One Hundred And One Fretboards
Good Morning, Y'all & Happy Friday!
Spring has finally arrived in Woodburn. The fruit trees are all in blossom (that's a crabapple tree outside our door in the photo below), the maple trees are dropping their seeds, and we have to mow the yard again. I love the flowers, and the maple tree seeds are neat, but I could stop mowing entirely and be a bit happier to not have that chore.
A famous musician (who was named after a popular ground beef dinner entree) said it well: "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad."
And that's as far as it goes with pop culture references.
Summer Enrichment Season Is Coming
Spring is mostly the outside stuff, but spring also means that schools and libraries are gearing up for their summer enrichment programs. A lot of these programs have art classes, and outdoor activities. Both good, of course! But some of the best programs include music. Specifically, dulcimer music.
Now I'm not biased, or anything like that, but I am kind of in favor of music programs. Especially programs that involve dulcimers.
Starting in March, and running through the end of May, we get a LOT of orders for our cardboard dulcimer kits. Students spend a couple of days assembling the kits, and then learn to play the dulcimers they've just made. It is exciting to know that so many students are exposed to the dulcimer in this positive way.
Here's my morning project - fretboards. I've talked about making fretboards before. It is a painstaking job to make fretboards correctly, and I do a lot of fretboards! Here's a single, completed fretboard blank:
This fretboard blank is made of sugar maple. It is 32 inches long, 3/4 of an inch thick, and 1-3/8" inches wide. I use an analog caliper to measure the fretboard blank after every step in the building process. When I finished sanding these fretboards, they were accurate to within a couple of thousandths of an inch for all three dimensions.
But you know how this works. I didn't spend three days making one fretboard blank. I made a few, in an effort to gain some efficiency with my time:
How many? One hundred and one. We'll probably reject a few of these as we work with them, but we should have over 90 fretboards for our cardboard kits by this time next week.
Will this be enough? Ha! No. I did a similar batch of maple fretboard blanks (for our cardboard dulcimer kits) back in April. That was early in April, before the landscaping enjoyed the spring thaw.
We have three "events" coming up this year. Our Second Saturday Clinics are a full day of fun for the attendees. Our schedule starts out with a jam - we can't have dulcimer players gathering at Folkcraft without making music! So from 10 AM until about noon, we sit in our concert hall, and play songs together. It's fun!
From noon until about 4 PM, we have an artist/instructor come and lead a clinic. It is hands-on for the players. The instructor provides interesting instruction, the attendees (who just finished a two-hour jam) enjoy the informal approach our instructor provides. We take a break for lunch around 1 PM.
At about 4 PM, we wrap up the clinic portion of the day, and then we ask the instructor to give us a short (30 minutes, thereabouts) concert. The clinic attendees are sitting just a few feet away, and can see, and hear, everything. This is wonderful entertainment, of course, but also an excellent learning opportunity. Who wouldn't enjoy sitting three feet away from some of the world's best dulcimer players, watching their every move as they serenade their audiences?
We charge $44 for the clinic, which includes lunch. This is an amazing deal for a day of fun, learning, and entertainment. We limit our class size to 30 attendees. We do NOT want a giant, impersonal experience. We DO want an intimate day, up-close and personal, with a superb instructor.
Just click on the artist's photo below to register for their clinic.
Mandy Tyner - June 14
Bing Futch - July 12
Dave Haas - August 9
We have guests visit from all over the country, and even from outside the USA. Our shop is in Indiana, and we're only a few hours of driving from a slew of major cities, so a LOT of people can visit for the day.
Won't you come join in the fun? Definitely sign up now - don't wait. We usually sell out, and have to start turning people away.
Thanks for reading, Y'all - go outside for a few minutes, if you can, and be like Tigger. (Enjoy the "spring"!)
Richard Ash - luthier-who-can't-wait-to-see-Mandy-Dave-and-Bing-this-summer!
