# Marcy Prochaska

### Hammered Dulcimer

## FIVE!

On October 27, 2000, I brought home my first dulcimer, so this fall marks my fifth anniversary as a dulcimer player! This one’s the first big one since the first one, so I’m hoping to have a special celebration, and plans are in the works (details below).

Each year I’ve done a little concert to celebrate the anniversary.

The first:
Venue: One by invitation only, at a friend’s home; one open to the public, at church.
Theme: “Celebrating a year of hammered dulcimer” — This first year of dulcimer, and the pre-dulcimer musical experiences that brought me to this point.
Notes: I had two shows because of scheduling conflicts among friends. Both were wonderful, but the smaller private one was especially sweet, and I was so pleased that my teacher, Tim Seaman, was able to be there.

The second:
Venue: Women’s Community Building auditorium (rented)
Theme: “Celebrations and Traditions” — The first half was like last year’s show condensed, then the second half included music from Baroque, Christmas, and folk traditions.
Notes: A woman from church played recorder on one piece, and a high schooler from the youth group played violin on another. I shouldn’t have bothered renting a hall; the tiny audience looked silly in that empty space, and I barely broke even with admissions ($4) and CD sales. Did I mention that I sort of accidentally recorded my first CD that year, and that we moved here that summer?

The third:
Venue: Mom’s Place Bed and Breakfast
Theme: “Celebrations and Traditions” — This time the anniversary part was condensed into one short set of tunes from the CD, then I played sets of new original tunes, Baroque tunes, and two non-contra-dance traditional tune medleys.
Notes: I’d advertised an open jam session for after the show, but all the musicians were at the contra dance (bad scheduling on my part), so we all just went home after the refreshments that a friend / dulcimer student, the B&B owner, and I had made.

The fourth:
Venue: The Moosewood Restaurant
Theme: “CD release celebration and concert” — The first half was a set of tunes from my second album, What Child Is This?, and the second half included a set from No Loose Threads and a set of our regular trio repertoire. The Hanshaw Trio played with me on most pieces.
Notes: This was great fun; I love playing with a group. This was the first amplified anniversary concert; Christian Anible from church not only lent us his equipment but ran sound for us.

And now…

The fifth:
Venue: Tentatively, Cornell’s Johnson Museum of Art
Theme: “Five” — I am planning on five sets. Possibly they will be: No Loose Threads, What Child Is This?, guitar songs, original dulcimer tunes and songs, The Hanshaw Trio, and Pas de Deux. Yeah, I know, that’s six. The question is which two to combine, and what order to put them in.
Notes: We’re tentatively talking about a Sunday afternoon; a light lunch reception down in the airy lobby, followed by the show upstairs in a gallery. I’d be in front of a large landscape painting, and folks could sit comfortably and cozily on a large Persian rug or on benches around the sides of the room. This will mostly be a solo performance, but I would love for Hanshaw and Pas de Deux to play with me for some parts.

I’m excited about having this show at the museum.

I’ve played for their annual holiday party each year, plus for a few special events and some afternoons of art-browsing background music. I like the people: Lynne Williams and Jennifer Ryan who have organized the events and attended some of my other gigs, and Frank Robinson, the director, who is almost always at the Farmers Market saying hi and throwing a tip in my case.

The folks at the other venues have also been wonderful. And I’ve enjoyed playing for some other events at Mom’s Place and the Moosewood, and our church meets in the Women’s Community Building.

But the museum surpasses the others as a concert venue: spacious without feeling empty, great acoustics, and lovely art and rugs and furniture and views.

Published in:

- Performances

on August 29, 2005 at 2:31 pm Comments Off on FIVE!

## Practicing

Waterfall at A Sort of Notebook has started up her practice pact again. Each week participants make notes in the comments to record how much time they’ve spent practicing their instruments. Besides me (hammered dulcimer), there’s a pianist, an oboist, and a bassist. No other folkies (yet). It’s a little added motivation, and interesting to actually keep track of how much I’m practicing or not practicing (I’d like to average two hours each weekday), and fun to hear what other people are working on.

My practicing is usually organized around gigs or other projects. Right now, the main projects are The Hanshaw Trio‘s home recording, a concert with Pas de Deux, and a wedding with another harpist.

The trio CD is moving so very slowly. We missed two weeks while Craig was on vacation, then we were away, then this week didn’t work… and we have four gigs in September to work around, and then it’s time to review our Christmas material. Personally, I’d just as soon put the project aside until January when there’s really nothing else going on. But we’re going to try to do some more recording after our Farmers Market performance next Thursday afternoon. If I’m still sufficiently in tune after playing outside for a few hours. This is one of those times when I really wish I could tune in twenty minutes like all other dulcimer players, instead of my average of two hours (and that’s assuming I’m at home and calm without a deadline or any other pressure).

Pas de Deux is a duo with harp and flute player Lisa Fenwick. She teaches flute at a local community music and art school, and we’ll be performing in late November, one of three faculty showcase fundraiser concerts. We’re also playing at the Farmers Market this Sunday, which will be a good chance to try out what order to put things in and so on. Our repertoire is a mix of classical things, especially Bach, and Celtic things, especially O’Carolan, with some other things sprinkled in. One thing I’m excited and nervous about is “For the Beauty of the Earth.” I adapted John Rutter’s lovely arrangement for dulcimer, flute, and vocalist, and I’ve been learning how to sing and play at the same time. Most of the range is fine for my voice, but in the higher key (three verses) there’s some really high notes, and in the lower key (one verse) most of it is in the awkward place between my folky chest voice and my choral head voice. You know, it takes a lot of energy to play an instrument and sing at the same time. Especially if you’re trying to do both well.

