Marcy Prochaska: Hammered Dulcimer

Even on an ordinary day I’m a pretty anxious and strong-willed person. Today, I was even more so. For one thing, I wasn’t entirely happy with what I’d recorded yesterday and uncertain what to do about it. I also really wanted to finish recording the dulcimer today, but I wanted to do it well and not rush, and I was concerned that the remaining two pieces might not be ready yet. That’s a lot of stuff to be anxious and stubborn about.

We started with “Emmanuel.” I wasn’t sure that slowing down at the end of the first section was a good idea after all.

I had no idea how we might fix that without having to re-record the following sections, but it turned out to not be that difficult. I just punched in that last part of the first section plus the first note of the next section, then Matt moved the previously recorded next section up to match. Then I re-recorded the melody line of the third section to clean up some of the timing and expression things I hadn’t done so well yesterday.

Next, we worked on “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” My version starts with an old English tune called “Forest Green,” then two verses of the familiar “St. Louis” tune, and a final verse of “Forest Green.” The first “St. Louis” verse I recorded in four-part harmony.

By the time I got to the tenor part, the sun through the stained-glass window behind me was casting my shadow on the soundboard and creating a glare on the strings — that’s a little disorienting. Matt came in and set up one of those tall wooden baffles behind me to block the sun: “Is that better, Princess?”

After lunch, we finished “Bethlehem,” and started working on “Twinkle, Twinkle, Christmas Star.”

“Twinkle” is a tune I often play when people comment about how difficult the dulcimer looks; I show them that it’s simple to play simple tunes like “Twinkle,” because all the notes are in a nice vertical row with nothing to skip in between. I add more chords and ornaments as I go, then talk about the visual shapes I improvise with and how those shapes and patterns make writing, arranging, and improvising so much easier on this instrument than on the other instruments I’ve tried.

Gradually my arrangement started incorporating some unusual chords and acquired an air of mystery and wonder; I thought it would be cool to include it on this album in honor of the amazing journey of the Magi, those mysterious people from the East who read Jesus’ arrival in the heavens and made their way to Israel to see him.

While we were working on these two tunes, I was increasingly anxious and stubborn. I really wanted to be done. But I was also trying to be careful not to settle for less than my best just for the sake of being done.

That kind of tension makes it difficult to evaluate things and make choices. (Perhaps it also tries Matt’s nearly infinite patience.) So even though we “finished” recording the dulcimer for this album, I’ll have to listen to the results a lot before deciding if I’m really done or not.

Matt’s teasing got me thinking about princesses and extreme sensitivity; “The Princess and the Pea,” for example.

I suppose you can’t have sensitivity without irritability; you can’t be sensitive only to positive things. On the flip side, one might take a second look at the irritable people in one’s life and find out that they are not sensitive only to negative things.

Anyway, I hope Matt and Will and my husband and everyone else around me have not been too bothered by my irritability while working on this project, and I hope that the plus side of that sensitivity will show in the finished CD.

Today I worked on two tunes: the remaining recorder parts for “Christ Child Lullaby,” and a new piece, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

I’d been practicing those recorder parts several times a day, so they didn’t take too long this morning. In fact, the timing was really nice: I had from 11 to 12:30 to tune, then took a break for lunch, and finished tuning afterwards. Taking a break in the middle of tuning helps keep my ear from getting overly sensitive with concentration.

After lunch, we started on “Emmanuel.” My version starts with an adaptation of the Episcopal Hymnal’s setting, continues with another verse in the standard 4/4 meter, then goes into a sort of two-over-three rhythm.

Recording the middle verse was interesting because it involved a set of softer responses between melody phrases. What we ended up doing is recording one melody phrase, switching tracks, recording the response, switching back to melody, and so on. The last verse was challenging, too, because of the syncopation, timing, and accents. I’m not entirely sure of the editing yet… I’ll have to listen to it a lot and see what I think.

Tomorrow may well be my last day of recording. I just have two more new pieces to do, plus fix one part of another tune. The end is near, but not here yet.

