Wild times in Blue Mountain Lake

There is a gathering of musicians that takes place every summer in the Adirondacks– every summer for the past 28 years.  So it was quite an honor for me to be invited as the hammered dulcimer instructor for the Northeast Dulcimer Symposium this year.  I had wonderful class, very opened minded willing-to-try-anything students!  Two unusual instruments made an appearance at the week: Laurie McCarrier’s hammered mbira and Ken Lovelett’s orthagonal lap drum.  Here they are, one clip from the sound check (with Tom White walking in and out of the frame as he set up the stage), and one clip from the performance, which was done in complete darkness while Laurie played with her light-up hammers.  Oh man, that was cool!

Ken Lovelett and Laurie McCarrier at the Northeast Dulcimer Symposium, June 2009:

Working Hands

Here’s a little gospely number I wrote in the shower the other day.  Seems like something that could’ve come out of the Unitarian hymn book, and no surprise there.  This song has some of my favorite things in it– playing the piano, lots of fifth intervals, and invented words (”feelya”, “walkya”, “growya”, and “giveya”).  I’m not that crazy about the quality of the recording… Still on a search for a good digital recorder, I suppose.  This one makes the piano sound muffled, my voice sound unreasonably clear, and is overall too quiet or something.  It could just be that I need a good microphone.

Anyway, all technological critiques aside, I’m pretty happy with the song… It sounds to me like a conversation between a person (ok, me) and the universe.  Just some happy thoughts passed back and forth, you know, a little small talk, me and the universe.

“Working Hands” recorded at 524 East 18th St., Chattanooga, June 8, 2009:

Working Hands, by Christie Burns

I’m including two different links to the mp3 because the WordPress audio player doesn’t seem to be working well.  I mean, my recorder wasn’t doing a stellar job, but it wasn’t THIS bad!  Does anyone else hear that crackling and distortion on the WordPress player version of this file?  The link above will get you to a clean one.

Swedish trio

Sweden.  Old man.  Fiddle.  Guitar.  Volvo.  Tractor.

I’m absolutely smitten.

For anyone who knows me, this should come as no surprise whatsoever.

Jim T., thanks for the tip that led me to this video!

Chattanooga Choo Choo

Well if you’re going to have a city-themed song stuck in your head all the time, I suppose this is the one to have.  I can’t help it!  There’s a neon sign I see from my porch that says “Choo Choo”— (or sometimes just “oo Choo”, or sometimes “Choo Ch”, or sometimes “h Choo”)…. And there’s just something so inviting about that little chromatic walkup on the words, “Pardon me boys,” that gets the tune going in my head before I have a chance to stop it.  I’ve heard Glenn Miller’s rendition, of course, but I’ve never seen this little production before today.  How awesome is this?!!  And how about that slippery dance floor routine at the end?  Wonderful stuff.

Oh, and by the way, if you’re a really cool person and if you ever find yourself going to visit (or stay at) the Choo Choo, drop me an email, because I really do live four blocks from there, and I really would meet you for a beer or a walk around town.

Funky Teacher

Here’s a random lesson video from YouTube… I’m lovin’ this guy’s teaching style…. I think anyone who’s had a lesson or workshop with me sees a little of that in me (or I hope!).  Maybe I’ll be this funky someday!

And here’s Dr. Lonnie Smith doing his thing.  Can’t beat that!!

Colorado Swedish Tunes Workshop Wrap-up

Thanks, Betsy, for the nudge reminding me to upload these. Here’s “Polska from Solna” and “Polska from Kumla,” the two Swedish tunes we worked on at the Colorado Dulcimer Fest back in February.

Tune for Rebecca

The Colorado Dulcimer Fest was asking its performers to donate something to the door prize prize pool, and I didn’t want to be like everyone else and just put in a CD.  So I made up a little certificate instead, which entitled the winner to an original tune, composed by me, in the winner’s honor.  I’ll call this the “O’Carolan tactic”… or in other words, self-assigned homework.  I was lucky that the winner of the certificate was actually a hammered dulcimer player herself, and a pretty cool gal at that.  It has been an honor for me to compose in honor of her, even if it has taken me two months to write the tune.  I’ll be seeing Rebecca, the winner, soon.  It’ll be up to her to title the tune.

I’m my own worst videographer, so nevermind the headlessness in this clip.  Just enjoy the music, and focus on the hammers, because that’s what it’s all about anyway.  Oh, and by the way, those are Paul Haslem hammers I’m using, and he’s about to make a new batch of them to send to America.  Contact me if you’re interested in buying a pair!

