it was …

Rick Thum’s band gave an excellent performance, ably supported by Patty Amelotte, Frank Simpson and Lorinda Jones. It would normally be unfair to single out one artist for special praise, but there was one performer that night who, for me, was something really special: Steve Seifert. I had previously thought that Steve was on the par with the great guitarists of our time but he’s progressed further now, not only mastering his instrument but completely transcending it. He deservedly won a standing ovation for a solo performance of a jazzy/rocky number on the mountain dulcimer – taking the instrument to heights that no-one ever imagined possible.

… and to think I shared a room with that guy and we’d pull each other’s leg over a beer while watching some trashy TV, just before turning in for the night. People have said to me: “you went all the way to Texas for a 3-day festival – was it worth it ? “. Worth it ? – I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

I am currently recording a new CD album of mostly dulcimer material

there are traditional songs and airs from the British Isles as well as few classics, all beautifully arranged on the dulcimer 

accompanying musicians include Sylvia Seaton on violin and Andy Crowdy on bass and classical guitar
it should be available in a few months - e-mail me if you would like to reserve a copy

serial No: DSM6 / working title: Live Not Where I Love

as well as being invited to the Royal Television Awards this year, my music has been featured in a number of national publications recently

 

Durham First - the magazine of Durham University included a short article on my unusual career in their spring / summer 2010 issue     

 

the American magazine with international coverage, the Dulcimer Players News have published a four page article of mine entitled Singing With The Dulcimer in their spring 2010 issue

 

the Mail On Sunday published a favorable ½ page article on my voice workshop Everyone Can Sing at Farncombe Estate in Nov 2009

 

in March 2009 the WI magazine WI Life published a short column interview about my voice workshop Everyone Can Sing at Denman College near Oxford

 

in 2009 the prestigious ISM organization ran a ½ page interview about my music in their ISM Magazine

 

in March 2009 the Express On Sunday published a one and a half page review on the front of their Travel Supplement of my voice workshop Everyone Can Sing at Farncombe Estate - the reviewer attended my class all weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it – the review clearly reflected this  

Team building and community development though learning to sing

Doubtless many choirs and singing groups bring people together and help to form friendships and communities. Singing is enjoyable, good for you and sociable in all sorts of ways. My Everyone Can Sing voice workshop however goes further than this – as well as the sociable aspects of singing, my workshop actively builds teams and communities. Confidence is key in singing and my coaching process was designed to develop confidence. A by-product of this process is highly effective team building and community development.

Confidence is key in singing – weather it’s singing powerfully, hitting high notes or presenting moving songs – it’s important to feel confident in order to sing well. My Everyone Can Sing voice workshop deploys my ‘engine’, which develops confidence through the reinforcement of existing (and developing) strengths. Participants grow in confidence by receiving positive feedback from myself as the tutor but also, importantly, from the other participants.

In giving positive feedback, participants show each other respect, differences are celebrated and competitiveness vanishes – everyone encourages everyone else to succeed. This creates a motivating and exciting ambience, in which I can gently challenge limiting beliefs and help participants to achieve their full potential at that time. Participants frequently progress more than they would have thought possible and are often moved by the experience, which is memorable for them. Participants not only feel more confident but they also they also develop a more optimistic and positive outlook.

In showing respect, celebrating differences, removing competitiveness and working in a positive, motivating and exciting ambience, barriers come down, friendships are formed, teams are built and communities develop.

This chart illustrates how my ‘engine’ works …  

You can experience this for yourself by attending my Everyone Can Sing voice workshop at one of these venues. Early booking is advised as these events frequently sell out.

I was lucky enough to have an invitation to this prestigious event at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London. My host is a guitarist and event organiser who had previously worked with Pink Floyd and the Mercury music prize. I made new friends and enjoyed the evening.

British comic, Rob Brydon hosted the event with consummate ease and among the many and worthy award winners, the beautiful and talented Naomie Harris won best actress. 

Read more on the BBC website  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8570852.stm

Stage fright, or performance anxiety, is a very common problem but it can be resolved.  Students on my Performance Skills workshops are coached to lose their nerves, excel in presentation and they also learn about the psychology of performing.