Besides those last bits of recording, I need to do the mixing and mastering and finish the text and graphics. Writing the liner notes is proving to be difficult — there’s only so much room, and it’s hard to decide exactly what I have to say about each piece and then figure out how to say it in the space allotted.

A college friend, artist Andrea Seavers, is working on the cover art and text. She does marvelous Christmas cards: collages mixed with original drawing, painting, and lettering. So far she’s sent me one rough sketch of a Madonna and Child collage based on a Fra Angelico painting, and I think it will be a perfect cover for this album.

Another couple of friends (who happen to also be dulcimer students), Keith and Marty Bryant, took photos of me with the instruments for the traycard, and I’ve also taken some studio shots of guest musicians for the back of the booklet. The last step, besides sending off the CD and graphics to the manufacturers, is planning a release party and concert. I have some ideas, but I’ll wait until it’s finalized before I announce it.

From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. I worked on four pieces. First, I wanted to finish “Christ Child Lullaby.” I did the dulcimer parts without too much trouble, thanks to practicing each of them ten times daily since my last attempt. Then I tried the recorder — but after maybe half a dozen takes on one recorder part, my fingers were stiff enough that I needed to do something else for a while.

So, second, I corrected an error in a harmony part in “Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus / Planxty Irwin,” then added guitar to the medley. I’m not very good at finger-picking stuff, so this part was difficult to learn and took a lot of takes to record.

Third, I added guitar to “Three Ships Medley.” This part was mostly strumming, so it wasn’t as difficult as the other. There’s one section played with a capo — Matt suggested I retune with the capo on, which I’d ignorantly never done before; it makes a big difference. I wonder if that says something about the intonation on my guitar…

Anyway, my back and left shoulder were really stiff after recording these two guitar parts, because I’m one of those “guitarists” that has to look at the left hand all the time. That’s when I decided to give up on those “Lullaby” recorder parts until next session; too stiff, and extra practice would probably help a lot, too.

The last thing I did that afternoon was a preparation for the evening session. We’d decided to record Craig’s guitar part first, so that Jerry, the fiddler, would have both dulcimer and guitar tracks to follow. But on one of the tunes, “Easter Thursday,” Craig needed to hear Jerry’s part, too. So I recorded a dulcimer version of Jerry’s part as a reference track.

Home to rest a little and make and eat an early dinner. And my in-laws arrived just in time for me to let them in and then head back to the studio for the trio’s evening session.

The trio convened at 6 p.m. Jerry headed downstairs to warm up, and Matt got Craig set up to record. We started with “Hewlett / Silent Night,” which turned out to be more interesting than I thought it would be: I’d unintentionally slowed down in places, which made it difficult to keep tempo with my tracks. We figured out that recording section by section made it a lot easier. Once the guitar tracks were finished, Jerry recorded his parts.

Next we tackled Craig’s parts for “Easter Thursday”; Jerry joined me in the control room to watch and listen. This tune is difficult because it’s in an unusual meter — it’s a 3/2 hornpipe — and because there’s a syncopated section at the end of the B part. Having that reference track helped a little.

I ended up standing in the window sort of conducting — keeping track of the first beat of each measure, and indicating when to play during the syncopated part. Lots of fun… when we were off from each other we’d be shaking our heads and laughing silently, and when we got it right my index finger “batons” would become thumbs up. Meanwhile Jerry sits on the couch fascinated, as I am, by all the technology and the whole recording process.

Once we thought we had Craig’s part down, Jerry went out to do his part. But the middle section was problematic. I realized that my decision to have Craig play this section syncopated was not only making things difficult for Jerry, but also just didn’t sound good. So I wanted to have Craig redo that section.

Matt was unconvinced about being able to position him the same way so that the part would blend seamlessly with the previous parts — both of them suggested instead that we just copy the part from a previous section and recycle it for this section too. I’m not comfortable with that idea, so they agreed to try re-recording the section… fortunately, we did manage to get the positioning essentially the same. Whew.