Patty on the Turnpike

Well, I promised my friend Doursean that I’d post some “Angeline the Baker” action on my blog tonight, but when I sat down to the dulcimer, all it wanted to play was “Patty on the Turnpike,” a tune I learned this past weekend in Shepherdstown, WV. And by “learned” I also mean “taught”– I was co-teaching a class with Ken Kolodner on old time fiddle tunes, and this was one that he picked out for the class. Usually when tunes are played extra slow for teaching purposes, there’s a little voice inside my head that says, “C’mon! Hurry it up!” But with this tune, we played it all slow like this for three straight days, and that little voice in my head just said, “Ahhhh.”
I loved it most when I played it on my parents’ Yamaha piano in Cinnaminson… but didn’t have any kind of recording device with me to capture the moment. Still, it’s nice on the dulcimer, although it sounds awfully lonely without my whole big bunch of students playing along. Thanks, everyone, for a wonderful weekend at the Upper Potomac Dulcimer Fest! And especially to Ken, thanks for the tune!

Patty on the Turnpike, Sarah Armstrong’s version (from Hill Country Tunes), recorded on 18th St., March 2009:

The day the Flat Iron Stringband came to town…

….was a fantastic day.  Magical, I might even say, as it brought a reunion of sorts.  Let me try to explain.  When I moved to Chattanooga and met Joseph Decosimo, he had to correct me, and remind me that we had actually met once before–in Cork.  Well, that’s no surprise, I guess, since I had gotten into playing some old time music there, and he showed up at a session I was at.  Ok, so around the same time, I had taken a trip to England for the big old time music festival in Gainsborough, put on by the Friends of American Old Time Music and Dance.  There I met Nick Stillman, an incredible fiddle and banjo player, an American guy in his 20s out in the UK and Ireland doing the same thing I was doing… living for/with/through music entirely.  Nice move, Nick.  Ok, so here’s the fun part.  I can remember the details of this part (since I wasn’t there), but Joseph and Nick also met each other, in Galway where Nick was busking.  So the three of us all had this kind of pre-introduction to one another—and we all got to spend an evening together earlier this month, now six years since we all first met each other.

Nick is back in the U.S. now, (now just to get him to move to Chattanooga… hmmm.) and he was on tour with the Flat Iron Stringband.  So was my good friend, Amanda Kowalski, until she got called out on assignment in China.  So although the band showed up without my Amanda, I was still majorly glad to have them around.  If I had some way of making time stop, I’d've done it that night after their gig.  There was music happening in the house like I’d never quite heard there before.  Fiddlers, banjoists, guitarists, and a bassist at the absolute top of their game.  All this makes me feel like I’m alive in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.  Not a single generation too soon or too late.  Just right.

Colorado Dulcimer Fest: Allison Lotterhos

Last weekend at the Colorado Dulcimer Festival, there were all of the wonderful elements that make up a dulcimer festival: concerts, workshops, jamming in the lobby, meals and social time with the world’s friendliest strangers. There was much comparing of notes over different makes of instruments, different takes on tunes. There were people on the hammered dulcimer side of the fence peeking up over the fence into the mountain dulcimer yard with an “ooh,” “aah,” and “wow!” [Leave it to Erin Rogers and Aaron O'Rourke to make us all want to take one of those three-stringed suckers home with us.]
But for me, one of the most surprising and inspiring parts of the weekend happened while I was backstage judging the Colorado State Hammered Dulcimer Contest. Of course I heard many lovely things, fine arrangements and great playing. When I heard Allison Lotterhos play (without seeing her), I thought the player was a guy. I may be way out of line saying something like this, but what I was hearing was this rapid, mathematically-perfect, technical precision in her playing that I’ve mostly heard from guys who come to the dulcimer from the percussion world. Numbers, intervals, patterns, rhythms that move and change like hummingbirds… I was pleased to see our champion was a girl–and a rather young one at that. I think Allison had stumbled upon her first dulcimer festival, and the weekend was made all the better for it. She and I swapped CDs (oh, I so got the better end of that deal) and now I’m sitting here in Chattanooga listening to her compositions. As I listen, I’m wanting to take back what I just typed about the math and the numbers. That’s all there, certainly, but what comes out in her playing more than anything else is her direct heart-to-dulcimer connection. This level of focus, imagination, and listening/responding to one’s own music as it’s being created– these are all elements that comprise the playing of my most favorite musicians.
Allison, I don’t know if you’re reading this post, but I’d like to say thanks for making this CD and sharing it. Thanks for showing up at the festival and making it extra special for me (and I’m sure many others). Keep it up with the composing, performing, and recording; you set a great example to follow.

Allison Lotterhos at the Colorado Dulcimer Festival, 2009: