Appalachian Dulcimer Traditions (26 page)

The author's file contains a rather faint photocopy of a newspaper clipping, with a notation stating that it appeared in a Johnson City, Tennessee, newspaper about 1959. The story, which is on Nineveh Presnell and his dulcimer, included a picture of Presnell sitting on his porch and playing his instrument, which unfortunately is much too indistinct in the copy to reproduce.

The caption accompanying the photograph reads, “WHILES AWAY THE TIME—Passing the time on the front porch of his home, N. V. Presnell, 77-year-old retired farmer of Beech Creek section in Watauga County, N.C., plays his 73-year-old dulcimer.”

In addition to its value as a record of Presnell and his playing, the article reflects the low level of general knowledge of the dulcimer at that time. The reporter does not know the difference between a hammered and an Appalachian dulcimer and is clearly puzzled by what he found in
Webster's International Dictionary.
The text of the article is as follows:

Beech Creek, N.C.—No more beautiful, soothing music can be found than that which comes from the dulcimer, if the player is skilled, and the instrument is a good one.

One such skilled person is N. V. Presnell, a 77-year-old retired farmer of Beech Creek. His instrument is a good one made by his father, the late E. T. Presnell, 73 years ago.

Presnell spends many hours playing his dulcimer at his home—the old home of his father and the house in which he was born. The farm on which the house stands has been in the Presnell family for more than 130 years.

The dulcimer owned by Presnell is the oldest instrument of its kind in this section and is believed to be one of the oldest to be found anywhere.

What a lot of persons are interested in is whether the instrument used by Presnell and others in the mountainous sections of North Carolina and other areas are similar to the ones referred to in the Bible.

About 600 years before Christ, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon set up a great image of gold in the plains of Dura in the province of Babylon. A herald was sent forth to cry aloud to the people: “That at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up.”

The dulcimers used today are about three feet long and made something like a violin. They have three strings. One string is noted by a stick and all three strings picked with a limber splint. The instrument rests on the player's knees.

However, Webster's International Dictionary defines the dulcimer as “an instrument having metallic wires stretched over a trapezoidal sound-board with a compass of two or three octaves. It is played with two light hammers held in hands and from it was derived the idea of the piano action. Used erroneously to translate the Greek symphonia, now thought to have been a kind of bagpipe.”

Pictures of the dulcimer described in the dictionary differ from the one used by Presnell in that it has no resemblance to a violin. It is flat with the length longer than the width, which is the same from end to end.

Note:
This appendix appeared in the original edition of
Appalachian Dulcimer Traditions
, published in 1997. Since then, Jacob Ray Melton and Homer Ledford have passed away, and Clifford Glenn has retired from dulcimer making. The appendix is retained for historical interest.

*  *  *

Three dulcimer makers who are described in this book, one each from the Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky traditions, were making and selling dulcimers as of 1997. This circumstance makes it possible to acquire dulcimers with direct roots in each of the traditions. The price of dulcimers made by all three makers is in the $200 to $250 range. Addresses, phone numbers, and other information are provided below.

Jacob Ray Melton
Route 3, Box 183
Galax, Virginia 24333
(703) 236-4543

Jacob Ray and his work are described in chapter 3 [new edition, chapter 4]. Jacob Ray has been experiencing health problems, and his output is small, but he is still making instruments. His dulcimers are purely traditional, with no relation to the folk revival other than the use of modern mechanical tuners instead of tuners cut from old guitar and mandolin plates.

Potential buyers should understand that, with Jacob Ray, they are “buying history.” Jacob Ray's instruments are large, simply constructed by the standards of many modern folk-revival dulcimers, and not highly finished. They are usually fretted with wire staples that run under only two of the four strings. The instruments therefore cannot be chorded in modern folk-revival style. All four strings are intended to be tuned to the same note. Two strings are fretted and two play as drones. These instruments produce the true sound of the old Virginia dulcimer, as if the last 100 years had never been. I believe that anyone with an interest in the history of the dulcimer, should own one of these instruments.

