I’m happy to report that my replacement Masterworks Dulciforte arrived just in time for my recording project to begin. A big thanks to Masterworks for turning that around so quickly!

Fortunately, I was able to practice on the “broken” dulcimer—not only getting comfortable with it, but even re-learning some of my hammering patterns. With the low bass notes moved to the right-hand side, it’s been a bit of an adjustment. As I had been told (and hoped), that new placement has really opened things up. I’m able to use those low notes more smoothly now, weaving them into both new tunes and some of my existing ones. Honestly, it’s been hard to step away from the instrument.

As the year has moved along, so has this big recording project. I never quite realized how much time, energy, and collaboration it would take to bring something like this together—but I have to say, I’ve been enjoying every step of the process. With over 60 hours of recording so far, most of the tracks are in the can, with just a few pieces left to finish. We should be able to knock those out in early May.

It’s looking like the album will include 11 tracks, covering a wide range of feels and styles—a mix of my original tunes, some old-timey pieces, and a couple of covers. It’s opened up a whole new creative avenue for me, one I hadn’t really explored before. Now we’re moving into the mixing phase, bringing all the parts together, which is proving to be just as exciting as the recording itself.

My hope is to wrap up recording, mixing, and mastering in time to send everything off for duplication—and have copies ready for this summer’s gigs and festivals. That said, the real goal is to get it right—to capture the sounds I’ve been hearing in my head, brought to life by the talented musicians and technicians working on this project. There are still plenty of hours ahead, but with each step, I can feel the excitement building toward an album I’ll truly be proud of.

Lots has happened since September, my last post, and a whole lot is going on starting today! First, the new Masterworks Dulciforte was shipped and received in November. When the box arrived, I noticed the cardboard was torn on the underside. The box was labeled “FRAGILE” and “High Valued Item” on all sides…but, as my luck would have it, the dulcimer was damaged in shipping. Booooooo!

After opening and careful inspection, it appears that something heavy was dropped on the dulcimer box, cracking the underside of the instrument near the handle. My heart sank after waiting for so long and looking forward to growing into it. Fortunately, the instrument was fully insured, and I notified Masterworks right away. They said they will start making me another one—so another long wait, I’m afraid.

The “good” news is that the playing side of the instrument wasn’t damaged, and after a few good tunings, it seems to play well. It looks and sounds wonderful, and I’m sure my next one will as well. I do get to practice with it and get used to the new hammer patterns for the low bass notes.

So, on to the next big thing while I wait for the replacement to arrive. Starting today, I head to the recording studio to work on my next album. I’ve been thinking, planning, and practicing for months now, and this afternoon I start working with Kevin, my engineer, to put it all together. I’m so excited about this project and looking forward to what comes from it.

It will be a very eclectic mix of music, with some of my original tunes, a couple of covers done my way, and, to round off the experience, a few fiddle tunes. I’ve been contacting musicians and arranging studio time to get the tracks recorded this month. My goal is to record all the tracks this month and then take my time mixing and mastering to get the sound that’s been bouncing around in my head. We’ll see how it all goes, but I’m very excited to get going!

Last, and certainly not least, I need to put together all the materials for next month’s Quarrantune Festival. I’m so fortunate to be included as one of the instructors for the February festival. I have four classes that I’ll be teaching and am really looking forward to sharing what I can with the dulcimer community. I’m bouncing around some fun ideas to make the classes more interesting, but they all require some planning, practicing, and even trying them out with a few people for feedback before the festival.

Bring on the new year!!!

Temperatures are cooling, and the summer music season is coming to an end. I was super happy that the Michiana String Collective got a last-minute call to play the main stage at the Bristol Corndog Festival on September 6th. We had a great time, and the place was rockin’! It’s always fun making music with those guys, and extra special when we can share it with others and see them enjoying it. For me, this marks the end of scheduled gigs for the foreseeable future, but it surely doesn’t end the music-making or the excitement I have for what’s coming in the next few months.

First, my most exciting news is that I have ordered a new, custom-made hammered dulcimer. After listening to every dulcimer I could find at Evart this year and talking with all the players, I decided it was time for a little upgrade. I love my current Dusty Strings DS-650 and have finally started using the super bass bridge after years of it just sitting there, asking to be played. Most of my newer compositions now try to work it in somehow. I do struggle with it being on the left side, though, and I’ve found it easier to incorporate those notes when they’re located on the right.

