Mountain Dulcimer Player Stephen Seifert

Over the years, I had spent a good bit of time with some of my older relatives who lived around Kentucky and Tennessee. I already had a bunch of stories in my head from hanging out under the kitchen table while the adults talked on Sundays. Great Grandma Surber talked about how she used to love to listen to folks sing when she was a little girl. She was too shy to sing so she wrote a lot of the words down. She mentioned an old ballad that I later figured out was "Barbry Allen". It seemed like a lot of older folks were passing away just as I was getting an itch to ask a ton of questions about their past.  

One night, on the local NPR station, 89.7 WNKU, I heard, for the first time, Fiona Ritchie's Thistle and Shamrock. It totally rocked my world. You know how people talk about different modes and scales affecting the mind and body? The heavy use in Irish music of mixolydian and dorian sent shivers up and down my back. I had never heard anything like it. Although I didn't know anything about the true history of the music, I felt like I was in castle times. I bought my first whistle at the Irish festival at the Cincinnati convention center. This was really my first "folk" instrument.

At some point, I ended up with the first Manheim Steamroller Christmas album. As much as I liked synth work, I wasn't really into those tracks. My fascination was with the traditional sounding tracks that featured acoustic instruments. One sound, in particular, drove me crazy, in a good way. It was the first time I ever heard a hammered dulcimer. I had to get my hands on one.     

My friend Jennifer surprised me by telling me how she had built a small one in a workshop. I borrowed it and was totally fascinated but I couldn't figure out how to tune or play the thing. I did mention to my Grandma Stout that I wanted to learn to play the dulcimer.

One day Grandma calls and tells me she was saving a clip out of the local paper for me. It was all about the Cincinnati Dulcimer Society and how they met regularly to play and socialize. The next Sunday, at Grandma's house, I got my first look at the picture. It wasn't hammered dulcimers in their laps. They were all playing something I had never seen or heard of. They were playing mountain dulcimers. I'll never forget one of the stories in the article about a lady who used the dulcimer to get her through long nights when she couldn't sleep because of the cancer treatments. She said something about how it had a soothing sound.

The first meeting I was able to get to was in the basement of a firehouse. It happened to be their annual Christmas party. There was a lot of people there and lots of good food. I immediately recognized a guy who worked with my dad, Mike Cox. I went to school with his daughter. He helped me get oriented. The lady from the article, Marilyn Craft, put a cardboard dulcimer in my lap. Mike showed me "Bile Them Cabbage Down".

Using what I had learned in my high school theory class the year before, I quickly discovered the triangle chords that sound so nice in DAA. Everyone in that club was in DAA. When the room wasn't playing, I would run those triangle shapes up and down the fingerboard. I was totally, completely, and hopelessly hooked.

Mike let me borrow his dulcimer. I spent the better part of the next four to six weeks learning how to tune by ear. I would come home from school, tune for 45 minutes, and quit with a headache. It was always close, but not always close enough. I didn't really get much playing in because I just could get it in tune. (I'm glad now no one told me about electronic tuners!)

I gave Mike's dulcimer back and bought my first. It was a Bill Berg from Nashville, IN. Cost $98! Was actually pretty darn good. Look up Bill on the internet. He's still building.