From Sandy - Dulcimer Day was awesome this year...the best ever!!! Thank you all for the beautiful orchid. I love orchids, and you couldn't have given me anything that would be more treasured! It will bloom again and again!! You do all of the work on Dulcimer Day...I just organize. Click here for the club website and Dulcimer Day 2004 pictures!! Thanks to Zada for a great job on the website!

• Thanks to everyone who came early to help set up and stayed late to take everything down, to everyone who worked at the sales table, the tuning table, in the historic exhibit, and the singalong. Thanks to everyone who brought an extra dulcimer for the workshops.
• Thanks to all of the perfomers who shared their incredible music. Around 70 people were involved in the day either as performers or workers!
• Thanks to Zada Law and David Schnaufer who put together an incredible historic exhibit. Thanks also to Zada for getting the press releases in the right hands. We had great publicity this year and a great crowd!
• Thanks to Bill Woods for picking up the children's stage and taking it back. Bill worked from sunup to sundown!!
• Thanks to Mary Nichols and Dan Pfeifer for bringing and setting up the tents and to Mary, Dan, Gloria Kirkland and Donny Shelton for managing the Tradition Continues stage. It was our first venture with a separate stage and it's going to grow and grow!!!
• Thanks to Sarah Elisabeth for teaching a workshop at the Tradition Continues stage.
• Thanks to the Hames and Thornton families for all their help with the historic exhibit.
• Thanks to Kristy Kirby for an awesome job with the hospitality room and to everyone who brought snacks.
• Thanks to Woody Parker for picking up the rockers and for putting up all of the highway signs...and for taking them down!!
• Thanks to Glen Wilson for organizing the workshops and to Donovan and Lee for teaching. Thanks, Glen, for rounding up all the picks!!
• Thanks to Wanda O'Guin, Priscilla Rushing, Joyce Rushing, Cricket, and Nancy Seifert for manning the information table and greeting the visitors.
• Thanks to Marilyn Bagford for bringing her beautiful quilts and helping decorate the stages.
• Thanks to Carolyn Rowe who again did an excellent job with the sales table....one of the most difficult jobs of the day!!!
• Thanks to Judy Beier, June Geddie, Ed Newkirk, Peni Rowe, and Denise Coss and others for another great singalong.
• Thanks to Carolyn and Don Wick for keeping a great jam going on the backporch.
• Thanks to Ben Wade, Linda Sack, and David Schnaufer for emceeing!!
• Thanks to Rob & Peni Rowe, Woody Parker and June Geddie for working at the tuning table.
• Thanks to Naomi and the Two Rivers Staff for all of the pre-planning and for making sure that everything was in place.

