Marcy Prochaska: Hammered Dulcimer

Today we started by fixing some problems in yesterday’s work.

One was a timing issue, in “Gesù Bambino,” which I fixed by just re-recording one section.

The other was something weird about going from the intro of “Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus / Planxty Irwin” into the tune. We ended up deciding that it was mostly because the intro is in two octaves, but when the melody begins it was just in the upper octave. Adding another track with the melody in the lower octave sounded better.

Then, after I recorded the remaining dulcimer and psaltery parts, I decided the last section would be better if I added one more dulcimer line and had the psaltery come in later. Having NoteWorthy Composer notation software helps me plan out arrangements pretty well, so that usually only minor alterations, if any, are needed.

Next, we recorded psaltery and recorder parts for “Gesù Bambino.” Matt thought the psaltery parts for both tunes went better this time, but I still found them difficult to play smoothly, especially certain notes like the low F#. I saw someone play with two bows last weekend, and it was very smooth — maybe I should try that sometime. The recorder parts were a little easier.

Then I actually did try “Three Ships Medley,” and got a nice melody skeleton to play with. At the time I thought the new transition ideas worked well; we’ll see if I still think so when I’ve had more time to listen to it and experiment with it. Most likely it will have additional dulcimer and guitar parts, maybe some other things, too.

After that, we started working on “Christ Child Lullaby.” I wanted play it as low on the recorder as possible, which put it in Bb Mixolydian. That’s three flats, same key signature as Eb Major, but centered around Bb instead of Eb; the Mixolydian mode has a sort of wildness to it that I love.

I really like the way the tune sounds in this low key, but it’s a real challenge for my recorder and dulcimer skills. It’s hard for me to play certain notes well on the recorder, especially the lowest F and the Ab. And the dulcimer parts are difficult because I have to reach across the instrument for various Ebs and Abs — it’s hard to do that accurately and expressively and rhythmically.

So far, we’ve only managed to get a good take of the solo recorder intro. We must have done over a dozen takes (twenty?) of the next dulcimer part, but each one had at least one mistake in it, and the part is too quiet for good seamless editing.

So we stopped there. Burned the end-of-session CD, put the “He Shall Feed His Flock” files on a CD to send to Henry, settled the bill, and homeward went.

Now, about the joys of editing. I just thought this was sort of amazing and fun. First of all, consider just one psaltery section on “Long-Expected.” This section has eleven different pieces edited together from seven different takes. Isn’t that cool? And the rest of the piece is, oh, four or five dulcimer sections, two psaltery sections, and two guitar sections, each with various amounts of editing from various numbers of takes. Then, just the melody of “Three Ships” has fifteen pieces edited together from four different takes. Wow. The amazing thing is that, more often than not, Matt can make these edits absolutely seamless. When it doesn’t work, we just do some more takes.

Final thoughts. Today just felt better. Being able to start right away without dealing with tuning was refreshing. And knowing that husband Mark would be home in the evening, after being at a research conference all week, also helped. And I now have five pieces finished, and four in progress. That’s about half done!

It’s been a strangely rainy summer thus far. Rainy and on the cool side; my lettuce is happy, but the tomatoes have yet to feel any desire to turn red. Today, however, my return to the studio was heralded by a gloriously warm and sunny day. Mmmmmm.

Last time I talked about how discouraged I was when I left the studio after recording “He Shall Feed His Flock.” And yet the more I listened to it in the following week or so, the more I liked it. In fact, I think I may have played more expressively and cleanly on this piece than on anything else I’ve recorded thus far. Maybe it’s my version of end-of-recording-session syndrome — getting more and more into it, more perfectionistic with each new piece over the four-day session.

Anyway, I decided what “Flock” needs is Tom Abernethy’s classical guitar. Tom, Carolyn Huff, and I used to play together as the WoodSong trio in Richmond VA; you can hear us in “Carolan’s Draught / Sleepers Awake” on No Loose Threads. So Matt will transfer the dulcimer tracks from Wilburland to Outback Studio, where Henry Smith will record Tom’s new part and transfer the results back up here. Yesterday, Tom played the part for me over the phone; it’s going to be wonderful.

Today’s studio session started with tuning. Truly awful: three and a half hours. After talking with Bob Wey at the Cranberry Dulcimer Gathering this past weekend, I’m going to look for a strobe tuner and try a gooseneck wrench, and see if those tools help me tune more efficiently. Anyone got a used strobe lying around? Or one of Peterson’s Virtual Strobe tuners?

After lunch, we started on the first piece of the day, “Gesù Bambino.” For the most part, this went fine. (After that grueling tuning session, recording felt like cake. See? I knew there was an advantage to being terrible at tuning.)

The main issues were a tough vertical passage on the bass bridge, some timing difficulties where two parts come in simultaneously after a pause, and a tuning problem. The high A - D course on my treble bridge is nearly impossible to get perfectly in tune. Fortunately, there’s a duplicate of that A on the right side of the treble bridge, and I managed to adjust my hammering to use that A instead. At some point I’ll add psaltery and recorder to the “O come let us adore him” parts in the intro and end.

The rest of the day we worked on “Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus / Planxty Irwin.” As an interesting variation, each time I come back to the beginning of the tune, I start it at the same time as the last note of the previous time. Another interesting variation is that I got through the really hard part in just a few takes, but had a really hard time recording the easy part. Odd. Then again, I’d practiced the hard part more.