 

The paradox of performing is that fear holds us back in our discomfort zone, where we punish ourselves with negative thoughts and limiting beliefs.  Letting go takes us to a new place, where uncertainty rules.  Here our inner creativity takes over and we instinctively know what to do.  We focus on the music, emotion & interaction and loose our inhibitions.

As well as my solo work, I also perform with violinist Sylvia Seaton in the duo Eclipse. 

Elcipse are ...
Dan Evans: dulcimer, guitar & vocals
Sylvia Seaton: violin

Fingerstyle dulcimer player Dan Evans is also an original guitarist, specialising in open tunings and modal music. He has undertaken many tours in the USA and his CD albums have won critical international acclaim. 

Sylvia Seaton is a graduate of the Royal College of Music, London. She works as a freelance violinist performing a wide range of material in orchestras and shows, including performing in the folk duo Carolan.

Together, Eclipse present a delightful repertoire of traditional folk songs and airs from the British Isles. All are beautifully arranged with subtle and original harmonies and are skilfully performed on the finest hand-crafted acoustic instruments.    

Eclipse ~ take a fresh look at the folk tradition  

The following article was written for the American magazine Dulcimer Players News.

Few performers sing with the mountain dulcimer today.  It’s great to hear music on the dulcimer and I delight in the virtuosity of the great players - but accompanying songs is good fun too.  The dulcimer’s sweet sound is an ideal accompaniment for many folk songs and it’s surprising what can be done in Ionian tuning with just three strings and no half-frets.

pitch and key
When I started playing dulcimer, I followed the traditional principle of tuning the dulcimer to suit my voice. Typically I’d be in (or near) the key of C.  I liked the organic nature of this approach but it had two main disadvantages:  You can’t play with other instruments and the strings were never optimised, sometimes being over-slack and limiting the tone of the instrument.  As my voice developed it became higher and I started using D and later E as typical keys to sing and play in.  As I played with other musicians more it became important to tune the instrument to a fixed key so we were in tune.

In over 15 years of teaching singing I find it common for singers to choose a lower key than is ideal for their voice.  This has much to do with confidence of hitting high notes - so comfortable keys are chosen, rather than ideal ones.  For me the key of E can sometimes feel a little high on the top notes.  Despite this, E is generally a better key for me than D.  Being in the right key requires less breath and helps to project the voice better - these help to sustain long notes and to communicate the emotion of the song.

Teaching singing has also shown me the great importance of warming up and being relaxed, which is often underrated or overlooked.  On my weekend singing course we spend a significant amount of time warming up and relaxing through Yoga, some simple voice exercises like humming and lots of laughter.  These significantly help with vocal tone and range. 

posture & breathing
We generally sing best standing up so that the diaphragm can move freely.  The diaphragm can be used in conjunction with the chest muscles to control the volume of air in the lungs.  Whilst some singers intuitively know how to use their diaphragm, all singers can be taught the technique.  Depending upon how we sit, the movement of the diaphragm can be inhibited and the lung capacity limited.  Assuming you play sitting down, holding your back straight helps, as does sitting upright - leaning forward with a curved back dramatically limits the lung capacity.  Singers with deep voices don’t just need the chest for breathing, the sound resonates there too – so a poor posture will inhibit resonance as well as limiting breathing potential.  A good posture looks attractive too.
Inevitably, even the most confident and adept players will at some point want to glance down at their fingers.  Unfortunately this tilting down of the head closes the airway and can limit or even stifle the voice.  Ideally, the singer’s head should not only be looking ahead, but up slightly too.  This opens the throat and maximises the vocal sound.

telling the story
We are all drawn to the beauty of our chosen music.  In sharing a song however, that beauty can easily be lost if we are tense and thinking about what we are playing on the dulcimer.  By the same token, it’s easy to sing a song parrot-fashion because we know it so well.  I coach singers to present their songs with warmth and passion using a drama technique called ‘method acting’.  Once the song is learned, the focus is on the words and their meaning to the singer.  When the singer relates the meaning of the words to their own experiences the quality of the vocal sound changes and the song comes to life.  In this way the singer connects emotionally with their material and communicates the feeling of the song, telling its story.  In performance, this technique not only puts feeling into the song but the effort required to do so takes the focus away from any nerves or negative feelings the performer may have.

