Summer NAMM Show, July 2009 (Day 2)

Day 2 of the Summer NAMM show is now behind us, and what an eventful day it was!

Our in-booth performing artist today was Stephen Seifert (yes, THE Stephen Seifert that you see at all the festivals).

Stephen Seifert

But you know how the joke goes - how many dulcimers does it take to make a person happy? (Just one more...)

Now apply that to dulcimer players. That will be our "theme" for today's NAMM show.

And please, please, please don't get me wrong. Nick and I were at the show to sell dulcimers to music stores. That's the purpose of the NAMM shows, at least for the hundreds of builders and manufacturers that exhibit at the shows. We had a very successful show, selling instruments, but this Folkcraft Community update is focused on the music, not the selling.

But anyway, back to today's "theme". Stephen is going crazy performing on his new Folkcraft for a crowd that kept getting bigger throughout the course of the day. (Steve's cherry/Sitka dulcimer has plenty of acoustic volume, but at NAMM shows we're competing with electric guitars and drumsets, so we put the Fishman pickup in his dulcimer to good use!)

Steve showing his dulcimer to a show attendee

Don't forget - Bing performed all day yesterday, and today (Saturday) is his day off. So of course, what did he do today? Came to our booth, with his wife Jae, and the duets started up again.

Good stuff! Really, really good. Folkcraft would be pleased to produce a CD with Bing and Stephen playing together. (Bing, Stephen, this is a hint!)

Bing Futch (left), Richard Ash (center), Stephen Seifert (right)

Later today, we had another celebrity dulcimer player stop by the booth. Linda Sack (solo performer, Nashville Dulcimer Quartet member) happened by, and ended up playing a set of tunes with Stephen as well.

At one point, Stephen took a quick break for lunch, and Linda ended up demonstrating dulcimers for us. Thank you, Linda! We appreciate it!

During the course of the day today, Nick and I got to hear three superb musicians, all of them masters of the Appalachian dulcimer. We got to meet lots of music store owners, and music store employees. Only one day to go for the Summer NAMM show, so be sure to check out tomorrow's Folkcraft Community entry...

Thanks for reading!

Richard