Additionally, while I’ve settled into really enjoying the sound I get from my dulcimer, I do notice its limitations. Of course, the sound of a dulcimer is largely a matter of personal preference, especially with quality builders. In the end, I fell in love with the Masterworks Dulciforte with the right-hand bass notes. It will give me a slightly larger range, what I hear as a sweeter tone, and it’ll be 10 pounds lighter. The new dulcimer also has dampers and installed pickups, of course. The order has been placed, construction has begun, and I expect to see, feel, and play it fairly soon!

As an added bonus, I decided to design a custom sound hole inlay for my new dulcimer to make it truly mine. Sailing has long been my zen—other than music—and I wanted to bring the two together as I move forward. Taking a dulcimer on a boat isn’t practical, but putting a boat on my dulcimer sounds perfect! Here is a photo of what I came up with for the inlay.

Once the new dulcimer arrives, I’ll spend plenty of time getting acquainted with it—finding the right playing angle, and tuning, tuning, tuning until it settles in. After that, my next focus will be recording. I have a number of newer compositions and some ensemble ideas that I would love to get recorded. Recording anything beyond just me and a microphone is always a big undertaking. For me, the hardest part has always been starting. Once I get going with a project, I’ll keep plugging away until it’s finished. My goal is to put together a set of recordings that could either become a long EP or a short album. We’ll see how it goes—and who knows, maybe the new dulcimer will inspire a few more tunes.

With all of that going on, I’m now sporting a beard for the first time in my life, changed up my hair a bit, and finally bought new glasses (well overdue). It’s too bad I’ll be missing the fall QuaranTUNE festival, but I’m looking forward to joining in again for the winter one.

So here we go—looking ahead with lots of excitement and more music on the way!

July has been a crazy month for my music. After returning to our US home, it didn’t take long before I was sharing some solo hammered dulcimer with my mother and her fellow assisted living friends. They are always a very welcoming group and seem to appreciate the soft tones of the dulcimer. My “gigs” there are a mix of many of my original tunes, a few fiddle tunes, and a couple covers that they might recognize. There are always lots of questions about the instrument and my playing that I happily answer. It’s always a nice, intimate setting for about 20 or so people and to top it off, I get to play for my mom. 🙂

Following the relaxing afternoon of relatively quiet dulcimer playing, I got the great pleasure of rocking out with my band, the Michiana String Collective (MSC). We got together to practice and polish off our set list for the upcoming gig at Chris Wilson Pavilion in Potawatomi Park, South Bend, IN. The time always flies by when making music with these guys and I can’t count the number of times the hair on the back of my neck stands up in awe of the sounds we make together. It’s always a nice eclectic mix of originals songs/tunes and rock covers spanning the 60’s to the 90’s. I get to mix in my dulcimer on nearly half of the songs and rock the cajon for the rest.

The big concert day arrived on the 13th with absolutely beautiful weather and a crowd of over 200! Not only that, but I was GREATLY surprised by a number of my musician friends that came to hear us. They came from quite some distances, some driving nearly 4 hours to get there! It’s always a little intimidating when making music in front of so many other musicians that I deeply respect and admire. Fortunately for us, the MSC was hitting on all cylinders and we had a really good concert. Then, to top it off, I got to hang out with a lot of my friends afterwards!

It took a couple of days before the “high” of the concert wore off and it was time to prepare for our annual trek to the mecca of hammered dulcimers, the Evart Funfest Music Festival, sponsored by the Original Dulcimer Players Club. This annual festival, in its 51st year, is largely focused on bringing hammered dulcimer players from around the US and the world together to share their music. It’s also a celebration of all acoustic instruments with nearly 200 workshops over three full days! Each evening is a concert of some of the best musicians in attendance. The festival is always both a rewarding and humbling experience for me. I love sharing my music with the community of players and visitors and stand in awe of the many super talented hammered dulcimer players that also attend. Seven of the previous national champion players were in attendance this year!

I also had the opportunity to meet, in person, Val Cortoni, a hammered dulcimer player from Paris, France. He came all the way to the US just for the festival! I have admired his playing online and connected with him virtually to share our European experiences of playing the dulcimer. He’s a wonderful player and even better person.

We arrived on Wednesday before the festival and left on Sunday. That’s four days of little sleep, LOTS of jams, catching up with dulcimer friends and some of my early influences. Afterwards comes another few days of head spinning as I relive all the wonderful experiences of another festival. I attended my first festival in 1998, the year I started playing and with a few exceptions during the years we owned a resort, attended most festivals since then. I know that I can point to the people and music of this festival as my primary influence on my dulcimer playing.