rhythm and rubato
In much contemporary music, rhythm is king.  Traditional songs that might be played on the dulcimer however are often not like that.  Verses and stanzas can vary in length and need to be interpreted with greater rhythmic freedom.  Although there are many ways to describe these timing variations, the most common and meaningful term for this is probably rubato.  Technically, rubato (or tempo rubato) means rhythmic give-and-take when playing.  This gentle ebb and flow of the rhythm adds depth and interest to the music, making the song breath and so come to life.  I think of playing a song as a dance: During the verses the singer takes the lead and the dulcimer follows.  During the instrumental parts – intros, interludes and outros - the dulcimer leads the dance.
Intros, interludes and outros are important parts of a song.  The intro gives the singer the tempo and pitch and interludes let the singer catch their breath.  All three devices break up the song and allow the player to show off the beauty of the dulcimer.  They also allow for little complexities in the playing which would be lost and out of place during the singing verses.  A key principle of musical composition is the creation and resolution of tension.  Intros and outros are particularly good places to do this.  Hanging on a seventh chord for example, will create tension whist a major chord will resolve it.  In DAA tuning, compare the chords A7 (3-2-4) with D (2-0-3). The end of the intro, just before the singing - or at the very end of the outro are both useful places to deploy this device.

my DAA song accompaniment method
My dulcimers have three strings and a diatonic scale (there are no half-frets) and my favourite tuning is Ionian, commonly referred to as DAA.  In Ionian, the method I’ve developed to accompany folk songs is to play chord shapes with my left hand and fingerpick them with my right. 

This illustration shows a typical picking pattern that I would use for a song in 4/4 timing.

    

 

Equally simple but effective patterns are used for 2/4 and 3/4 time signatures and so on.  The next illustration shows how to introduce a simple rest in the pattern to create a sense of space in the accompaniment.

 

Likewise, other small changes to the picking add variety.  The beauty of this approach is that you can make the picking as simple or complex as you like, depending upon the song and your dexterity.  Fingerpicking allows for a certain amount of rubato but if I want to be more expressive with the timing, I’ll gently strum the chords for a specific part of the song, making the dulcimer follow the free rhythm of the voice.  

The picking gives rhythm and the notes in the chord add harmony to the song – but the real strength of this approach lies in using chord inversions.  Compare these three inversions of the D major chord: 2-0-3, 4-3-5 and 7-5-7.  By choosing appropriate inversions of each chord in the song, the accompaniment takes on a distinct shape can even convey a sense of the melody.  This simple but powerful method gives harmony, rhythm and a sense of the melody – it’s a complete accompaniment.

The example shown of the song Bogie’s Bonny Belle illustrates a number of these points:  Inversions are used to give a sense of melody to the accompaniment and the picking pattern is broken to add variety and accommodate quick chord changes (measure 3) and a time-signature change (measure 6).    

 

  

Although Ionian is a major scale, the DAA tuning allows minor chords also - eg Bm 2-1-3, F#m 2-0-2 and Em 3-1-4.  Without retuning to a minor mode, you can accompany a minor song.  Indeed, even without half-frets, the variety and complexity of chords available is considerable including sevenths, minor sevenths and suspended fourths.

to conclude
There’s a lot more to singing and playing the dulcimer than the specific tips in this article.  If you adopt them however, they will help you to tell the story of your song.  Happy dulsinging! 

I’m often asked about the origins of the dulcimer. I know that there are polarised views on this topic. Some see connections with early European instruments, whist many American players are proud of it’s Appalachian origins. The truth is probably somewhere in between. The following text is an extract from the cover of Roger Nicholson’s albumThe Gentle Sound of the Dulcimer, released in 1974:

Most of the European countries had an indigenous zither-like instrument in the seventeenth century, used in rural areas and at the royal courts to accompany songs. During the eighteenth century began the migration of people from Europe to the New World, where the greatest concentration of settlers was in the Appalachian mountains. Here the traditional cultures of many nations intermingled and the dulcimer in its present form emerged. By the 1850’s a dulcimer could be found in most Appalachian homes, where it would be played when the family sang the songs handed down by their fore-fathers or to provide dance music.

When I started playing the instrument over thirty years ago, it was referred to then as the Appalachian dulcimer. Nowadays it has other names including lap dulcimer and fretted dulcimer. Although some still call it the Appalachian dulcimer, the term mountain dulcimer is the most used today. 

