On a bright crisp fall day in 2000, Marcy Prochaska was driving across Virginia to pick up a bright and lovely new thing: a hammered dulcimer of her own. In celebration of that anniversary, she will present a concert at 4pm, Sunday October 16, in the Legion Memorial Building on the campus of Culver Academies.

The hammered dulcimer is a hollow wooden trapezoid supporting many strings; like on a piano, notes are produced by hammers striking the strings. A dulcimist holds the hammers instead of using a keyboard to activate them. (A smaller distant relative, the mountain dulcimer, is played by plucking or strumming.) The sound is a little like piano, a little like harp, a little like guitar, and yet not quite like any other instrument – resonant, rich, clear, luminous.

It was in college that Marcy first saw and heard a dulcimer. Tim Seaman was playing in a church service, and she was captivated both by the shimmering sound and the dancing of the hammers. After getting her own dulcimer, Marcy was privileged to study with Tim, who, besides teaching tunes and techniques of all kinds, provided the warm encouragement of treating her as a real musician from the beginning.

Music has been part of Marcy’s life from the beginning. She wrote her first “song” at the age of three, on the black keys of the old blue piano in the basement. There were also children’s choirs at church, a brief stint with viola at school, handbells, organ, guitar beginning in late high school, a fabulous semester of harpsichord in college, and more choirs and other singing. Marcy found (much to her surprise) that the dulcimer fit her more naturally and intuitively than other instruments she’d tried. For one thing, there’s just two hammers to manage, instead of ten fingers. Also, it’s well-suited to visual learners; most scales involve identical patterns and spatial relationships, and many musical phrases form triangles, rectangles, lines, and other shapes.

In these eleven years of dulcimer playing, Marcy has performed a repertoire of classical, traditional, sacred, Celtic, and original music at a variety of events. There have been weddings, baptisms, special church services, and a memorial service. There have been fairs and festivals, farmers markets, teas, open houses, art museums and openings, Christmas parties, wine-tastings, birthdays, restaurants and coffee shops. Marcy excels at background music, when guests can relax, mingle, converse, listen, ask questions. She also really enjoys weddings and other such special occasions. And at concerts like this eleventh anniversary celebration, she feels honored to share her music in a more intimate setting.

That sense of intimacy also characterizes her three albums. No Loose Threads is a varied collection of music on hammered dulcimer with other acoustic instruments and some vocals. The instrumental What Child Is This? tells the story of Christmas from Eden to Easter. The Hanshaw Trio is the self-titled release of a mostly Celtic group featuring fiddle, guitar, and dulcimer. The Christmas CD is available through CDBaby, and all three are available through Marcy’s website, http://mp-dulcimer.com, or at the concert.

Today Beth Paré and I performed at the Culver Coffee Company.

Beth plays harp, and we both play recorders; so many possibilities for our set list. This time we had to limit ourselves to things one or both of us already knew, or that would be easy to learn in two weeks’ time — but we’re already starting to think of what we might work on for future gigs.

We had three recorder duets: A lovely Bach piece, “Aus meines Herzens Grundes,” an early piece just titled “Allemande” (which is the French word for “German”), and O Waly Waly (which you most likely know as “The Water is Wide”).

Several pieces for recorder and harp, including more Bach, and a hymn for recorder and dulcimer, “Be Thou My Vision.”

On all of these, I think, Beth played tenor — a lovely counterpoint to my soprano. I also had one I played on alto — the Gounod “Ave Maria” that goes with Bach’s “Praeludium I.”

Then there were harp and dulcimer duets, including the fun “Tambourin” by Gossec and Bach’s “Musette,” more hymns, and some traditional pieces like “The Ash Grove.”

Both of us were impressed with how lovely the harp and dulcimer sounded in a “Largo” by Vivaldi; that will become a cornerstone of our repertoire, I’m sure. Beth’s husband Paul got some video of this piece that I will link to as soon as it’s posted.

See you next time!

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“It was really beautiful to hear the two of you play harp & dulcimer together. It was a lovely family afternoon.” ~Janet

“I really enjoyed the harp and dulcimer song that I heard. Great job.” ~Dave

“They were amazing!! I hope Beth can play again-you two are really fantastic!” ~Dawn, owner of The Culver Coffee Company

This weekend — the first of June already! — is the Yellow River Festival, which celebrates the river and the first thirty years of the county.

As far as I know, no one living here in those mid- to late 1800s wrote anything in my repertoire, and yet I’m confident at least some of the tunes I’ll be playing were played around here around that time. Some are older, some perhaps from around that period, and some modern but with much traditional influence.

I recently learned that of those Indiana settlers who immigrated, about 50% were German, 10% Irish, and the rest much smaller percentages from elsewhere. Bach is the only German music I’m aware of knowing; I love playing his tunes. There’ll be a good bit of Irish music, including tunes that have become part of the American tradition as well. I’ll play some originals, too, and — just for fun, and because surely there were some Scandinavians in those smaller percentages — some Swedish and Norwegian tunes.

I’ll be playing for a brown bag lunch at the Marshall County Historical Society at noon on Friday June 4, and again at the festival grounds from 11 to noon on Saturday June 5.

Check out the Festival website for more musical options and other activities, including, new this year, an education stage.

This morning was the first of the third Saturday dulcimer mornings at the Culver Coffee Company, and what a lovely morning it was!

When I arrived, Bob Nowak was starting to hang a new academy faculty art show, including some of his own beautiful frost photographs. A little snow had been falling on my way in, but soon stopped as the day warmed up a bit. By the end of my set, the place was pleasantly full.

We were able to set up a spot for me without having to lose any tables — we just moved two stools and one chair to new locations. It was a good spot visually (anyone in the main room could easily watch if they wanted to, and could see my CDs, business cards, and tip jar) and aurally (one friend said the sound carried around to other rooms, too).

Towards the end I was starting to have trouble thinking of what to play next, and at one point I confused the B part of the tune I was trying to play with the B part of a tune I’d played earlier, but overall it was a refreshing time of music for me. I hope it was refreshing for others, as well; I certainly saw a lot of relaxed and smiley faces.

Thanks to all who stopped in for a listen and some eats or drinks.

See y’all next third Saturday!