So, that brings us to today, back at home on a rainy Saturday and the chance to take my dulcimer to the Goshen Farmers Market for their bi-weekly old time jam. It’s a great group of people and a relaxed set of tunes in a nice environment. It has become a little musical anchor for me when we are in the US. Today, I guess my head wasn’t on straight — I forgot my little box with my tuner and all my hammers. Fortunately, I guess, someone had a couple of wooden spoons and I played the two hours with two heavy spoons. It wasn’t super musical, but certainly was funny!

August will be a bit more relaxed for me musically, but certainly filled with the challenges I put on myself after Evart!

Finally, I can relax a bit after hours of practice over the recent months preparing for my first solo gigs focused solely on my music. It all started when I was asked to give a workshop for a group of Belgian and Dutch hakkebord (hammered dulcimer) players and end the day with an hour long concert at the Muziekclub ‘t Ey. Honored to be asked in the first place, I truly wanted to provide some good tips and instruction in the morning, but also a good look at my original music and dulcimer interpretations of cover and traditional tunes. Hard to say how many hours of preparation, planning, and practicing what I was going to cover in the workshop, but suffice it to say it was many multiples of the two hours I would be teaching.

The concert was another challenge where I wanted to focus primarily on my original tunes that I think highlight the range of the hammered dulcimer and can feature my specific style and skills. I know that an hour of solo hammered dulcimer without any support is beyond my ability to keep engaging, so I knew that I needed some backup, accompaniment, and support to make the concert complete. That lead me to asking our good Dutch friend Rene Slieker on guitar and mandolin to join me. The added challenge was not only was this music a completely new and different style for him, but with mostly my original tunes, he had to learn everything! He quickly agreed to the challenge and jumped right in to learning each piece from recordings that I could provide.

Our schedule provided yet another challenge to getting a show together with Carla and I traveling back and forth from the States. This gave us only two practices together at the end of April followed by a month apart and us arriving back in the Netherlands just a few days before the big day. We knew we needed another practice before the trip to Belgium, so Rene and I invited about 30 of our friends to his music room at his company on Friday afternoon and did a dry run of the concert for them. Only a few people in attendance had any idea what a hammered dulcimer was, let alone see me play it. I was curious as to whether an all Dutch audience would be interested enough to stick it out with us for over an hour. Turns out, they were hooked! Everyone seemed to enjoy it and learned a little bit about this unusual instrument. (I’m sure the free beer didn’t hurt) Rene and I took a few points from our experience and fine tuned our set for the concert on the following Sunday.

Sunday, June 1 arrived and we hit the road at 7:30 am for the 2+ hour drive to Sint Niklaas, Belgium. I hardly slept the night before with my mind going back and forth between thoughts of what I would teach during the workshop and things to not forget during the concert, both what I would say and how I would play. We arrived for the workshop with plenty of time to say my greetings and get set up. I had 14 students for the two hour workshop. The first hour I covered all the tips that I had regarding using and finding chords on the dulcimer, basically squeezing two past workshops into one hour. Maybe it was a good idea to cover so much content quickly, but I did receive feedback that it was too much talking and not enough hands on. Something I hadn’t thought of. The second hour was all hands on with walking through the chording that I play along with Mr. Bojangles. It took the full hour and was well received. All in all, the workshop went well. We agreed that next time I come to do a workshop, we would talk about more specific objectives of the group. I do hope they will have me back and that I can help them all learn a little more.

Next up, preparing for and giving a concert. Again the set list running through my head all afternoon, tunes jumping in and out of my consciousness. I’m sure I wasn’t good company as I was so preoccupied. I have to say, the Muziekclub ‘t Ey (

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I’m super excited about a new project that I’ve started in the Michiana (greater South Bend) area; the Michiana String Collective! Michiana has long had a fertile local music scene with many seasoned performers and growing young artists. Now that COVID-19 has at subsided to a level where life can return to “normal,” many local artists are itching to get back out and sharing their talents. At the same time, there has been a blossoming of local venues looking for artists to spice up their locations, attract more customers, and improve on the overall experience that patrons gain at their establishment. The Michiana String Collective is envisioned to be a link between many of these seasoned musical artists and the venues looking for them. Primarily focused on acoustic music, because of the varied artists, the Collective can provide a wide variety of sounds, music, covers, and originals from rock, country, bluegrass, old timey, singer-songwriter, and americana. Initially, the gigs will likely include myself on the hammered dulcimer as well as adding guitar, bass, fiddle, banjo, keys, and who knows what else! Eventually, I could see events where I wouldn’t necessarily be performing, based on the wishes of the venues. All in all, it’s looking like a fun time to mix it up with various musicians in the area and most importantly, TO MAKE SOME MUSIC! You can hear a sampling of what is to come on our promotional video below: