Ma-K--

Here's a poem that turned up in another thread, and a word from my husband the jammin' fiddler:

DULCIMER

The dulcimer sings from fretted maple throat Of the doe's swift poise, the fox's fleeting step And music of hounds upon the outward slope Stirring the night, drumming the ridge-strewn way, The anvil's strength... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~and the silence after That aches and cries unhushed into the day.

From the dulcimer's breast sound hunting horns Strong as clenched hands upon the edge of death, The creak of saddle-bags, of oxen yoke and thongs, Wild turkey's treble, dark sudden flight of crows, Of unshod hoofs... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~and the stillness after, Bitter as salt drenching the tongue of pain:

And of the lambs crying, breath of the lark, Long drinks from piggins hard against the lips; And with hoarse singing, raw as hickory shagbark, The foal's anxiety is woven with the straining wedge And the wasp's anger... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~and the quiet after For the carver of maple on a keen blade's edge

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I'm married to Praise, and some call me Hardiman, after the old slip-jig: Hardiman the Fiddler. Personally, I think it's great that you have the opportunity to play with some fiddlers---it sounds exciting. I have to admit that I've never played with a dulcimer player. Mostly Praise plays autoharp, and I take the melody line or a harmony part when we play together.

I think she told you that most fiddle tunes are in the keys of D, A, or G; D minor and E minor are also frequent enough. Is your instrument tuned to an open chord? If so, you can easily adjust the key you're in by barre-ing across the frets with a noter. Or, if you are drone-tuned, in a key compatible with the tune being fiddled, a lot of fiddle tunes are improved with a drone tone in the background. (In fact a lot of fiddlers re-tune a string to provide a drone tone, such as G becomes E, or up to A.) So if you are able to supply that for your group, you are adding a lot.

Praise and I play with a revolving group of people, and we're blessed because we're always happy to work with one another and show each other what we know. If I were fidddling with you, I'd be delighted to take an afternoon just to play together, so we'd both (as those jazz muscicans say) "get in the groove." I guess most fiddlers read music, but you don't really have to do that to play with us. All you gotta do is follow along on the chords. Maybe the music your friends are using has chords printed above the musical score. How we do it---Praise usually strums the beat, and I try to play according to the beat she's set. She's educated me---instead of her trying to follow me, I try to keep what I'm doing in the context of the rhythm she's set. It works better that way, because then the other instruments don't have to try to count all those hemiolas, (fast fiddle notes) and that's a good thing because most of us can't count worth a damn, and we have bad fiddler habits like jumping the beat every now and then just cause it sounds cool.

Keep it up, but don't turn it into work. Music is supposed to be a thing of joy.

--HTF