I need a reliable system for stage use that gives a clear and smooth sound, is quick to set up and allows me to move around a little with the guitar. The answer for me is transducer, saddle-type pickups. I have these fitted to all my instruments and they give a controlled, strong and smooth sound.

Pickups mask squeaks and fingering noises but still convey the character of the instrument. They also allow high SPLs (sound pressure levels) before the onset of feedback (howl around).

Critically, the signal from the pickup needs to be conditioned by an acoustic pre-amp before being fed into the mixing desk (board). The preamp ensures that the impedance of the signal is matched to the desk, which results in a balanced sound (EQ-wise).

If there’s the facility, a little reverb doesn’t do any harm, especially on the dulcimer. The very strong bass my guitars is in part due to Open C tuning.

It’s confusing. For many, many years I’ve referred to the Ionian tuning on dulcimer as AAD but the convention now seems to be DAA. So I’ve adopted DAA as my label for the Ionian mode on dulcimer, simply to conform.

To be clear, weather you call Ionian AAD or DAA, this is how I tune the instrument: The first /chanter string is tuned to A, the middle string is tuned to A and the third/bass string is tuned to the D below. I hope this clears things up.

On my Everyone Can Sing voice workshop, I teach the open-throated calling technique, used by most styles of professional singers. Anyone can learn this and benefit from singing more powerfully.

To project or ‘throw’ your voice using open-throated calling, you need to be relaxed, adopt the right posture and breathe correctly. Finally the shape of the mouth and the vowel you make complete the picture. I teach all of these things on my class in a fun and practical way.

Most people show significant improvement in projection and this helps with dynamics and to communicate the emotion of the song. Participants generally find the open-throated calling technique energising and the new power in their voice to be liberating.

you can buy my CDs directly from me
for the UK they are £10 each plus £1 for P&P
for the other countries they are (US) $15 plus (US) $2 for P&P 
simply e-mail me which one(s) you want along with your address and I’ll send you the CDs and details of how to pay 

they are also available from the Divine Art Recordings Group, who have outlets both in the UK and in the USA
you can also buy the CDs or download individual tracks from ClassicsOnline - enter my name in their search box and then click on the CDs
Best wishes, Dan

Tree-frogs, gortex strings and that cowboy hat
adventures in Kentucky in 2000

Nancy Barker is the big-hearted lady who booked me to play in Kentucky and it’s thanks to her that I was able to tour over there this year, performing and teaching with guitar and mountain dulcimer. Herself a fine singer and musician, Nancy is the brains and driving force behind the Kentucky Music Week (KMW) dulcimer camp and the Kentucky Music Weekend festival. Nancy’s e-mail address makes reference to tree-frogs so, being interested in natural history, I was looking forward to seeing or hearing some of these little creatures during my visit.

Friday 14th July
I was met at the airport by Karl & Scottie Sebree, a very kind couple who play the dulcimer and are members of the Louisville (pronounced Lou-a-vull) Dulcimer Society. Since their retirement Karl and Scottie spend much of their time supporting the local folk scene. Not having met them before, I spotted them straight away at the airport as they held a dulcimer-shaped sign with my name on it - a nice touch! Karl & Scottie were our hosts later on in the trip too and we were very well looked after during our stay with them.

The first thing you notice about Kentucky is the humidity. It’s about as hot as north Africa but as humid as the tropics. The humidity almost physically hits you as you step out of an air-conditioned environment. I thought that I would be used to this after my tour of Florida in ‘98 but Kentucky seemed even more humid than that. The second thing you notice is the warmth and friendliness of the people from Kentucky, which made the trip doubly enjoyable. 

Saturday 15th July
A folk duo from Cincinnati (pronounced Cincinnata), called Wild Carrot, gave me a lift (Americans say ride) to Bowling Green where I performed at the first concert. They took me in their Ford Econoline van south along the Interstate 65 towards Nashville, until we turned off for the town of Bowling Green. In good company, with Nancy Griffith’s song ‘Ford Econoline’ on my mind and passing signs that said ‘I-65 South Nashville’ everything felt strangely right felt somehow.

Pam from Wild Carrot has bright red hair and, with her partner Spencer Funk, they make a tight acoustic duo. They have packets of wild carrot seeds on their product stand - an original way to promote themselves! Other acts on the stage that night included a very young dulcimer duo called Next Generation who showed great promise, a slick bluegrass band called Fresh Cut Grass who use the traditional method of performing around a single microphone and Nancy’s own band The Kentucky Standard Band. The concert was in the town theatre just on the square and we played to a friendly crowd.

