Folkcraft Player - Andrew Gordon

Have been playing mountain dulcimer for almost a decade now since 2012 when my friend Shelley who was moving asked if I would like her Great Aunt Marnell's dulcimer which had been sitting atop her piano, saying if anyone could figure out how to play it, I could!

Uncannily enough, I had been looking at dulcimers THAT WEEK, thinking I'd like hammered, and asked if it was that kind or fretted? She said frets, so I still said sure!

When she brought it to me, from the first moment and notes, I was enchanted!!!

(Enhanced entranced/enchanted!)

Have been playing ever since.

Right after I first started, the public library was practically giving away an ENTIRE BOX OF USED DULCIMER MUSIC, I snapped it up, so you know when something is meant to be, and now have (oh Lordy) at least 18 dulcimers (kinda lost count), 3 of which are Folkcraft’s: an old walnut teardrop that I bought partly because the ad for it was so hilarious; an old cherry teardrop that spent its life hung on a wall with an old violin behind a glass display case..., barely if ever played!; and a newer hickory hourglass which is featured in this video that someone originally bought for their Mother-in-law but wound up in a closet, also virtually unplayed.

I love them all and are among my favorites, each with different and unique personalities, and they have a lovely balanced sound and ease of play. I also have an old Folkcraft Celeste 22-string harp which I love very much (video link also included). I read once I think in the Wild Mountain Dulcimer book that it basically is the kind of instrument you play all by yourself in a cabin in the woods...I am basically THAT guy, although I have performed with it sometimes for a small congregation over Christmas, and for a time kept a tradition of playing Auld Lang Syne every New Years on it while people quietly hummed along.

Also read in the Intro to that book, that there is something special about the dulcimer that simply cannot be described, you will know when you know it. So glad we found/"picked" each other, and that I too was guided to it and now know that magical feeling ;) So that's my bookish INTRO! ;)

YouTube videos:
Folkcraft FSH-Hickory "Cats-n-Paws" (which I love) Dulcimer (alone in a cabin in the woods not much of a stretch during Quarentuning ;)):

And my little Celeste Harp, just Heavenly ;):

YouTube channel link

Dulcimer in a cabin in the woods