Westfork Gals, Lazy Spring Afternoon Version

Actually, it’s hardly a lazy afternoon… In fact, I’m enjoying what feels like a miracle that I can take a moment to play a dulcimer and have fun improvising a bit with a tune, in the midst of all the folk school work.  I’m pretty much obsessed with the Folk School of Chattanooga and all its potential (mixed with actual momentum, which makes it exciting).  But still, like a meditation, it’s sweet to come back to the dulcimer once a day, and remind myself that if it weren’t for this trapezoidal magic plinko box, there’d be no folk school, no Chattanooga (for me, anyway), none of the friends I know and love… I know CDs are a bit passe at this point, but I’m forging ahead anyway.  It’s time for a new shiny little CD to have my name on it, and with that in mind, I’m starting to consider all my favorite–really most favorite–tunes.

Here’s one.

Dodecamedita, Gooik, Belgium, 2009.

What a wonderful surprise in my mailbox a few days ago, right in the dead of winter, a cd reminder of a summer week spent in Gooik, Belgium.  I’ve written on this blog before about working with Maarten Decombel, and what a pleasure it was to get to know his music.  This recording is from the concert we gave inside Gooik’s giant church.  My favorite track is still this one: “Dodecamedita”, a piece composed by Maarten himself.  I love the main melody, the harmony that goes with, the interesting rhythm, the improvisation sections.

Maarten Decombel, bouzouki, and Christie Burns, hammered dulcimer, August 2009:

Sail Away Ladies

More progress on the RC-50, and still loving it.  This was my first time trying a whole song in live performance mode.  I mean, tonight my only audience was a sleeping Simba, but still I played it as though it were a performance.  Up ’til now it’s just been playing with loops and not giving much more than a single thought towards arrangement or structure.

Silent Night

More fun with the Boss RC-50. Still learning how the darn thing works… Haven’t figured out starts or endings yet, but anyway, it’s loads of fun!

12 Days of Christmas, Day 1

I know, I know, the official twelve days don’t start ’til later, but I’m calling this MY twelve days of Christmas, because I will post twelve different Christmas songs between now and… um… when the wise men get here. I guess.
So that’s the goal. Creative people need projects and goals. Even goofy ones help!
Enjoy this post, celebrating MY first day of Christmas. Day two might come tomorrow, maybe the next day… And I’ll see which Christmas song inspires me then!

I Saw Three Ships

Amazing Grace with Madeline MacNeil

I was never going to forget these five musical minutes of my life anyway, but I’m super glad that Laurie McCarriar captured it all on video.  Maddie MacNeil, Tom White, Ken Lovelett and myself were all on stage together for the teachers’ concert at the Northeast Dulcimer Symposium, and our setlist consisted of things that each of us had brought to the table to share and be played on by everyone.  So this was my contribution, my arrangement of Amazing Grace that I’ve been living with and working on for a year now (or more, if you count back to when I first started playing around with it back in Ireland).  I think we’ve reached an all-new level of perfection with it now.  What could ever be more beautiful than Maddie’s voice?  And the rest of the band made us sound like we were some Irish super-band, like Altan or something.  Love it.

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:

Walkin’ in the Parlor

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a good old fashioned recorded-it-in-my-living-room kind of post.  Partly, that’s because I haven’t been in my living room lately for long enough to record a tune.  But the other evening, Matt came by for some tunes (as well as folk school plotting and scheming), and this is what we made.  Exploring the quiet, the slow, the simple, the serene side of old time music… We’re inching towards the place where old time music meets African music, or at least the kind of African music I love to listen to.  [I reference this mbira post.]  Actually, now that I think about it, most of the traditional mbira music from Zimbabwe I’ve heard is fast and busy… And maybe I’m just really into what Forward Kwenda does when he takes those traditional melodies to a mellower place.  Well certainly I appreciate knowing how to reach that mellower place in old time music.  Matt Evans is the conductor on the express train to old time mellowland…the slowest, quietest, most peaceful train you could ever imagine.  Here’s my first official wish to the universe in 2009: I wish for Matt and myself to someday collaborate with Forward Kwenda.    Crazier things have been wished for on blogs, haven’t they?

Walkin’ in the Parlor, recorded by Matt and Christie on 18th St., Chattanooga, Jan 11, 2009.

Summer Memory

I stumbled across this on YouTube. I think it’s kind of fun that some tourist happened to capture a piece of this unique day when my friend Helen Gubbins was visiting.