This past weekend, Butch and I performed at JAMFest in Lee’s Summit, MO. (near Kansas City) We put on the usual Butch and Christie show for them, complete with angry game and all. Angry game = When Butch and I know a tune perhaps a little too well, we’ll stare at each [...]
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Posted in captured sound, hammered dulcimer, improvisation, traditional music, tagged Appenzell, Christie Burns, Cimbalom World Association, Flying to the Fleadh, hammered dulcimer, Irish traditional music on May 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
This is what happens when you stay up too late vainly googling yourself. I found this mp3 that my friend Paul Beck had posted in the CWA (Cimbalom World Association) online forum sometime after the 2003 congress in Appenzell, Switzerland. It’s a clip from my solo performance, where I was simultaneously representing Ireland [...]
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Weee! I just got my brand new Bose stick sound system (L1 model II), set it all up, plugged in my dulcimer (the Masterworks) and took off on some kind of improvisation using the delay effect. Ain’t ya proud, Dan? Ok, so this is like way a lot of fun… I’ll keep [...]
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This past Sunday, Butch and I were playing our first of many Sundays out at the aquarium. He’d gotten up for a bathroom break, so I was left there alone to improvise on my dulcimer. A small meditation on my mother, and Mothers Day in general, is what came out. When Butch [...]
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There’s a funny thing happening around Chattanooga these days. There are hammered dulcimer players living on streets across from other dulcimer players, the sole dulcimer players’ magazine in the USA is published on Signal Mountain, dulcimer players can be found on the street and in churches all over town, at festivals, parties, art galleries… [...]
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Luxury of luxuries! I stepped out my front door the other evening and saw that my across-the-street neighbors, Rick and Brandy, had their front door open. So of course I peeked in to see what they were up to, and their dining room was full of Irish musicians! And they were all working at learning [...]
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I’m glad this blog is about all kinds of music I encounter on a daily/weekly basis, so I’m free to post a clip of someone else playing the hammered dulcimer. Lisa Ferguson and I got lucky with two last-minute gigs this weekend. The first one, Saturday night, was at CreateHere on Main Street. [...]
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I just was experimenting with the new recording function of my iPod, and decided to play a bit with one of my favorite old time tunes. I first heard this tune in Cork at Monday night sessions with Mick Daly and the Lee Valley Boys, and fell in love with it all over again when [...]
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We just received word that the video of our first concert in Budapest has been posted! Once you’re on the page, use the small black scrollbar to scroll down, and click on the line that has my name on it… and then wait a while… It took quite a long time for the video to [...]
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Posted in fiddle, hammered dulcimer, traditional music, voice, tagged Cork City, Emma Small, Ireland, Raar, Robin Turk, Stella Rodrigues, Tom Spackman, trad music on March 17, 2008 | No Comments »
We could call this my St. Paddy’s Day special. And this time I’m reaching even further back in time to Spring, 2002, when five non-Irish people formed an Irish traditional band, and called themselves, “Raar,” meaning “strange” in Dutch… of course.
The band was a palindrome. Same backwards and forwards. Tom Spackman (USA) [...]
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