Song List
Wildwood Flower
Soldiers Joy
Mississippi Sawyer
Lynchburg Town
Angelina Baker
Mister Moon
Rocky Top
Gray Cat on a Tennessee Farm
Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss
Bile Them Cabbage Down
Old Joe Clark
Tennessee Waltz
Amazing Grace
Forked Deer
Oh! Susannah
Waterbound
Sugar Hill
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Joy to the World
Silent Night
Pretty Betty Martin
Okechobee Grass
Cucharin's Cross
Nail That Catfish to a Tree
Muss I Denn
Groundhog
Shaving a Dead Man
Beech Spring
Flop Eared Mule
Ten Thousand Charms
Do Lord
Little Liza Jane
Whiskey Before Breakfast

Dulcimer Players News
Augusta Heritage Ctr.
Ozark Folk Center
Digital Tradition
Dulcimer Theory
Knoxville Club
North Georgia Club
Kansas City Club
Dulcimer Tab

Newsletter Archive
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
August 2001

Club News!!

Our playing circle increases each month with new and returning players!!!

Beginning players are always welcome!!
Special guests from St. Louis and Indianapolis were with us in January. Linda Smith, Tull Glazener, and Johanna Nicholas are seen here with club members.

• Donna Harvey competed in her first Irish Feis that took place at the Maxwell House Hotel on Feb. 9th. In case anyone doesn't know what an Irish Feis is, it is a competition of Irish Music, Arts, and Dance. She competed in a singing trio which got First Place! Donna will also be singing in a show coming up in March called Celtic Rhythms of Fire. There will be a dulcimer player in one of the songs. This is put on by the Nashville Irish Step Dancers. It is their 3rd Annual show and will take place on March 8, 9, and 10. For questions or to purchase tickets, please send email to crof_tickets@hotmail.com or call 615-320-5850. Donna will bring some tickets to bring to the February meeting in case anyone wants to make a purchase at that time). Click here for information about the program and the Nashville Irish Step Dancers' website. Congratulations also to Donna and her boyfriend of three years, Jim Tokarski, who were engaged on February 2!! Donna is the player in the center of the picture at the top of this page.
• We're looking forward to seeing Mountain Laurel at the February meeting and hearing about their stay in Arizona. They met lots of new musicians in their Monday night jam sessions, and in addition to their group gigs, Marilyn did a solo demonstration for her niece and her sixth grade Girl Scout troop in Phoenix. Marilyn's husband, Ed, assisted each girl in making her very own pair of rhythm spoons, and they finished off the program with everyone playing along to the dulcimer!
• Zada Law and Kort Nygard (Kort of Law) have a fun gig coming up. They will be playing at the Tennessee Veterinary Association convention in Cool Springs later this month and will be playing songs in keeping with their animal theme (Elk River Blues, Nail That Catfish to a Tree, Squirrel Heads and Gravy). Very appropriate!!!!!!
• Don't forget about the Backcountry Gigs which Michelle Nikolai told us about last month. They happen on Saturday nights, early (around 5-7 p.m.), at the Barfield Crescent Park canteen, called the Wilderness Station. This would be a fun spot for small ensembles to play and it's a great way for us to get more "performance savvy" in front of a small audience. They also have informal "jams" on Sundays. The coordinator is Deborah Paschall, and she was really interested in our group. It's up to us to contact her and arrange to play. Email Sandy if you need more info.
• Click here for information about the Three Rivers Dulcimer Association's Spring Fling. Larry Conger, 1998 National Dulcimer Champion, is the featured performer and teacher. The festival is in Waverly, TN, on April 26-27.

Getting to Know Us: Nannette Martin

Club profiles by Zada Law

Nannette Martin is one of our club's newest "regulars," but her interest in the mountain dulcimer is anything but new. Nannette saw her first dulcimer over 30 years ago while vacationing at Mammoth Cave. It was "love at first listen," and the romance continues. Here's how Nannette came to join our playing circle.