After the concert I took in the cooler night Kentucky air. This is a lovely thing to do - the sounds are amazing. Invisible crickets and cicadas compete in loud singing competitions that add a romantic feel to the evening. I was told that tree-frogs join in the chorus but I didn’t hear any that night.

Sunday 16th July
Nancy Barker and two of her ‘angels’ gave me a ride to the town of Bardstown, the location of the week-long dulcimer camp. Curiously Bardstown is just a few miles west of Danville and there’s an Evansville just over the Ohio river, in Indiana. The ladies I refer to as ‘Nancy’s Angels’ are Debbie Grizzell, Alice Burton and Sandy Huebel. They make sure that everything happens on time, helping Nancy’s vision become a reality. They do a great job.

Monday 17th July - Friday 21st July
Indeed, the Kentucky Music Week camp was a masterpiece of organisation, there was so much going on that my feet barely touched the ground. Dulcimers in England are few and far between so imagine my delight working at a camp of over two hundred people, most of which were mountain dulcimer players. The late night jams would include a couple of dozen mountain dulcimers, or even more.

It was a privilege for me to work with many of the top players in the dulcimer world including: Rob Brereton, Susan Trump, Maureen Sellers, Gary Gallier, Fred Meyer, Jim Miller, Molly Freibert, Steve Seifert and the man they refer to as ‘the professor himself’, David Schnaufer. David lives in Nashville and holds a university professorship. He has played with such household names as Emi-Lou Harris, Mark Knopfler, the Everly Brothers and Chet Atkin. David is a quiet and gracious man who clearly loves his work. There were instructors on other instruments who’s company I enjoyed too including: David James (hammered dulcimer), Greg Jowaisas (banjo), Lorinda Jones (harp), Neal Walters (autoharp) and the duo Cathy Barton (Banjo) & Dave Para (guitar) to mention but a few. I’m probably doing these fine musicians an injustice as they all play other instruments too. Interestingly, Neal Walters is also one of the editors of the American magazine Dulcimer Player’s News. Dave Para, brews his own ale, which I sampled. He was tickled to have his beer sampled by someone who used to be a beer taster for an English brewery.

The students at the dulcimer camp pulled out all sorts of stops and hosted a very enjoyable concert on the Tuesday evening. But if the student’s concert was good, then the Instructors concert on Thursday night was sheer magic! I had heard many of the performer’s CDs before but to hear them play live was really special. My personal favourites were Susan Trump’s beautiful singing on the song ‘Make Hay While The Sun Shines’, a highly original Mexican composition by Gary Gallier - played on one of the dulcimers he himself built, a Gershwin song superbly arranged for dulcimer by Rob Brereton, and David Schnaufer’s old-time music on a banjo-dulcimer. All of these players have expanded the boundaries of the instrument and are very fine musicians in their own right. What stole the show for me however was the virtuosity of Steve Seifert. A previous student of David’s, Steve plays a chromatic dulcimer (one with a full compliment of sharps and flats) and his skill and versatility are quite incredible.

The lessons were held during the day in an air-conditioned college, after which we would eat out in the local restaurants and then enjoy concerts followed by informal jams late in the evenings. I lead four classes each day: English Finger-Style Guitar, The Modal Dulcimer, Song Accompaniments For Dulcimer and a Performance Skills class for dulcimer players. For Copyright reasons, the pieces taught had to be either original or traditional so I used a number of my own compositions in my classes. It was a real treat for me to hear my pieces being played by the students, who I seemed to enjoy playing them. I also lead an informal session on chanting and rhythm which was attended by a large and lively group. 

that cowboy hat
The camp wasn’t all hard work - we partied a lot too. One night some of the instructors took me to a rodeo. It was quite an experience to see the massive bulls throwing their riders off in seconds. One man was picked up between the bull’s horns and tossed into the air whereupon he landed on six-foot fence. Had I not seen it myself, I might not have believed it. The instructors bought me a smart black cowboy hat which, much to my surprise, suited me very well. I wore it for my classes the next day and for my performance at the instructors’ concert, which raised a smile or two.