• Bob Mize was missed at Dulcimer Day, but his spirit was there! One of his dulcimers is in a very special place too. The photo at the right shows one of Bob's dulcimers hanging in a place of honor in the Washington, D.C. office of Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander. We appreciate the Senator's honoring Bob Mize and his contribution to Tennessee history and culture. Thanks to Ellis Truett for placing his Mize dulcimer on loan.
• Sandy Conatser and Donna Tokarski placed second and third respectively in the first dulcimer competition held at Heritage Day in Granville, TN. Savannah Sooter, an outstanding young player from Eva, TN, took first place. We hope she will visit with our club soon!! Start practicing now! There will be another contest next year and it would be great to have a large club representation.
• The elements finally smiled on us at our third Carnton Plantation playout and the weather turned out just right...a warm pleasant day! We finally made it to the back porch which must have been designed in Dulcimer Heaven. It was just the right size and shady with appreciative passersby. It was perfect! We had some very dedicated players join in with us. Fresh in from the Yellowbanks festival at Owensboro were Janice and Freddie Brown and Nancy Seifert. Others in the group Mary Nichols and Dan Pfeifer, Carolyn and Don Wick, Wanda O'Guin and Glen Wilson. We played from 2 until 5 as advertised and then we just had to pull the plug. Some folks (no names) would have been still playing I think! There will be another time guys! The next Carnton Date is scheduled for Sunday July 4. Please let Glen know if you would be able to make that date. Watch for further info on this as we get closer to the play date.
• From Glen My wife Martha and I just got back from a trip through Virginia and North Carolina and a great dulcimer trip...met up with our daughter Amy in Charlottsville and found our way to a visitor's stop on the Blue Ridge Parkway where we unpacked our dulcimers and played for awhile on the front porch of an old mountain cabin...talk about a perfect setting...stopped in the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol, VA where we saw a Bob Mize Dulcimer on display and LOTS of recordings of the old timers .....on to Hendersonville,NC where we found a Bob Mize dulcimer for sale..we didn't get it but would be glad to give details if anyone would like to follow up....dated 1974..looks like new..4 pegs..equidistant strings.
• Stephen Seifert is offering a monthly video lesson subscription. Each package will include a DVD video, an audio practice CD, tab, and a newsletter. Each lesson will cover beginner, intermediate, and advanced versions of a tune. For more information or to subscribe, please visit www.stephenseifert.com. You can call Stephen (615)673-9152. Email him at stephenseifert@hotmail.com.
• Freddie Brown graciously volunteered to be our song leader at the June club meeting and share some of his songs with us. Thanks Freddie! We do have a lot of talent amongst us and let's hear from you! We'll be scouting for a volunteer for the July meeting and we'd be happy for YOU to step up and share with us!
• Musical Menu for June.....Let's spend the first hour with old favorites, review some of the songs we haven't heard lately. How about Angelina Baker...Beech Spring...Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss.....and let's hear what YOU have been working on, and then we'll be all ready and warmed up for Freddie Brown and some fresh songs.

• July 2-3 - Smithville Fiddlers Jamboree, Smithville, TN - Dulcimer competition Friday afternoon.
• July 4 - Carnton Plantation, Franklin, TN - club play date, 2-5
• July 9,10 - Uncle Dave Macon Days, Murfreesboro, TN. Dulcimer competition on Friday evening. We usually gather in the old village around 4:00 and jam until dark. It's fun! Join us!

I first observed another club playing together in Old Fort, NC. Besides liking the style and type of music, I wanted to play in a group. This was just last August! Through the Internet, I found this club and came to visit. You all were nice, and one person even lent me an extra dulcimer to try! I called my friend in NC to see about getting my own dulcimer. She likes to trade with "Song of the Wood" in Black Mountain. She called me on her cell, played a few notes and told me the cost. We tried several like this, over the phone!, and with her looking at the quality of instrument, and the type of wood, I chose the one I have. The store sent it right away.

How did I learn to play? By observing you all! Mom "made" me take piano as a kid, so at least I can read music. I am going to Swannanoa this summer to hopefully learn an awful lot more. Being the shy person that I am, I only play with the club. I would like to hear dulcimers played at a funeral some time, though. I think that would be very soulful. I have a guitar, but I need the group concept to keep me practicing. I have played hand bells for several years. Hopefully something interesting will happen this summer in NC! Until I get more skill and confidence, I like to play the slower songs. I also like it when other instruments play with us. The mingling of sounds is very pretty. You all better watch out. All of you influence me. I like to learn from all your styles.

After retiring from 32 years of teaching in Orlando, I came back up here to enjoy my Mom. She is only 93.5 years old, and we have fun together when I'm not at my part-time job. I have also taken the Master Gardener class, and that has opened a whole new door for me. So, when it's not too hot, I like to putter in my little garden and see what else I can get to grow. Right now, I'm enjoying my new little herb pot. The basil and spearmint are doing great. Can't get the rosemary to show any growth yet, though. I've always had a philosophy of wanting to learn new things. So, dulcimers and gardening fit into that right now. When I grow up though, I want to be an FBI agent!

In partnership with Metro Parks, The Grand Old Dulcimer Club sponsors Grand Old Dulcimer Day each year in May at Two Rivers Mansion.

The club and its members perform at festivals and civic events and often take their music into special needs facilities such as hospitals, nursing homes, and other care facilities.

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