Marcy Prochaska: Hammered Dulcimer

Sacrificing the visual

One of the main reasons I was excited about this festival was that Jerry Read Smith was going to be there. I haven’t seen him in several years, and I wanted him to look at my dulcimer, sort of give it a checkup, especially to see if anything needed to be adjusted to make tuning easier for me.

Basically he did two things he’d told me I could do myself, but that I hadn’t wanted to do without an expert there in person to make sure it was the right thing to do. First of all, he took a hammer to any pins that were sticking or slipping, seating them further into the pinblock.

Secondly, he moved some of the strings up or down on the side saddles. I confess that I’ve always hated this idea. I find it visually distracting to have some strings not absolutely parallel to the others. And it bothers my idealism — ideally, the strings should all be absolutely parallel and tune just fine. Seems to me there must be something else wrong if they’re straight but not tuning properly. Jerry — and Dan — would like to persuade me that sometimes it’s just the best solution, and that the visual aspect is simply not that important. Sigh.

Loosening up

The first meaning…

Sunday afternoon Dan watched me play with regular hammers, and he thinks the way I play with my left hand is likely to lead to injury. My left hand doesn’t work the way my right does, at least not naturally or automatically. To compensate, I’d developed a finger flick — hitting the back of the hammer grip with a middle finger — that helps me get a nice clear tone and good accuracy with my left hand.

I know there are other players who do this — Nick Blanton and Tim Seaman among them. However, maybe they use their wrists better than I do. I didn’t think I moved either of my wrists while playing, and I didn’t think it mattered. In fact, I thought it was a good thing, preventing carpal tunnel syndrome. Dan said my right wrist does move just a little, nice and loose, but that my left one is locked stiff.

Those of us standing around talked about the whole ergonomics thing for a while, and the consensus seems to be that the more muscle groups involved, the better, and the more loose and relaxed these muscles are, the better. Dan doesn’t even really hold his hammers — they balance on his finger, and his thumb keeps them from falling.

So I need to think about what I can do to loosen up my left wrist, and the grip of both hands on the hammers.

The second meaning…

I tend to think fear is safer than arrogance. I suspect people will like me better if I need to be encouraged, reassured, than if I need to be taken down a few pegs.

It’s not really that simple. Being too fearful is just as annoying — but in a different way. It gets old pretty fast to those who have to do the encouraging and reassuring; the fearful person makes a high-maintenance friend.

The most comfortable people to be around are neither overly fearful nor arrogant, but comfortable with themselves.

For whatever reason — yet another symptom of pregnancy, lol? — I felt just a little bit more comfortable with myself at this festival than I have at similar occasions in the past.

It was nice.

Hammers

Several people noticed my flexible shaft, angled cimbalom grip hammers from Sam Rizzetta. One person who has arthritis thinks she’ll look into getting a pair for herself. Other folks, including Dan and Christie, found them awkward. Dan said it would be impossible to play the kinds of things he plays with those hammers — percussion stuff is too fast, and the flexibility loses too much energy and requires more muscle. Interesting. So far, I still like them for keeping my thumbs loose, but I admit that I miss the sound of my old regular hammers.

This morning I found out the weather was going to be in the 70s. Woo-hoo! I decided I had to try for one more day at the Farmers Market.

That meant tuning.

It was 9:25 (market opens at 9), and I said to myself, “Self, you’ve got until 10:00 — see what you can do.” By 10:00, I think I was on F# or G. But I finished the last B at about 10:30. Folks, that’s right, I tuned in a little over an hour. Admittedly, I ignored the highest two courses on the bass bridge and the little chromatic bridge top left, figuring I didn’t need them for today or tomorrow. But still! That’s almost half my usual tuning time!

Will I be able to do that again?

Anyway, I got to the market by 11, and there was room for me to play at the boat landing. It was lovely out, a little breezy, sunny, comfortable. I got to chat with a bunch of folks who had questions about that thing I was playing. Got to hang out with a couple who are students of mine (who shared an apple and pecan Belgian waffle with me, with a lovely mound of whipped cream on top). My favorite lunch place, the Cambodian stuff, was in the closest booth, instead of all the way at the other end of the market where they usually are. CD sales and tips were slower than in the height of the season, but I didn’t care.

What a lovely day.

I sometimes wonder what it’s like for other dulcimer folk — or other musicians — who busk. I’ve got a pretty big repertoire, so technically I can play maybe five hours without repeating anything. But only a fraction of that is stuff that I’ve really arranged. Do other folks have four or five hours full of really good stuff, or are they like me, stretching their time with simple things, bare melodies, that sort of thing? Is that okay?

The other thing that was interesting was I tried singing “For the Beauty of the Earth,” which I’ve been doing fine in practice all week. My voice just wasn’t there — cracking everywhere, no support — perhaps because I was outside and had to put more oomph into it than I have to at home in my quiet music room? I hope I’ll be able to do it well in the concert.

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.

Today I need to tune again for a gig at the local Alterra nursing home, and that reminds me of my earlier post about my fears for the Cranberry Dulcimer Gathering, which I ought to report about.

