APPALACHIAN DULCIMER NOTER AND DRONE BLOG
... and its available on line at http://dulcimer-noter-drone.blogspot.com/. A couple of quotes that started me thinking:
... dulcimer clubs, festivals, camps, and workshops are a very good thing in that they now fill a terrible vacuum that was left behind when people stopped playing music as part of their daily lives with family and friends in their communities. When people scattered and moved away from families and home towns, and became Too Busy to play music. Now it takes a determined bit of planning to get together with anyone to play or learn music.But ...
The end result is also a sort of homogenization of dulcimer playing into something that rewards those who play fast and fancy, and that encourages playing in BIG all-dulcimer groups, in unison, generally encouraging one key, one playing style, and one tuning over all others. This inevitably isolates dulcimer players from other musicians, makes them dependent on each other to provide 'dulcimer safe' playing environments, and it makes it all the more difficult if a dulcimer novice gets it in their head to actually want to play with people who play other kinds of instruments, in various keys. I personally feel sad when I see how isolated beginner dulcimer players can become from other music players who enjoy mixed sessions. I have heard some dulcimer players say that they feel the rest of the music playing world is just not open to them. And even though it's not always true, dulcimer players now have a reputation for not being able to play in anything but the key of D. Indeed, I know several who can't play in any key other than D even though they've been playing for many years more than I have. Yikes.For what it's worth, I think she's right on the money. But I don't know exactly what I think about that.
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