Play Date

Today my mountain dulcimer Mary Ann and I are hopping in my PT Cruiser to go play with my big brother. He plays the guitar, so we are going to have a jam practice together. My sweet Mary Ann turned one year old on April 19th, and I forgot to note it here in the blog. Actually, I forgot to note it in my life, but that's another story. I've had a very busy couple of weeks at work, and so all the home stuff was put on the back burner.

Now I'm ready to put more energy into things like my upcoming music party, hence the play date. We tried coordinating remotely, but my diatonic little lady needs face to face time with other instruments apparently. That's cool, as I love playing with others. This is the third year for my Spring Music Party, and I'm pretty excited about it. The RSVP's have been coming in, and there will be some very fine musicians and singers in attendance. Having musicians in the family is really awesome, and I'm going to take advantage of this perk more often. The family that plays together, stays together. I might just have to put that on a T-Shirt.

Let's Go Singing With Hobbits

The past few days I have not been able to stop thinking about the prospect of getting my new Autoharp. I'm so incredibly excited about it I can hardly tell you. I have some of my favorite Autoharp music playing on the stereo right now, including Memories of Middle Earth and Heart's Ease by Marc Gunn. A while back I wrote a review of the second of those two albums here on my little Strum Pluck and Drone blog. But with the vision of my new Autoharp in my mind, and the fact that The Hobbit movie will be released on December 14th 2012, it's the first album that is fueling even more excitement for me. I am a hard core Tolkien fan, and proud to admit it. My plan is to have a Hobbit themed music party in the first part of November. What would make it perfect would be to have my new autoharp a few months before that so I can learn some of the Middle Earth themed songs on it to share at the party. Until then, I will try and figure out the theme from the new movie on my trusy mountain dulcimer, because a fan girl has to do what a fan girl has to do.

Timing is everything, and with the saving for the new instrument in the beginning stages, I wanted some more information about that. So, to keep myself busy toward my goal, I sent off an email to the luthier to find out what the turnaround time is for an autoharp and when he would need a deposit. There are songs to learn before my Autumn Music Party, and Marc was kind enough to post the lyrics to a ton of his songs on his website. He is a true Bard, and I'm going to contact him for the chords on a few of them, as he noted he would provide on his lyrics page. If I can learn them on the dulcimer first, then they'll be that much easier to learn on the autoharp when I get it. Not many song writers are so open with their lyrics, and I'm just so glad that Marc is, it will make for a great night next November.

Until then, I have the songs to prepare for next month's Spring Music Party. There's so much to do! Diving into the Folk Music can be that way. Finding time to practice, people to jam with from time to time, research info on my latest music enthusiasm takes time. There are still Finnish tunes that I want to write dulcimer tab for, and now songs about Hobbits to get chord for and print out for my songbook. The printer broke, so now I have to research printers too, that needs to be replaced in the next few days. I still try to find time for my friends, and I was at a lovely tea party this afternoon, and a gathering last night with artists. So much fun to be had, so many songs to sing!