With my smart black cowboy hat I could pass for a local, just as long as I didn’t say anything that is. My English accent was very conspicuous and attracted a lot of interest. One evening Rob, Neil and I were eating in a restaurant and the waitress interrupted us to say to me: where y’all from, I love your accent. This tickled Neal and Rob as she herself had a broad Kentucky accent. At this point I should explain that the people from Kentucky don’t speak English as such, but a variant of American with a few grammar rules all of their own. For example: y’all doesn’t mean ‘you all’ but ‘you’ singular, the waitress was referring to me personally. It takes a bit of getting used to. Back at the instructors lodge we had quite a few laughs about the different ways we speak. The phrase ‘two countries separated by a common language’ was never more relevant.        

Saturday 22nd - Tuesday 25th July
After the KMW dulcimer camp, my wife Mary flew out from England to join me for the remainder of my stay in Kentucky. We hired a car, booked into a nice motel in Bardstown and spent an enjoyable few days getting to know the surrounding area. Like me, Mary is interested in wildlife so we visited a park called Bernheim Forest where we saw chipmunks, red winged blackbirds and a friendly turtle. We didn’t see any tree-frogs however. On the way back from Bernheim Forest we passed the Jim Beam distillery and stopped off to visit their ‘Outpost’ visitor centre. Bourbon and tobacco are two of Kentucky’s traditional exports.    

   

Wednesday 26th July
Nancy and I drove up to Louisville (pronounced Lou-a-vull, remember) to do an interview for the television channel Fox 41 to help to promote the Kentucky Music Weekend festival that weekend. We arrived at the Fox studios just after 8am and were quickly ushered into the newsdesk studio. Nancy answered questions about the forthcoming festival and I performed a couple of modal pieces on guitar and dulcimer. The programme was broadcast live and we complemented each other afterwards on a job well done.            

27th - 30th July
The Kentucky Music Weekend festival is based in the beautiful grounds of Iroquois (pronounced Urcoyz) Park in the southern outskirts of Lou-a-vull. There was a main stage that seated a couple of thousand in an open-air amphitheatre surrounded by a number of smaller stages under the trees, where more intimate concerts and workshops were held. For the weekend festival we stayed with our new friends Karl and Scottie again and saw more chipmunks, red cardinal and a Cooper’s Hawk in their garden (back yard). At the end of their road a friendly groundhog watched unconcerned as we drove by - but still no tree-frogs.

My work at the festival consisted of a performance on the main stage as well as a concerts and workshops on the smaller stages. Much of this work was recorded for a film of the event and I was also interviewed on camera by the film company. I met and very much enjoyed working with John McCormick, an American guitarist who has toured the UK many times. I also met a duo called Small Potatoes who’s exciting performances were loved by the crowd and a guitar composer called Paul Reisler who’s music we found enthralling. It was also a privilege to meet two legends of the American folk scene: Bill Staines and Jean Richie. 

A number of the performers at the Kentucky Music Weekend I had already met: Next Generation, Wild Carrot, Fred Myer, David Schnaufer, Jack Twombly of the Celtic band Beyond The Pale and Nancy’s own Kentucky Standard Band - so I felt among friends from the start. David and Fred lead a dulcimer workshop at which I played a couple of pieces, one of my own and one of Roger Nicholson’s compositions. Roger is the leading exponent on the dulcimer in the UK. David, Fred and several other players there had either met Roger or knew of his work. David was at pains to point out to the workshop audience how significant Roger’s contribution has been to the development of the dulcimer in the USA.

This was not only the festival’s 25th anniversary but also the amphitheatre’s last event. The whole venue is being rebuilt this year to form a covered arena. As you can imagine this was a special year for the festival. To play in the open air in a wooded park is a lovely setting for folk music and the audience that had come, year upon year, really appreciated the whole event. Nancy does a great job of getting sponsorship from local authorities and industry and the 25th celebrations started with a formal reception on the Thursday evening with speeches of congratulations and support from various local dignitaries.

gortex strings
Uncharacteristically, it rained some of the time during the week-end. I very much welcomed the cool this brought but the humidity afterwards was oppressive. My watch even steamed up. Several of the guitar players were finding it difficult to play with clammy hands and I kept putting fresh strings on my guitar to retain a crisp tone. Practical as ever, the Americans have come up with an answer to this problem - Goretex strings, or to be more accurate, strings with a Gore coating. Those who use them claim that they last much longer and play well in humid conditions. I tried a Martin 000 series guitar with Goretex strings and I found them to have a very smooth feel but with limited sustain. I have been given a set to evaluate on one of my own instruments, which I look forward to trying out.      