It was also interesting to make final hammer choices. I have five pairs of hammers, ranging from a very soft and mellow pair wrapped with yarn, through various leathers, to bright bare woods. Sometimes it’s pretty clear which hammer will be best for a particular part, but sometimes it’s necessary to experiment with several, listen to each, and then choose.

Overall, except for the first three and a half hours, I enjoyed today’s session. I felt more settled in the rhythm of the recording process, with a better idea of when to edit, when to just go for another take, etc. Maybe next time I’ll remember to turn on the volume of all the tracks in the headphones… at one point today I recorded a section without being able to hear it, because that track’s volume was off. Even so, I think we actually used part of that take.

Tomorrow? Finish “Long-Expected,” do “Christ Child Lullaby,” and maybe “Three Ships Medley.” I got to workshop the last one at the Cranberry Dulcimer Gathering in Bob Wey’s class on “Playing With Your Blocks.” So the last few days I’ve been experimenting with different ways to implement suggestions from Bob, other students in that class, and Marya Katz of Blacksburg VA’s Simple Gifts.

This fourth day we began with “The Wexford Carol,” the second half of the medley beginning with “Noel Nouvelet.” I’ve been practicing these parts a lot, and all that hard work at home translated into less difficulty in the studio. The arrangement begins with both hands playing melody an octave apart, followed by an ornamented version. Next is a section with echoes, and the final section has a mostly sixths harmony and a bass part.

All that was done before lunch. So the next question was whether to go home really early or to try “He Shall Feed His Flock,” which until this week I hadn’t played since last Christmas season. I did work pretty hard on it Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, making arrangement decisions and practicing them, but I wasn’t entirely sure it was ready to record. Still, I decided to stay and give it a try.

I like the intro, using my yarn-wrapped hammers for a soft, mellow effect. At the closing chord, I repeat the intro part as a conclusion. In between, I did the main part with separated hands; the left plays melody while the right plays three-note chords. The form is AAB twice through, and I vary the ornamentation a bit on the repeated sections. Still, I’m not sure there’s enough difference between the first AAB and the second, and I’m not convinced I played the right-hand chords as well as I’d have liked… I’d prefer them to be less heavy on the downbeats.

As we listened to the whole thing, after recording that last section, both of us seemed unconvinced. Matt said he was still too much “in” it, thinking of all the editing and the various short sections. I felt that it didn’t seem to flow, and it didn’t even seem very pretty. Maybe that’s because I’d had to record sections too short to feel natural and expressive, and maybe also because I hadn’t practiced enough to play both accurately and expressively.

It’s hard to listen objectively right after recording. It’s hard to listen objectively when you’re feeling uncertain and discouraged to begin with.

Actually I think it’s impossible to listen objectively at all.

There’s so much to influence how something will sound to you, from external or physical factors like recent events, temperature, or your state of health, to internal factors like your current self-image or level of anxiety. So I think I’ll plan to listen to “He Shall Feed His Flock” several times over the next week or two before making a final evaluation of it. Meanwhile, I can also be thinking of alternatives: practice more; add guitar, psaltery, or recorder to part(s) of it; record the left and right hands separately, maybe even with a softer hammer in the right hand…

My next session is scheduled for July 29 and 30; besides finalizing “He Shall Feed His Flock,” I’d like to prepare two or three other pieces. My trio, newly renamed the Hanshaw Trio and featuring Jerry Drumheller on fiddle and Craig Higgins on guitar, is also preparing two medleys; we plan to record them late in August.

After a few days of almost frantic practicing, I returned to the studio today to add guitar and psaltery parts to “Fallen” and to record dulcimer, psaltery, and recorder parts for “Noel Nouvelet.”

(Why frantic? Well, for most of my gigs I’m just playing dulcimer, so that’s what I practice most. Then, when something like this does come up where I need another instrument, I end up cramming in practice like a student at exam time. Also, just in case I managed to do all I’d planned on and still had time left over, I was trying to prepare “He Shall Feed His Flock,” although I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finalize the arrangement and be able to play it well enough in such a short time.)

The day began with tuning the dulcimer. That took about two hours. So far, necessity is not reducing tuning time. But it could have been much worse.

Then we worked on “Fallen.” The guitar part was a little tough, but the psaltery part was really tough. I don’t have the steadiest hand when it comes to bowing long notes, and I don’t always start notes very smoothly either. Everything just sounded scratchy and wobbly to me. Even after we’d selected and spliced the best parts of various takes, I was wondering about writing an entirely different part or even asking my trio partner Jerry to play the part on violin instead.

Moving on to “Noel Nouvelet,” we recorded the dulcimer parts, where the main issue was trying to articulate the ornaments nicely without getting off tempo. The recorder parts went pretty smoothly. Then back to the psaltery. The harmony parts weren’t bad — no really long notes requiring that especially steady hand. Last, the hardest part: in one section the psaltery has the melody. Because the tune is in A dorian, I have to reach across the psaltery for an F#. Moving the bow that far that quickly and still getting the note nicely is tough for me. By this point I was feeling pretty beat, so we called it a day a couple hours early.

Before I left, the final task was to put the day’s work on CD to take home and evaluate. I asked Matt to burn one “Fallen” with the psaltery and one without, so I could try some alternative ideas. We usually check the mix before burning, adjusting relative volumes of the various tracks to get a decent blend. While we were doing that, much to my relief, we found that at its proper background volume, the psaltery actually sounded quite nice. No more scratchies and wobblies, just that edgy but sweet psaltery sound. Whew!