I'm about to check off another item on my bucket list.
Next Saturday I'm starting music lessons. My mother would be so proud! Actually, she would be surprised considering all the stress caused by my childhood piano lessons. My daily thirty minutes in front of the piano was a constant battle when I was elementary school age, especially when my next door neighbor friends were sitting on the front stoop. I absolutely hated practicing and my weekly lessons with the piano teacher certainly showed I hadn't tried. I'm the one who dropped out of piano lessons way back when.
I've regretted it ever since I realized what I had done. The piano is now in my house and I do manage to pick out a few hymns every so often, especially around Christmastime. How I wish I could sit down and tickle the ivories, or at least knock some of the dust off the keys.
Now I have a chance to redeem myself by taking dulcimer lessons on my Appalachian dulcimer. Lessons start Saturday. WooHoo!!
I purchased this one a decade ago. It came with a pick and a stick, which I had no idea how to use. I found a do-it-yourself booklet, and set about teaching myself to play. Unfortunately, life got in my way. Instead of neighbor friends sitting on the stoop yelling at me, "Are you finished practicing yet?" I had grown-up things going on, supper to fix, papers to grade, those kind of distractions. Now life is different. I can do it right this time around.
I've read that the Appalachain dulcimer, also called a mountain dulcimer, is in the zither family of stringed musical instruments. It has four strings. It has many frets. I'm already fretting about the frets and wondering if the two usages of the word fret are somehow connected. That will be a question I'll ask in lesson one. Somewhere in the back of my mind seems like I heard that settlers in the mountains invented the Appalachian dulcimer to have a drone sound that reminded them of the Scottish bagpipes they left beind in the old country. Another lesson one question I'll ask.
A dulcimer like mine lies flat on the table, or on the lap, so I won't be strumming it like a guitar. I'll be able to watch my fingers strike a chord, a plus for visual learners like me.
So I'll be off to dulcimer lessons Saturday at the HUB, the Hudson Uptown Building here in Hudson, North Carolina. It's an arts center with all kinds of musical and visual arts lessons available. As soon as I heard about dulcimer lessons, I signed up. I'll let you know how lesson one turns out.
Catch of the day,
Gretchen
