Saturday, June 6, 2015

Mountain Dulcimer #2


I saw a Berkeley woman
Sitting in her rocking chair
A dulcimer on her lap
A feather in her hair.
John Denver

The above two dulcimers are the other two that Jack made for me. He is in Virginia. The Appalachian Mountains is where the dulcimer was born, but it had an interesting journey to other regions and one of them is California. Recently two dulcimer players decided to make a documentary on that journey and the result is the "Hearts of the Dulcimer". I'll share their explanation:

Hearts of the Dulcimer is a feature-length film about the counterculture and a passion for an often-misunderstood instrument.

The mountain dulcimer often conjures up rustic mountain life and simple traditional music from the American South in a bygone era. But that’s not the whole story. From a group of countercultural youth living in the Santa Cruz Mountains in the late ‘60s to Joni Mitchell's influential Blue album in the early ‘70s, the mountain dulcimer found a new voice in a "new land": California.


I've included the trailer and something from Bing Futch, an artist who is taking the dulcimer to new heights.

Hearts of the Dulcimer Trailer:



Bing Futch, 'Electric Mountain Dulcimer':



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