I don’t want you to think that this trip was ‘too good to be true’. Far from it, lots of things went wrong. To give you just a couple of examples: on my flight out my suitcase arrived on another plane about 5 hours late, the airline did the same thing a week later to Mary, one of my flights was delayed due to engine trouble, on another we couldn’t land for a long time due to bad weather, we heard of four shootings in Louisville during the short time that we stayed there and I managed to scrape the car on a high curb on the way back to hire company. But all of these things pale into insignificance when we look back on the trip as a whole. We really did have a marvellous time. 

finale
As you might imagine, I felt quite sad driving away from the amphitheatre after the last performance on the Sunday evening, but what a memory to take away… I played to a very warm crowd and then enjoyed excellent performances from Small Potatoes and Paul Reisler. To close the festival all the performers joined Bill Staines and Jean Richie on stage and sang ‘Beneath Kentucky Skies’ which had only just been written a couple of hours beforehand in the back-stage changing rooms. After singing the song once through, we all hummed the tune while Nancy attempted to read out notes from regular supporters of their memories of the last 25 years, rather like we would have telegrams read at a wedding in England. I say ‘attempted’ as poor Nancy only got half way though the first one before she broke down and had to leave the stage for a few minutes. 25 years of memories was just too much to bear. ‘Angel’ Alice stepped in to cover and after the notes had been read, we sang one more chorus of ‘Beneath Kentucky Skies’ to finish. Then suddenly, just as the lights were fading, just as the final applause was dying down, just as we were all about to leave the stage for the last time - I distinctly heard the call of a tree-frog. My trip was complete.

Read about my 2010 trip to Kentucky Music Week.

Amazing Grace is one of the Olney hymns, written by William Cowper and John Newton, who were both ministers in the small market-town of Olney in Buckinghamshire.  My wife and I live in Olney and a short walk across the fields from our house takes you to Cowper’s Alcove, where Cowper and Newton wrote some of their poems.  As you can imagine, Cowper’s Alcove is one of our favourite paces.

2007 saw celebrations all over the UK, but especially here in Olney, marking the 200th anniversary of the Parliamentiary bill abolishing slavery.  This was because of Amazing Grace and John Newton’s involvement in the bill.

The Story goes that Newton became ill in Sierra Leone on the west coast of Africa but was looked after by the local back people, which he was later to exploit.  He then worked on the slave ships, transporting African slaves, in appalling conditions, from Sierra Leone to the Caribbean to work in cotton fields and sugar plantations.  After a while Newton was promoted to captain and one wild night his ship risked being capsized in a storm.  That night he prayed and became one of the ‘storm convertites’, not only regretting his former ways, but becoming a minister and supporting William Wilberforce to get the Abolition of Slavery bill through Parliament.

Bearing this in mind, the words: ‘I once was lost but now I’m found’ seem now to have a deeper resonance.

I lead open (public) Everyone Can Sing classes at two centres:

Farncombe Estate, near Broadway in the Costwolds 
beautiful modern centre with splendid views and wildlife
e-mail website
phone 01386 854100

Denman WI College, near Abingdon, south of Oxford
beautiful period building in lovely grounds - open to non-members and men 
e-mail website
phone 01865 391991

These many not be near to you but people do travel to attend these popular classes. I’ve had students come from Scotland, The Orkneys, Cornwall, Ireland, Northern Ireland, The Dordogne, Brussels, Switzerland and Greece.

For over fifteen years my popular Everyone Can Sing voice workshop has been developing confidence in singers of all levels of ability. The process that I use develops confidence by the reinforcement of existing strengths. As singers, we tend to ‘catastrophise’, thinking that the slightest mistake has totally ruined a song. In practice, probably no-one noticed or minded.

By receiving positive feedback from the group on what we did well, we realise that the song isn’t ruined and that we are bringing to it an array of personal strengths and qualities. Receiving this positive feedback is key to enabling us to lose our inhibitions and sing beautifully. I believe that everyone can sing beautifully and that’s what is normally achieved on my class.