I tuned without any big problems last Wednesday, and the dulcimer sounded fine at that evening’s jam and while we were practicing on Thursday. Later Thursday, though, I was starting to worry about our plan to play on the Commons Friday, because I wouldn’t have time to retune between playing there and leaving for the festival. We decided to stay home instead, which reduced my worry.

It came back the next day, when we started to practice and Rick said the difference between our dulcimers was significant enough to require retuning. I went at it with a sinking heart but trying to think “good enough.” I had a fairly difficult time of it, but I managed not to completely break down and cry until I was done and safely hidden in my bathroom. While Rick tuned his in an easy twenty minutes (how I wish I could do that), I got lunch together, and then we left for Binghamton.

I am not very flexible or adaptable. It’s hard for me to recover from something like a terrible tuning time, plus there was the stupidity with the car the previous day*, plus I was tired because we’d stayed up talking too late the last two nights. Nothing like going to a festival already overtired, feeling stupid, and psychologically worn out from a bad tuning session.

I was determined to avoid tuning for the duration of the festival, but had that underlying fear that it would become necessary, and along with that, an underlying fierce defensiveness lest anyone challenge me about it. No one said anything to me, and as far as I could tell it sounded okay for the rest of the weekend (it’s hard to tell, in a room full of dulcimers, whether mine or someone else’s is wrong).

Today I hope I can tune with less stress, even if I am increasingly certain that I’ll never be able to tune any faster.

*Instead of having Rick back his truck out into the road, then having me drive my car out, then replacing his truck, I tried to drive around his truck. I missed the truck but ran over the porch step, splintering a bit off the railing and putting a nice crumpled dent in the fender. Fortunately I didn’t break the light.

I love C. S. Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles. I think they’re not only good literature, but full of fruitful ideas. One is the idea that Aslan, the Christ-figure, is not safe, but good. God is not in the business of wish-fulfillment or comfort or convenience. Not that all wishes, comforts, and conveniences are bad, but that sometimes there is something more important. God’s purposes and ways are higher than ours, and can be quite dangerous to us in an earthly sense, but we can have confidence that whatever he brings our way, he will carry us through it, and all things will work together for our ultimate good (Romans 8:28).

I have been thinking about the upcoming Cranberry Gathering, a festival for mountain and hammered dulcimer and for autoharp. I will be teaching two classes, and my friend Rick Davis from North Carolina will also be teaching. He’s arriving next Wednesday evening, so that we’ll have some time to practice for a piece we’ll do at the Friday night coffeehouse concert, and we’ll also spend Friday morning playing out on the Commons before heading to Binghamton for the festival.

That means that I’ll have to tune on Wednesday, and hope that my dulcimer stays sufficiently in tune for the whole weekend. With the weather being somewhat various lately, especially in terms of humidity, that hope seems really thin.

So what, right? If you were me, you’d just tune it again; Friday between playing out and arriving at the festival, and maybe again Saturday or Sunday sometime. And that’s what all the other dulcimer players will be doing. At least all the ones who care about being in tune and who are not raw beginners.

I’m not like those people. I can’t seem to ever tune in less than an hour and a half, and my average lately is just over two hours. And that’s not even all in one sitting; I get stressed enough that I generally have to take at least one serious break and sometimes two. I typically set aside a day for tuning, and work on it in bits throughout that day.

My reputation is at stake. I’m a professional performer. And I’m actually teaching some of these workshops. If my dulcimer doesn’t stay in tune, what will I do? I could leave it alone, or I could try to adjust it and hope that it doesn’t take too long, or I could try to adjust it and burst into a crying fit if it’s not cooperative. What will people think?

I’m dreading this.

Yesterday afternoon I was thinking about it. I was reminding myself that generally my dulcimer sounds pretty good to other people even when it sounds off to me. And that in the past my dulcimer has indeed stayed quite reasonably in tune for weekend festivals. There was one time when I did some visiting in Virginia before heading over to the Upper Potomac Fest in WV, and I had to retune in WV, and had a terrible time of it, but then the rest of the weekend it was fine.

Still worried, I tried the opposite approach, instead of trying to dismiss the fear, facing it head-on: what’s the worst that can happen? My dulcimer will sound awful, and I won’t be able to use it to demonstrate the things I’m teaching. I’ll try to tune it, wasting the entire class time, and having a panic attack, maybe even going into a rage and hitting someone or smashing my dulcimer. Everyone will think I’m absolutely crazy, or a fool, and that I have no right to be there at all, participant or teacher. I’ll never be able to go back. In fact, I’ll be blacklisted from all the other festivals, too, and wherever we go once the husband has finished here at Cornell, I’ll never again be able to play or teach dulcimer in public.

That’s pretty dire. But not the end of the world. Do I really care more what the dulcimer community thinks of me than what God thinks of me? Isn’t God big enough to provide for me even if I lose this career? I’m not saying it’ll be easy or that it won’t hurt a lot. But surely I can trust that God is good even when I’m a fool and humiliated?