# Marcy Prochaska: Hammered Dulcimer

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### Goshen Old Time Jam

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

This morning I got up early (for me) and headed northwest an hour and a half to Goshen, where there’s an enclosed farmers market hosting Old Time jams second and fourth Saturdays.

Old Time isn’t my forte — mostly I tend to Celtic, classical, and some other stuff. And I’ve been to some Old Time jams where they seem to think it should feel Old and take a lot of Time going nowhere.

This one, on the other hand, was great fun.

There were two fiddles, two banjos (the kind that aren’t hurt-your-ears loud), two basses (one a washtub), two mandolins, a guitar, resonator mountain dulcimer (dulcibro), and two hammered dulcimers. A nice medium-sized group, good balance of instruments. And amazingly enough we were all reasonably in tune.

We played (not in any particular order, and I’m sure not a complete list):

Whiskey Before Breakfast
Angelina Baker
Old Joe Clark
June Apple
Liberty
Mississippi Sawyer
Southwind
Ashokan Farewell
Si Bheag Si Mhor
Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss
John Short’s Tune
Golden Slippers
Redwing
Soldier’s Joy

It took up five hours of my Saturday, what with travel and all, so it’s not something I’ll be doing twice a month, but it was well worth it today and I’m sure I’ll go back sometimes.

I also got to talk to a few folks about the dulcimer and exchanged info with the other player there. She told me about a music store that sells dulcimers and has a first and third Saturday jam, another twenty minutes away; probably the closest place to rent or buy a dulcimer, which is good info to have for potential students. I’ll have to go out to that jam sometime and see the store.

I am hoping, through things like this and through playing out wherever else I can, to make contact with the other area players, so as to get some students and maybe get a dulcimer jam going — I am especially hoping to find other folks closer to home.

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### Amy makes music

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

Today Amy and I were playing in the music room. She is almost 15 months old.

First we played with my mountain dulcimer — made from a kit when I was a camp counselor; not very good, but good enough. She knows she is not allowed to touch the tuning pegs. What she likes to do is put her fingers or palms on the strings on the fretboard; she moves her hands around the fretboard, like I do, as if she, too, wants to make different notes on the melody string. Occasionally she tries to strum or pluck, and sometimes hurts her fingers. I showed her how to hold a pick to strum, and she thought that was pretty fun, too.

Then she picked up my soprano recorder (a plastic Yamaha; very nice but also nicely undelicate). Just put the mouthpiece in her mouth and blew, and was delighted to make a pretty sound.

She asked me to play my hammered dulcimer — at least that’s my interpretation of “pway” and pointing. Her attention span for it is very limited, though — maybe once or twice through one tune.

Her own musical toys include some homemade shakers (papier mache over toilet paper tubes and soapboxes), a combination xylophone / piano, a big jingle bell on a necklace, a cowbell from my brother’s trip to Switzerland, and a plastic drum with little beads inside.

Category: Amy | Comments: 5 so far