Home Again

Angie and I had a great time on our working vacation but it's great to be back home. Thanks again to Sharon Skaryd, Joan Fitzpatrick and everyone else who made us feel welcome in Evart, Michigan. Several members of the ODPC (Original Dulcimer Players Club) have posted Funfest pictures. They do a great job of capturing the spirit of this one-of-a-kind gathering. Sharon has organized a list of links to pictures which you can view by clicking here.

We visited two of my favorite luthiers on our way back home - James Jones in Bedford, WV, and Jerry Read Smith in Black Mountain, NC. I have tremendous respect for these guys and their passion for improving hammer dulcimer design. The hammer dulcimer, unlike more common instruments like guitar, violin or piano is still in the infancy of its renaissance in this country. I've spent many hours playing and contemplating its strengths and weaknesses and enjoy bouncing ideas off of James and Jerry as well as Ray Mooers at Dusty Strings in Seattle.

Lately I've spent quite a bit of time getting to know the Linear Chromatic hammer dulcimer. Read more about it by clicking this link. I have actually lost sleep thinking about the possibilities created by this tuning scheme. I am playing musical passages I never dreamed possible. The design still needs a few tweaks, both tonally and ergonomically, but with a few minor adjustments, I think it is the future of hammer dulcimers. Of course I could be wrong - I also think all hammer dulcimers should have dampers but that hasn't happened yet either. If you're a player, you owe it to yourself to read about the linear chromatic. Drop me an email and let me know what you think.

Sunday morning my friend Malcolm Childers and I took a pleasant hike on the Rainbow Lake trail which is just a couple of miles from my home. It was a beautiful morning and I was lucky to get a few really good pictures of a butterfly, after following it around a bit waiting for a landing. Check out the pics in today's posting on my pictures page. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page for the most recent shots.

I plan to spend the rest of this week working on CD projects. If I get enough accomplished I'll post some samples of my progress. - Dan ¶ 6:33 PM