FOLKCRAFT® DULCIMER PLAYER OF THE WEEK: JUDY SMITH
Jack and Judy Smith with their friend, Johnny Appleseed.
I got my first dulcimer for Christmas in 2011. Richard Ash was so kind and helpful as I tried to figure out wood, tone holes, frets, all that good stuff! I ended up with a cherry hourglass that I named “Honeybee.”
I was so scared to try playing it, probably because as a kid I got really discouraged taking guitar lessons. I wanted to play so badly, but my fingers hurt, I couldn’t reach the frets with my small hands, the lessons consisted mostly of theory so after many, many lessons I still couldn’t play a single song that I felt good about. I decided that maybe I just wasn’t able to play music.
When I first got Honeybee, I hid in the corner at the dulcimer jams trying to figure out what everyone was doing, but I did eventually catch on. It was so amazing to actually play a song! Now my goal is to tell other folks (especially older ones like myself) that they CAN learn to play an instrument even if they thought they never could.
My husband Jack and I have a lot of Folkcraft dulcimers now and we play at a few local festivals calling ourselves the “Village Dulcimer Players.” Am I a great player? Nope! Am I a great singer? Also nope!
But I still do it and have a wonderful time! Our favorite thing to do is...
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF JUDY'S STORY AND ABOUT OTHER FOLKCRAFT PLAYERS LIKE JUDY & YOU!
HELLO FOLKCRAFT® PLAYERS - WE LOVE HEARING FROM YOU!
While we don't have a new player to add to our online global dulcimer community this week, we are still very pleased to re-feature community members, Judy & Jack Smith. "Lookin' good, you guys!"
Who's Going To Write In Next? Keep The Family Growing?
It really is super-easy to join our online dulcimer community. Just three easy steps:
1) Send an email to: newsletter@folkcraft.com
2) With the answers to the four questions below
3) Attach a photo of yourself with your Folkcraft dulcimer(s)
We look forward to receiving your submission & featuring you in our newsletter real soon!
1. How long have you been playing the dulcimer?
2. When did you get your first Folkcraft dulcimer?
3. Where do you enjoy playing your dulcimer?
4. What other hobbies, or interests, do you have besides playing dulcimer?
WE'RE OFFERING A $25 FOLKCRAFT GIFT CARD TO ANYONE WHO ANSWERS THE FOUR EASY QUESTIONS LISTED ABOVE, AND SENDS IN A PHOTO (OF YOU WITH YOUR FOLKCRAFT DULCIMER). IT'S REALLY SO EASY TO DO!
This Week's Featured YouTube Video:
This week Mandy teaches beginners another fun and easy song in DAA tuning - "Go Tell Aunt Rhody." She will walk you through it step-by-step and put the fret numbers up on the screen for you. Then we'll do a fun play along. You can do it! Just click on the image below to listen & learn.
We have a slew (that's a fancy luthier word for "bunch") of videos for you to watch on our YouTube channel. Click here to see the full list. Be sure to comment on a video, and subscribe to the channel - either action helps us a LOT with YouTube's suggestion algorithms.
BEGINNING MOUNTAIN DULCIMER
by Mandy Tyner
Perfect for beginners, this book has 9 songs, 14 exercises, and 26 audio tracks. The lessons in this book will take you from Day One and teach you all about your dulcimer and how to play it.
Skills included are: holding your instrument, how to pick, fret, read tab, learn chords, many exercises included with audio, intro to music theory, I IV V chords, strumming patterns, and much more! All in DAD Tuning. (34 pages)
This book is published by Back Porch Publishing, and is made available here as an authorized, licensed download.
SONGS INCLUDED:
Mary Had a Little Lamb
London Bridge
DGA Song
This Old Man
Do Lord
Skip To My Lou
Aura Lee
Battle Hymn Of The Republic
Buffalo Gals
Shop Folkcraft: Mountain Dulcimers, Ready To Ship · Mountain Dulcimers, Finish-To-Order · Design Your Own Mountain Dulcimer