We also work in a criticism-free atmosphere – only positive feedback is allowed. This creates a safe environment where participants can ‘spread their wings’ and achieve their potential.

It is with a heavy heart that I write of my friend Roger’s death yesterday afternoon.  Curiously I thought of him around that time, out of the blue.  Roger was the foremost exponent of the mountain dulcimer in the UK and his original compositions and transcriptions of lute tunes have yet to be surpassed on the dulcimer.  He recorded several vinyl albums and made seven trips to the USA - the man and his music were very well respected among the leading US players. 

I first met Roger in his (then) North London home back in the 70’s when I was a University Student – his instruments, recordings and TAB notation were an inspiration to me at that time.  We met again around twenty years later and the friendship that ensued resulted in us undertaking a US tour together to Boston and the Adirondacks, in up-state New York.  Around that time Roger and I worked up a number of dulcimer duets, a couple of which were recorded on my Spirit Dancing CD in 1997.  Since then we have kept in touch and I have often been with him to Ealing Guitar Society – a friendly guitar club, local to Roger’s (later) West London home.  Roger was involved in running the club for some years and I have many memories of seeing him and playing there too.
 
A few years ago Roger had a heart attack during a trip to Damascus.  He subsequently had operations on his heart and has since been on a grueling regime of dialysis for kidney failure.  He never fully recovered from his heart condition and in recent months his health deteriorated.  I am advised that he received the best possible medical treatment.  He passed away peacefully in hospital yesterday afternoon with his family around him.  What I remember is his indomitable spirit, his keen interest in all things dulcimer & guitar and his kindness to me and interest in my own music career.  His life will be celebrated and his music will live on.

This image of Roger taken circa 1972 is published with kind permission from Celtic Music.

 

Being a quiet instrument, especially when played fingerstyle, there’s a risk that the mountain dulcimer will sound thin on a recording.

Firstly, good microphone technique is important. When mic’ing up stringed instruments it’s best practice to position the mic at about 45 degrees to the deck. A square–on mic can pick up rough sounds from the back of the instrument.

Secondly, my hour-glass dulcimer gives noticeably different tones from its upper and lower bouts – so we used two mics, one on each bout, panning them apart so that the dulcimer occupies a space (not just a point) in the mix.

All my instruments have saddle-type transducer pickups fitted for stage use. A pickup on its own can sound a little unnatural in the studio as it has different attack and decay characteristics from a microphone. However, pickups are resistant to squeaks and fingering noise – the signal is very clean. So thirdly, we mix in a little of the pickup sound with the two mics to achieve a clean, rich and smooth sound.

Lastly dulcimers suit quite a lot of reverb, much more than a guitar – they seem to soak it up.

In many years of leading my Everyone Can Sing voice workshop, many participants have attended who believed they are tone deaf or have been told they are tone deaf only to find out that they can sing perfectly well in tune, by following my process. Some have even had private voice tuition only for the tutor to have given up on them.

However, in all the years I’ve been leading this class I’ve yet to meet anyone who is actually tone deaf. ‘Tone deaf’ appears to be a phrase that we use casually but it would appear to be a very rare condition and I’ve not come across it.

Early on in the workshop we undertake some listening exercises, which sharpen up everyone’s awareness of sound. With the right kind of active listening, everyone can sing in tune and find they get can enjoy singing.

To tune to CGCGCE, I use a G tuning fork to tune the 3rd/G string by playing the 12th fret harmonic on the string and holding the tuning fork near to my ear – I listen for the beats and when they subside, the G string is in tune. I always tune up to the note to ensure that there is no slack at the machine head.

Then the 4th/C string is tuned by matching it’s 7th fret harmonic to the 12th fret harmonic of the 3rd/G, similarly the 6th /C string and the 2nd/C string.  The 5th/G string is tuned by matching it with the 3rd string, both at the 12th fret. Lastly, the top E is tuned by fretting it at the 3rd fret and matching it with to the 12th fret harmonic of the 3rd/G.

I generally flatten the top E, as it sounds sweeter and I may make allowances for how hard the bottom C will be played by flattening a little.

I then check for any rogue resonances by playing all the strings open but with the top E fretted at the 3rd fret and letting the chord sustain a while – it should sound rich and sparking without any pulses.