Playing Your Dulcimer Should Be A Top Priority
Good Morning, Y'all - Happy Friday!
I'll start with an important reminder. Today and tomorrow (Friday and Saturday) both have vowels in the name of the day. That means that playing your dulcimer should be a top priority in your life. Definitely a higher priority than (for example) vacuuming the rug in the living room. I would certainly practice after feeding the pets, but before doing any household chores.
So, let's look at the day after tomorrow. Sunday. Two vowels, again - U and A, so that will get us up to three consecutive days for playing your dulcimers. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, since all three days contain vowels. See how this works? Fun, isn't it!
In the shop this week? We're moving things at a furious pace now. Cheyenne and Pam have just a few more days here in the Folkcraft workshop, then they start working from their home workshops. They both have great skills, and I'm happy that they'll keep making things for Folkcraft, and for you. I'm lucky (and by extension, YOU are lucky) that Pam and Cheyenne are so skilled, amazing, and awesome.
Pam sold one of the tools I decided to NOT take to Michigan - a band saw. It's 5,000 pounds of fun. Just for reference, a typical Honda Civic is a bit less than half of that, so the weight of this band saw is the equivalent of a couple of automobiles.
My forklift wouldn't begin to move this safely, but the saw's new owner (who runs a pallet factory, by the way) brought a newer/larger/stronger forklift with him to help with the move (pictured below). Plus a crew of four people and a great selection of equipment for moving heavy machinery.
The saw is almost nine feet tall, and is amazing at slicing wood quickly. Here's the saw shown on top of a trailer:
I'll miss the saw's speed, but we have other band saws with thinner blades. The thinner band saw blades, while being a bit slower, are less wasteful of the wood. We get more tops/backs/sides from a 2" board than with a saw that uses a thick blade. So I guess I'm trading economy of time for economy of material. With the rising cost of material (and the rising cost of labor) it was always a toss-up. But having to haul this saw down a long dirt driveway, and hire someone at either end to move it on and off of a trailer? It was an easy choice - the pallet guy will get great use out of the tool.
I'm heading back to the shop, it's time to make sawdust. With my medium band saw (not the giant one!).
Thanks for reading, Y'all - happy Friday. Remember your vowels this weekend. Make time to play your dulcimers!
Richard Ash - luthier-who-loves-tools-and-hates-to-let-any-of-them-go-to-another-workshop
FOLKCRAFT® DULCIMER PLAYER OF THE WEEK: DAVE KERWOOD
Folkcraft: How long have you been playing the dulcimer?
Dave: I've been playing string instruments for nearly 30 years, but dulcimer is a recent passion. I picked up my first cardboard dulcimer on a whim in the summer of 2022 and bought a cheap wooden one about a month later. I didn't start taking it seriously until April of 2024 when I bought a FolkRoots dulcimer from a friend and a proper Folkcraft a month or so after that. I promised myself that if I was going to spend the money on a nice instrument, I'd have to put in the time to get really good at it. And I promised myself that I would compete in the National Dulcimer Competition at the Walnut Valley Festival.
Folkcraft: When did you get your first Folkcraft dulcimer?
Dave: I bought a 1985 FolkRoots from a friend in April of 2024, but about a month later, I rescued my 2002 Folkcraft from a guy selling an entire collection of dulcimers. He was a guitarist who bought the entire collection from somebody else, but never learned to play. I'm very happy to have both a California style and a Kentucky style. They're a great "one-two punch" when it comes to musical style.
Folkcraft: Where do you enjoy playing your dulcimer?
Dave: I love playing gigs around town or for my elementary students. True to my goal, however, I did compete in the National Dulcimer Competition and was humbled to be the fourth-place finalist my first time around. I'm excited to get out there again in 2025. I've been posting dulcimer covers to my YouTube channel. I enjoy taking songs that you'd never imagine being on dulcimer - by artists like Dua Lipa, Earth Wind and Fire, or Weezer, for example - and...
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF DAVE'S INTERVIEW AND READ ABOUT OTHER FOLKCRAFT PLAYERS LIKE DAVE AND YOU!
FOLKCRAFT® PLAYERS - WE LOVE HEARING FROM YOU!!!
No new player to add to our world-wide, online dulcimer community today. But we're delighted to re-feature multi-instrumentalist, with a particular passion for the dulcimer, Dave Kerwood. There's still plenty of room in the family, maybe it could be you next week?
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!
WE JUST LOVE HEARING FROM Y'ALL!
This Week's Featured YouTube Video:
This week we'll take a familiar song and work on getting our fingers in the right place at the right time. Figuring out where your fingers go and a quick way to get them is a challenge, especially when you speed things up. We'll work on improving your skills at this and have some fun! 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.
IRISH SESSION TUNES - Volume One
by Aaron O'Rourke
With St. Paddy's Day just over a month away, we've got just the book to prepare you for any Celtic or Irish jam sessions you might get into. Irish Session Tunes, Volume 1 is a collection of 36 jigs, reels, and polkas commonly played in Irish sessions, and arranged for the mountain dulcimer. And if that's not enough for you, Aaron wrote a second volume containing over 30 more Irish jigs, reels & polkas. He also includes a brief introduction to playing in an Irish session and an explanation of Irish ornamentation. (59 pages. All songs in DAD tuning - no capo required - but several tunes use the 1 1/2 fret.)
This book is published by Fingers Of Steel, and is made available here as an authorized, licensed download.
SONG LISTING:
Boy In The Boat
Castle Kelly
Devaney's Goat
Dick Gossip's Reel
Drowsy Maggie
Earl's Chair
Fred Finn's
Lady On The Island
Green Fields Of America
Musical Priest
O'Rourke's
Rakish Highlander
Sally Garden's
Silver Spear
Sligo Mad
Wind That Shakes The Barley
Woman Of The House
Banks Of Lough Gowna
Hag In The Kiln
Killavil
Jim Ward's
The Kesh Jig
Miller's Maggot
Mist On The Mountain
Morrison's
Rambling Pitchfork
Thrush In The Straw
Tobin's
Banks Of The Quay
Bill O'Sullivan's
Crucaharan Cross
Humours Of Listowel
Kerry Polka
Port Lairge
Ryan's Polka
Terry Teahan's