Clifford Glenn
631 Big Branch Road
Sugar Grove, North Carolina 28697
(704) 297-2297

Clifford Glenn and his work are described in chapter 6 [new edition, chapter 7]. Clifford makes fine dulcimers in the traditional North Carolina pattern as descended from Eli Presnell's 1885 dulcimer. They are beautifully crafted, and are available in various woods and combination of woods. If you want the closest thing to the old tradition, ask for the North Carolina pattern, three strings, without the 6½ fret. If your heart is a bit more modern, you can order a four-string instrument with a paired melody string, and/or request a 6½ fret and/or request mechanical tuners instead of wooden tuning pegs.

Homer Ledford
125 Sunset Heights
Winchester, Kentucky 40391
(606) 744-3974

Homer Ledford and his work are described in chapter 6 [new edition, chapter 7]. Like Clifford Glenn, Homer Ledford is a superb craftsman who makes a beautiful instrument. As with Clifford, you can order three or four strings, with or without the 6½ fret. Homer makes many kinds of instruments. To order the traditional pattern based on the old Cumberland dulcimer, ask for his YP-1900 model.

Books referred to in the text are noted with an asterisk. The others listed below are books that have been helpful to me in understanding the world of Appalachia and the history of the dulcimer.

Abramson, Rudy, and Jean Haskell, eds.
Encyclopedia of Appalachia.
Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006. Whatever questions you may have about Appalachia, you will find some information here!

Blue Ridge Folk Instruments and Their Makers: An Exhibit Organized by the Blue Ridge Institute of Ferrum College, Ferrum, Virginia. 1992. Excellent photographs and text. Contact Blue Ridge Institute, Ferrum College, Ferrum, Virginia, 24088, for information on availability.

*Boone, Hubert. “De hommel in de Lage Landen” (The Hummel in the Low Countries).
Brussels Museum of Musical Instruments Bulletin
5 (1975). This unique publication contains scores of photographs of old European fretted zithers and their players, and even includes pictures of American maker Jethro Amburgey and traditional Tennessee player Lucy Steele.

Campbell, John C.
The Southern Highlander and His Homeland.
New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1921. Reprinted by University of Kentucky Press, 2004, and Kessinger Publishing, 2008. An in-depth description of life in the mountains in the early years of the 20th century.

*Eaton, Allen H.
Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands.
New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1937.

England, Rhonda George. “Voices from the History of Teaching: Katherine Pettit, May Stone and Elizabeth Watts at Hindman Settlement School, 1899–1956.” Ph.D. thesis, University of Kentucky, 1990. In my opinion, this thesis leaves something to be desired as a well-argued scholarly work, but it contains lots of fascinating information, including copious selections from the diary of Pettit and the correspondence of Watts.

*Gifford, Paul M.
The Hammered Dulcimer: A History.
Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2001.

*Hall, Baynard R. [Robert Carlton, pseud.].
The New Purchase; or, Seven and a Half Years in the Far West
. 2 vols. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1843.

*Henry, Mellinger.
Songs Sung in the Southern Appalachians, Many of Them Illustrating Ballads in the Making
. London: Mitre Press, 1934.

Hicks, John Henry, Mattie Hicks, and Barnabas B. Hicks.
The Hicks Families of Western North Carolina (Watauga River Lines)
. Boone, North Carolina, 1991. The late John Henry Hicks spent 25 years compiling this 463-page work.

Irwin, John Rice.
Musical Instruments of the Southern Appalachian Mountains.
Norris, Tennessee: Museum of Appalachia Press, 1979. This charming item is subtitled, “A history of the author's collection housed in the Museum of Apppalachia.” The book describes and illustrates a number of old dulcimers, paying as much attention to the owners and players as it does to the instruments. Irwin, proprietor of this privately owned museum, has been collecting mountain artifacts since the 1960s. In 1989, he received a MacArthur Foundation “genius award,” and he and his museum were featured in an article entitled, “Bark Grinders and Fly Minders Tell a Tale of Appalachia,” by Jeannie Ralston, in the February 1996 issue of
Smithsonian
.

Isbell, Robert.
Ray Hicks: Master Storyteller of the Blue Ridge.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Originally published as
The Last Chivaree: The Hicks Family of Beech Mountain
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996). The great merit of this book is the fully rounded portrait that it provides of mountain life in the years before and shortly after World War II, including the ever-present hardship. Ray was a member of the dulcimer-making Hicks family that is described in this book.