Now it was Jerry’s turn again. He’d never recorded before, but he did his parts for the first tune in four takes, and just three takes for this one. Impressive!

After doing some editing and checking the other takes to make sure they didn’t all have the same mistakes in the same places, I offered everyone cucumbers (Craig actually accepted) and sent Craig and Jerry home. Matt burned the end-of-session CD for me, I wrote a check, and, at about 10 p.m., headed home myself.

As always, this recording session began with tuning. I took the dulcimer to the studio yesterday and did an hour’s worth of tuning, then finished this morning. It took a long time again, but was relatively straightforward and nonproblematic. Whew.

Speaking of tuning, I’m anticipating the arrival of a new tool that I hope will help reduce my tuning time: I won an Ebay auction for a Conn Strobotuner ST-11. Its grey face sports a spinning patterned disc with flashing lights behind it… when the note I’m plucking is in tune, the pattern will appear to be stationary; when it’s sharp the pattern will seem to be moving to the right, and when it’s flat the pattern will look like it’s going left.

I’d tried a Peterson VSAM virtual strobe in a store, and found it confusing to read. At another store I got to see how a mechanical strobe works with a guitar, and to me it seemed easier to read, so when I saw the Conn on Ebay I decided to bid on it. I’m hoping that its continuous reading will cut the time I usually lose to my needle tuner’s sometimes delayed and inconsistent responses. I’m also hoping that it’s in working condition when it gets here!

Tomorrow evening, the Hanshaw Trio will be recording two medleys, so today I recorded my parts. We started with “Easter Thursday / O Sacred Head Now Wounded,” a medley I’m including on this album as a reminder of what the babe in the manger accomplished when he’d grown up.

“Easter Thursday” has two especially tricky parts: one separated hands moment where I kept hitting the note just above the one I was aiming for, and several places where, reaching for the Bb on my extra bass bridge, I instead hit the wrong side of a course coming off the regular bass bridge. It’s like the sound you’d get if you plucked a guitar string between the top of the fretboard and the tuning pins. So it took a while to get it right.

“Hewlett / Silent Night” went more smoothly, probably because it’s in D, one of the most playable keys on the dulcimer. We did it in just four takes. Because this one starts with the guitar alone, I first recorded a count and then plucked the notes the guitar will play, then on another track I recorded the dulcimer parts. Likewise, where there’s a pause near the end, I recorded another count so that all three of us will come back in at the same time.

After listening to the “Three Ships Medley” I’d recorded last time, I’d decided I should fix two little errors. To do that, I figured I’d have to record the two larger sections containing the errors. It turned out I had to re-record the entire thing because the mic placement today was a little different than it was last time. However, it wasn’t that bad… only four takes; and just five edits, compared to fifteen last time.

We also recorded the dulcimer harmony parts for “Three Ships.” One of the harmony sections had three notes that weren’t timed exactly right, leading to a technique that, for me, falls in a grey area between what’s too artificial and what’s acceptable: Matt moved those three notes slightly to correct the timing. I said in an earlier entry that I draw the line at looping or recycling — that I want to really play every note each time. Well, I did play those three notes… but not with exactly the right timing. Hmmm.

The end is in sight. I’ve scheduled the rest of the sessions, at least what I think I’ll need, and if all goes well I should be done by mid-October. That should mean I’ll have the CDs by mid-November. So, this year I expect I’ll make my anniversary concert a release party, although it’ll probably be a few weeks late.

What’s left? Finishing the trio medleys, finishing three other pieces in progress, and three new pieces, plus, if time allows, a few fix-its. (Hopefully these other fix-its won’t require as much re-recording as “Three Ships” did!) I’m starting to work on the liner notes and graphics, too. This time I’ll make sure the web address is correct! (On No Loose Threads, I missed a typo in the URL, and I also didn’t realize that you can’t include the usual “www.” with addresses at Tripod, my former hosting service.)

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!