Marcy Prochaska: Hammered Dulcimer

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.

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!

Today was the first recording session for my latest CD project, an as yet untitled Christmas album.

Ideas for a Christmas recording had been floating around for quite a while, but serious planning began this spring. Initially, I knew I wanted it to be an instrumental album, centered on the hammered dulcimer with support from my other instruments (recorder, bowed psaltery, and guitar), from my trio (fiddle and guitar), and possibly from some other local musicians.

I also knew I wanted to focus on music that reflects the spiritual meanings of Christmas.

Right now, for example, I plan to open the album with an original piece called “Fallen.” I wrote it one day after viewing the finalists’ entries in the competition for the September 11 memorial. Its theme of mourning the fallen also looks beyond that tragedy to the first and greatest fall of humanity in Eden. It’s because of that Fall that we have Christmas and the Savior it celebrates.

Near the end, I hope to include a piece called “Easter Thursday” along with one verse of “O Sacred Head Now Wounded”; again as a reminder of what God came to earth to do. In between, there will be carols both familiar and less well-known, from “The Lord at First Did Adam Make” to “Silent Night” and “O Come O Come Emmanuel.”

When I arrived at the studio this morning, I found that the dulcimer wasn’t as in tune as it was last night after I spent most of yesterday tuning it. Some of you reading this may know how frustrated I’ve been with tuning. It takes me much longer than it should (believe it or not, most dulcimer players can tune in an hour or less), despite an excellent dulcimer and good tools and techniques. Must be me. Anyway, I was quite upset to find I’d have to do all that work again, and under the pressure of being in the studio and supposedly ready to start recording. Fortunately, the good folks at Electric Wilburland (a great studio housed in an old church in Newfield, just south of Ithaca) don’t charge for tuning time, and Matt was very patient as I did my best to get it ready.

Once the dulcimer was in tune, we decided which microphones to use and where to position them, then did the same with my soprano recorder. For the dulcimer, we decided on a matched pair of Earthworks QTC1 mics. They are set up like ears, with a foam disc in between like a head. Notice also the bits of white tape on the dulcimer, which helped us position the dulcimer in the same place each session to avoid changes in the stereo image.

The first tune we worked on was “The Lord at First Did Adam Make,” a carol from the 1800s that tells the Christmas story beginning with Genesis. My arrangement opens with solo recorder and includes sections with multiple recorders, multiple dulcimer parts, and a dulcimer accompaniment. Today I recorded the first recorder verse and all but one of the dulcimer sections; tomorrow Stuart and Robin Milliken will join me to add the other recorder parts, and then I’ll do that last dulcimer section.

Today I also recorded almost half of a dulcimer solo medley of “What Child is This?” and a Quantz “Menuet.” After one time through “What Child is This?” with the familiar chords, I change key (a blend of A minor and dorian) and introduce more major chords (F, D, C…) — thanks to Keith Bryant for some of these chording ideas.

It’s exciting to be in the studio again. I would have loved to record with Henry Smith at Outback Studio again, but since Mechanicsville VA is a little too far away now, Wilburland is a good second choice. Actually it’s great so far and I think I’m really going to enjoy working there.

The tuning thing is a huge source of anxiety; knowing how awful some tuning days have been, I hate the thought of having to tune in the studio. This will either force me to quit altogether, or else learn to metabolize some of that anxiety and patiently do whatever it takes to get in tune. Maybe necessity will even help me learn to tune a little more quickly.

Meanwhile, I have plenty of wonderful musical work to do, selecting and arranging and practicing pieces for this recording as well as continuing to teach and perform.