Sunday, January 13, 2008
Chattanooga Dulcimer Festival
Over the Christmas break, in the middle of a full schedule of gigs and magazine production, we lost our venue for the Chattanooga Dulcimer Festival. It was bad news, but we really didn't have enough time to even worry about it. The new year would present a new challenge, but the outcome was worth the hassle.The City of Chattanooga has offered us financial support and one of the best venues in town! Click here and scroll down the page until you see Sailors and Soldiers Memorial Auditorium. Special thanks go to Chattanooga Education, Arts and Cultural Affairs Director Missy Crutchfield. City officials have high hopes for watching the Chattanooga Dulcimer Festival grow, and hope to eventually host the World Cimbalom Congress.
We'll announce the Chattanooga Dulcimer Festival lineup when our web site goes live in February. City sponsorship not only means a great venue, it means we'll be able to make the workshops more affordable and the concerts even better! We are also excited to be co-presenting this festival with Bruce Ford of EverythingDulcimer.com. It is going to be a big event and we hope you'll be there too!
We hope the price, timing (June 20-21), and event focus which is more technique than tunes, will make it a stopping point for those on their way to either Kentucky Music Week or, The 9th Annual WCU Mountain Dulcimer Week, both of which start the 22nd. They're both great festivals, and both within an easy afternoon's drive from Chattanooga. Hit the road and have some fun this June!
Time For an Update
I'll admit at the start that I was a little off in predicting the completion date for my hammered dulcimer rudiments project.. . .(go ahead, I'm waiting)
. . . OK, waaaaaaaay off. I really believed I could have the book/CD/DVD package done by November. I also knew that if it wasn't completed by November that it would be January before I could give it any serious attention again. That possibility was precisely why I didn't accept any pre-orders.
The bottom line is that as of this date I'm still not quite done. There's editing left to be completed on the video, probably 1 or 2 full days worth, and I have someone (thanks J.A.W) helping me with proofreading the book.
Being unable to complete the project by my self-imposed deadlines almost got me down, but I was so busy in November and December that there was no time for self loathing. I wish I could promise that it will be done by February but this week I hit the road for the Poconos Dulcimer Festival, and a Masters of the Dulcimer concert Sunday night (1/20) in Baltimore with Ken Kolodner, Butch Ross and Christie Burns.
While on the road I'll be visiting several friends from the dulcimer community including Maggie Sansone (to see the cool solar house she and her husband built), Mike Clemmer (to pick up an instrument), and Jerry Read Smith (to talk way too much).
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Rudiments Video Update
I'm still working on my rudiments DVD/CD/Book and we're anticipating a release date of December 1st. I appreciate the requests we're getting to accept preorders but I'm just not comfortable accepting payments until the packages are in my hands and inspected.In the mean time, my web site has been down for over four days due to circumstances beyond my control. This reminds me how dependent we are on technology and how we can be effected by factors that we didn't even know exist. Read this story from Wednesday's Baltimore Sun for an overview of how a company named Navisite, turned out the lights on thousands of small businesses around the world.
It wouldn't be all that troubling if some piece of equipment had failed and caused the outage. But this all occurred because Navisite did not have the technical expertise to do what they were doing. You have to wonder if anyone, at any point, said, "Wait a minute, what happens if we get in over our heads. What about the customers?"
This brings me back to my rudiments project and why I'd rather wait, than accept preorder dollars. It is exciting to anticipate how this project is going to be received, and I'm convinced that those who do the hard work will become more proficient players. This is my first book though, and I want to be 100 percent sure it is finished and will live up to expectations - mine, and yours.
Friday, May 18, 2007
The List
I've been catching quite a bit of heat lately for what appears to be child abandonment. The child is this journal, and I've been a neglectful parent. This post is about offering myself a clean slate and hopefully clearing my conscience.Catching up on all the things about which I'd like to write would take months. Catching up, simply isn't going to happen. There's no comfort in knowing that I'm not alone in my tendency to abandon the overwhelming. I must do better.
I think it was Einstein that talked about how it takes a deeper level of thinking to get out of a problem than the level of thinking that got you into it in the first place. (Why do we always feel obligated to say "I'm no Einstein" after quoting Einstein?) It is time to think my way out.
My immediate problem could be simply defined as a life overflowing with possibilities, most of which I mismanage. I'm trying to avoid saying I have too much to do. The truth is, I could pull the plug and drain the swamp, alligators and all, but it would immediately fill up again. Swamps do that. I must leave the swamp. I have to first identify and correct the unnatural desire drawing me back in up to my neck.
It's right about now where this journal entry could get out of hand. Don't worry. I'll spare you the self-indulgent, self-awareness psychobabble - and its counterpart catch all.- "God solved all my problems and I don't have any problems anymore."
I'm an entrepreneurial dulcimer enthusiast/dealer/performer/composer/magazine publisher/writer/studio engineer, not a doctor/chaplain. I hope you see the irony in that previous sentence. Maybe I should become a doctor/chaplain.
It is time to clean the slate.
Moving on to The List
Look at this list as my way of tossing alligators out of the way as I exit the swamp. Alligators aren't evil. They just do what alligators do and they're in my way right now.
If I had been writing about what I would have liked to write about over the past several months the topics would have included:
The nature preserve in my front yard
Lots of funny gig stories
Missing Missy
Missing Jeremy
Where's Yanni and why I don't miss him
Goodbye Hershey, my friend
It hurts even more than I thought it would
Where did THAT accent come from?
My Granny is approaching 97
Old computers
Huge studio upgrade
Where are my muscles when I need them
Approaching 50
Butch and Christie's house and the state of the trades
Dulcimers sometimes hurt my ears
Things you can learn from the "Moolight Feels Right" xylophone solo
On letting down a friend and customer
Sweet What?
CS3 Suite - wow, I have a lot to learn
Delays make you be on time
Yes, yes I know. You have a studio too.
The Entrepreneur and the Flop-Eared Mule
What lies ahead?
That headline is full of double meaning. The answer is I don't know. Today however I must find time to mow the yard, continue laying out the July issue of Dulcimer Players News and get a few hours editing done on the Signal Mountain Presbyterian "How Great is Our God" CD project which I'm engineering and co-producing with Steve Phillips. This recording project shares a hard deadline with the July issue of DPN. Both must be complete by the first week in June. After that, my daughter Missy comes home after being gone nearly a year. We're all taking a much needed vacation together.
It feels good to have gotten a few words back up on this website. Here's to many more.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Spinners Waltz
My videographer friend Philip Luckey stopped by rehearsal for the Chattanoga Boys Choir Singing Christmas tree last night. He quickly set up two cameras and caught a couple of moments from the show, which opens today.One of the highlights for me is performing an original piece with Ballet Tennessee. The song is Spinners Waltz and I wrote it for my daughter Missy.
I wrote this song when Missy was around four years old. She was going through a phase where she could not be persuaded to wear a dress unless we could convince her it had good 'spin value'. Those of you who've had daughters probably understand instantly what I'm talking about. Why wear something as silly as a dress if it doesn't stick out like a ballerina when you spin?
About this same time my son Jeremy was taking Suzuki violin lessons. One morning they were dressed for church and on the front porch fiddling and spinning. I grabbed the camera and used that picture inspiration.
Here's a YouTube video from last night. It is a rehearsal so the takes not perfect but it will be even harder to get video during the show. Enjoy!