Folkcraft Player - Scott Conner

Scott Conner here, my dulcimer journey started back in the 60's when I played guitar at coffee shops! I saw an Episcopal Preist play dulcimer while his sister sang. Sadly, I never got a dulcimer until married and empty nesters around year 2000. My wife secretly bought one at the Johny Appleseed Fest in Fort Wayne, IN. It came from Stone Mtn, GA BUT, was in fact a Folkcraft kit! After assembly I learned a few basic jam tunes mostly one finger stuff.

Then in 2002 my journey really took off. I accepted an IT contract position as a sub contractor to IBM in the Nissan plant near Nashville. I thought, what the heck, I'm in a motel all week, might as well bring my dulcimer. I joined the Grand Old Dulcimer Club and lo and behold, the teachers were: the late great David Schnaufer, Sandy Conatser, Lee Rowe and Stephen Seifert! Oh boy did I learn and play, like 4 to 6 hours a night in my motel room! Until one night a knock on the door, it was the front counter manager, oh oh! But she asked if I could just play in the breakfast lobby area, folks had been asking to hear more and better. What a relief! I did and ended up raising $200 and 50 pounds of oranges for our food pantry back home! 

Of course NOW I go into dulcimer overdrive! David Schnaufer helped me design my next two dulcimers which I built in my motel room! Fast forward... as of now I have made around 50 Folkcraft kits for resale, teach a class on making Folkcraft kits every year since 2004 at Woodcraft in Indianapolis (probably oversaw assembly of 100 kits). And made numerous dulcimers of my own specializing in 3 styles of my own tiny dulcimers and Tennessee Music Boxes. I have also dabbled in making home published CD recordings.

I often do gigs with my duet partner Ronda in the Evansville, IN area. Recently Richard Ash asked me to do a special project, rewrite the ancient 2 page directions for the kits. He sent me 5 kits to assemble and fully document the process. They now have a 22 page WORD doc and 100 pictures that will soon be on their website and included with kits! The exact date is not known yet. Also I just completed a special dulcimer! Richard let me buy some "Albino" Western Red Cedar sound tops which he laser etched his new Revolutionary War trifecta of flags and call to arms sayings. A great sound hole design, y'all should order a dulcimer from him with this sound hole!