When did you first hear a mountain dulcimer? While waiting for our cave tour to start, I wandered outside to enjoy the sun. In the distance, I heard the most beautiful and moving music I had ever heard. There, sitting in a gazebo, was a young woman playing an instrument I had never seen before, a mountain dulcimer. It wasn't until several years later that I saw I dulcimer again, and this time, it was for sale. It was $100 that we didn't have, but I had to have it! At that time I was living in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Back in those days, no one in northern Indiana knew how to play or had even heard of the dulcimer. With no one to help me figure it out, my dulcimer wound up as a piece of decor in our home for many years.

What happened to move your dulcimer from the wall to your lap?Several years after our move to Nashville in 1990, I was attending the Bell Buckle Festival and noticed dulcimers for sale by a man named Enos Yeager. I bought one-a little more playable than my first dulcimer-and several months later, I purchased five others and gave three away as Christmas presents. In getting to know Enos, I learned of the Tullahoma Paul Pyle Dulcimer Club and through them, I found Sandy Conatser. Still frustrated that I wasn't learning anything, I asked Sandy if she would be willing to take me on as a student. Sandy introduced me to David Schnaufer, and I studied with both of them for a couple of years.

How did you hear about the Grand Old Dulcimer Club?For a few years, I devoted my energies to jewelry-making instead of dulcimer-playing. Last August, however, shortly after having surgery on both shoulders, I read a newspaper article featuring Sandy Conatser. Her comments about 'playing your own medicine' rekindled my desire to play the dulcimer. Sandy invited me to the club meetings, and I'm experiencing them in a wonderfully healing way. Also, I'm thrilled to once again be a student of David Schnaufer.

Is there any particular music you like to play?I love what David calls 'chicken music' - that stuff is a blast to play, and I love the Bach music that I'm learning this semester. In the evenings, my husband, Bob, loves to hear me play. I find that it fills our home with a peaceful presence, and even our three cats hang around - that is, until I start picking up the speed. Then they scatter!

Have you competed in contests?I competed in three contests in the mid-90's and won Second Place in Ashland City!! In Livingston, Tennessee, I was the first woman ever to compete with the dulcimer in the history of that town. I also played in the Harpeth River contest in Franklin, and I hope to compete again.

Do you play or own any other instruments? As a little girl, my very first love was the violin, but no one in my family was into music, so that dream was put on hold until adulthood. I bought a student model violin and started taking lessons in Ft. Wayne. In Nashville, I became the first student of a young fiddler named Heather Kolbrek who eventually went on the road with Trisha Yearwood's band. I still have and will always treasure the violin she helped me choose to purchase and play. I also studied banjo and mandolin for a short time. For a while, I was torn between the four instruments, all of which I love dearly. I've asked David to order a banjimer for me because it combines the great twangy tones of a banjo and the familiar finger patterns of the dulcimer. My goal is to become proficient at both. We also have a Russian balalaika, an antique mandolin, an antique 'banjo-uke', an antique Italian violin, a folk harp, a psaltery, a stand up double bass, a backpacker's mandolin, two violins, and a total of six dulcimers, including my husband's favorite - a dulcimer called a "2 by 4" that was made by Enos Yeager.

Do you have any interesting stories connected with your dulcimers or playing? I'm a Critical Care RN and worked at Baptist's Surgical Intensive Care Unit for eight years. Seven of those years were spent working under the supervision of the dulcimer club's own Wanda O'Guin. One day, I was talking about the dulcimer and offered to bring it to work to show her. She fell in love with it, too, and the rest, for her, is history.

Nannette currently plays a new"David Schnaufer model" McSpadden dulcimer and is determined to not let the mountain dulcimer take a back seat in her life again. Nannette's also having surgery this month for a ruptured disk. We'll all be thinking of you, Nannette, as you work on healing and returning to work.