Thursday, March 29, 2012

Strings and Songwriting

An amazing thing happens sometimes when I am playing my dulcimer, sometimes I get a musical phrase that is all my own. I'm building a relationship with her, my dulcimer named Mary Ann, and she is telling me her secrets bit by bit. I have written one tune, and have another one in the works, and I am looking forward to this wonderful dialog. Right now I'm concentrating on going through the book "Lapidus on Dulcimer 2" and so I am joyfully working on new songs!

The other thing I want to get back to is learning more traditional Finnish tunes on my dulcimer. It's an adventure for sure, as I'm still learning to play. Hey, I just started to learn my first song in DAa! I've been a solid DAd player since getting her last May. Which reminds me, her first birthday is coming up soon, April 19th  and then there is her adoption date, which conveniently matches my wedding anniversary of May 13th. I might as well be rambling on about a girlfriend that I'm infatuated with, because that kind of sums up the relationship. We're very close and I absolutely adore her. There is so much to be thankful for in the past year, and I'm starting to take her out and about and play her at some jams. Tomorrow night we're going to St. Paul to join in on one, and I hope we do well. We will endeavor to have a good time anyway.

I can't remember how I stumbled across this next clip, but there is an interesting Zither there, and I'm super inspired by it, you may be too. It's Basia Bulats and she's playing a zither called a Pianoette in the video. She also plays autoharp. I'm currently searching out her videos online.

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