Kincaid, Robert L.
The Wilderness Road
. Indianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs-Merrill, 1947. Reprinted by several other publishers. This is the basic account. It doesn't supplant William Allen Pusey's book, listed below (nothing could).

Long, Lucy. “The Negotiation of Tradition: Collectors, Community, and the Appalachian Dulcimer in Beech Mountain, North Carolina.” Ph.D. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1995. Fascinating! As for “negotiation” versus “cultural imposition,” my preference is for Long's approach.

*Matteson, Maurice.
Beech Mountain Folk-Songs and Ballads, Collected, Arranged, and Provided with Piano Accompaniments by Maurice Matteson.
Text edited and foreword written by Mellinger Edward Henry. Schirmer's American Folk-Song Series, Set 15. New York: G. Schirmer, 1936. This book is discussed in the text.

*McGill, Josephine.
Folk-Songs of the Kentucky Mountains
. New York: Boosey & Co., 1917.

Mullins, Mike, Geneva Smith, and Ron Daley, eds.
Knott County, Kentucky History and Families, 1884–1994.
Paducah, Kentucky: Turner, 1985. Invaluable. A little over a thousand copies were printed, all but a hundred of which were presold before publication. If you missed it, you missed something wonderful. See if you can borrow it from a library on interlibrary loan.

Pusey, William Allen.
The Wilderness Road to Kentucky, Its Location and Features
. New York: George H. Doran, 1921. Pusey, a medical doctor, was the great-grandson of William Brown, who traveled the Wilderness Road in 1782 and kept a journal, which has been preserved. In the years 1919 to 1921, Pusey determined the exact location of the road, which was then not fully known, and published the information in this book, with many photographs. The book is wonderful and rare. You will probably pay a good deal for it if you can locate a copy in the secondhand trade, but you should do so with a glad heart. The frontispiece, showing the doctor's old touring car, with the top down and a 1920 Virginia license plate, parked beside the gravel road in the saddle of Cumberland Gap is worth the price all by itself.

Raine, James Watt.
The Land of Saddlebags: A Study of the Mountain People of Appala-chia
. Published jointly by the Council of Women for Home Missions and the Missionary Education Movement of the United States and Canada, 1924. Reprinted a number of times. Long out of print, but not too hard to find in the secondhand trade. Raine was the head of the English Department at Berea College. The book, based on years of firsthand observation, is beautifully written. It includes several songs and a photograph of a young man playing a Thomas dulcimer with the same kind of sound holes as the 1891 Thomas described in chapter 6.

Ritchie, Jean.
The Dulcimer Book
. New York: Oak Publications, 1963. Many reprint-ings. The first book about the dulcimer, and still fresh and wonderful.

— — —
Jean Ritchie's Dulcimer People
. New York: Oak Publications, 1975. Additional information on Ritchie and on the dulcimer scene as it stood at the time of publication.

Scarborough, Dorothy.
A Song Catcher in Southern Mountains: American Folk Songs of British Ancestry
. New York: Columbia University Press, 1937. Reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1966. Includes some transcriptions of dulcimer tunes played by a lady named Clara Callaghan of Saluda, North Carolina, about 1932. I have some doubts about this dulcimer material; the tunes and text sound like standard printed British versions. The book as a whole is nevertheless charming.

*Sharp, Cecil, and Maud Karpeles.
English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians
. 2 vols. London: Oxford University Press, 1932. Reprinted in 1952; reprinted in one volume in 1960, 1966, and 1972. Out of print. A selection from this work also appeared as
Eighty Appalachian Folk Songs, Collected by Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles
(Winchester, Massachusetts: Faber & Faber, 1968), reprinted several times, now out of print. These two English folk-song collectors spent 46 weeks in the mountains in the years 1916–1918, collecting folk songs, and produced one of the greatest of all books about America. For a description of their collecting journey, see Yates et al., below. It should be noted that, after their first collecting season in 1916, they issued a book with the above title, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1917. This book contains less than half the number of songs and ballads, and about one-third the number of tunes, in the Oxford University Press edition. Because the 1917 Putnam edition is out of copyright, it has been reprinted by one or more reprint houses. Buyers should be aware of what they are, and are not, getting.