The wedding is a week from Sunday. Lisa wasn’t available, so I asked Lynn Ray to play with me instead. We met at a community concert last Christmas that featured a number of choirs and soloists and small groups each performing two or three pieces. She sang and played a lovely thing on Celtic harp. For this wedding, we are doing mostly Celtic pieces, mostly O’Carolan, with some classical and Irish and other things thrown in. The mothers and grandmother will be seated to “Ashokan Farewell” by Jay Ungar, then the matron of honor and bride will process to Pachelbel’s Canon, but in G instead of D (lovely on harp and dulcimer), and we’ll do another Ungar piece, “The Lovers’ Waltz,” for the recessional.

Published in:

- Hanshaw Sessions
- Performances
- Tuning

on August 25, 2005 at 5:13 pm Comments Off on Practicing

## Who am I to know the Lord our God?

Who am I, to know the Lord our God?
In awe of you I stand in silence.
And yet the Gospel says you sent your son for me
That I might be a child of God.

I believe in the Bible, I believe in your love;
I believe in your steadfastness and sovereignty.
I believe your mercy endures forever,
And I believe your grace is free —

So ‘bold, I approach th’eternal throne,’
Or I would, but I’m not sure where it is.
Through all the clouds, I cannot see you sitting there.

Someday I’ll see your face in heaven,
And then, oh, then, I will know you.
I will tremble, and you —
In spite of it all, you will love me.

I will tremble, fall on my knees —
In spite of it all, you will love me.

© 1996 Marcy Prochaska, all rights reserved.

I am more like Job than Moses.

Moses talked to God, and God talked to Moses. Moses saw God’s “back,” saw his presence in the burning bush, glowed with his glory when he came down from Sinai. Moses saw God do amazing and specific things that he announced ahead of time, things that were of great significance to an entire nation and the world beyond.

Job saw God’s finger in the circumstances in his own individual life. He knew that God is sovereign, that God gives and takes away. He knew that God is righteous and just. But most of his life he lived by faith, without any direct, unambiguous contact or communication with God.

God does appear to Job. He hasn’t appeared to me (yet), but I imagine I’d get some of the same answer. The answer that cuts, that hurts, the hard bright truth that God is God and I am not. But it is also the answer that reassures — that God is in fact God, that he is in fact righteous and just, as Job thought he was, even in these current nasty circumstances. The very fact that God appears and speaks at all is great mercy. And mercy on top of mercy! -God praises Job for his honesty, for speaking the truth as he perceived it — and he corrects his perceptions. Perhaps even the devastations were great mercy, drawing out this deep thirst for the righteous God he’d perhaps only casually talked about and believed in previously. Mercy, for God to so work in our lives that we cannot ignore him any longer.

Someone once told me that even if God spoke to me directly, soon enough I would doubt that experience and think it was a hallucination or a demon. So perhaps it is great mercy that God shows up in my life only as an ambiguous finger, sovereign over circumstances. One of my images for this ambiguous experience is the psychologist behind the one-way mirror. God, like the psychologist, arranges my room and the objects in it, because he cares about me and knows me and is treating me, but I don’t see his face — yet. My job is to trust this faceless doctor, based on what I know is true about him and our relationship.

Paul said he knew Jesus (Philippians 3:8). He met him once in a vision. But in what sense did he know him? Was it the way Job knew God, in the sense of knowing who he is, knowing his character, and having the one grand vision to confirm it all? Or were there more unrecorded conversations, more direct, unambiguous experience, like Moses had, like some evangelicals claim to have? Or when Paul said “the surpassing value of knowing Christ,” did he refer to something not yet consummated, the coming full knowing we’ll have in heaven (1 Corinthians 13:12)?

My old journals are full of the question, what is our relationship with God supposed to be like — more like Job or more like Moses? I didn’t want to settle for a life of “belief only,” if it’s possible to know God more directly and unambiguously. But perhaps not everyone is meant to have that kind of relationship. Most people in the Bible didn’t.

I think I’m a little more at peace with the life of “faith only” now. Not having direct and unambiguous experience of God doesn’t have to imply that he’s not there and that my faith is all hogwash. And yet I hope I never stop thirsting to see him, and I hope that he will so sanctify me that I will be able to see him if he shows himself to me.

By the way, the last line of this song was inspired by one of those Christian party questions — imagining what you will do when you see Jesus in heaven. Run, dance, sing, shout, hug him, what? My immediate answer was that I’d fall to my knees and hide my face. He’d have to come running to me, because I don’t think I’d have the faith to run to him. It’s like seeing someone you admire at a party, and you’re afraid to approach because of all the important people there, in-crowd people, his real friends, and you’re insecure about your own welcome.

Another by the way: read Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis. There’s a part in the middle that offers another way to view the active yet unseen God: as Cupid, invisible to Psyche, yet her passionately loving husband.

Published in:

- Composing

on August 21, 2005 at 3:48 pm Comments Off on Who am I to know the Lord our God?
Follow

### Follow “Marcy Prochaska”

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Build a website with WordPress.com