Timothy's Blog

Timothy's blog on dulcimers, music, nature and life!

I am a musician playing primarily hammered dulcimer and flute, and have produced 15 instrumental albums on Virginia, Nature, History, Celtic, Christmas, and other themes; self-styled and original in approach, with a strong respect for sources and meanings.

OCT
22

Creative arranging

Creative arranging

Sometimes, especially in folk music and pop music, arrangers use a simple formula (‘KISS: Keep it simple, stupid,’ as they say) to present a melody or a verse-chorus pattern, and they make sure that they don’t demand anything significant of the listener.

Well, as a lifelong aficionado of Classical music, which in its best form does demand that the melody and chord structure develop in a complex way over the course of the piece, I crave creativity and depth in arrangements.  (May I say here that much folk and pop music does indeed involve creative arrangement, but some of their arrangements certainly don’t!)

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Wide-open spaces

Wide-open spaces

[New Mexico wilderness, 1971]

I’m a mild claustrophobe.

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A spontaneous 'Shenandoah' on hammered dulcimer

In 1996 I set about recording the classic folk tune ‘Shenandoah’ in a special, new, expressive way with something of a sense of the epic in its flow.  So I chose to devise a pattern in which each verse would be in a different key and each new key would be either a major or minor third away from the previous one --- a somewhat startling and unconventional kind of key change!  

On top of that, I wanted to jump to each new key immediately at the end of each verse without playing the verse’s last note --- at least till the very end of the whole piece.

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'Wondrous Love' on the hammered dulcimer with drones

Some Appalachian folk hymns have a powerful, stark, droning nature; perhaps the most well-known and effective of these is ‘Wondrous Love’, and it’s included in many modern hymnals with hollow harmonies reminiscent of the old shape-note books.

How does one arrange for this strong Dorian-mode melody when playing it solo on the hammered dulcimer?  I’ve always loved the shifting minor and major chords in some versions of it (see one possible set of modern chording in the lead sheet I’ve included here: Wondrous-Love-in-Edor-F.pdf), and it certainly is compelling when played as a melody only, solo a capella --- but I’ve opted to do only the stark, harmonized sound when I play it solo, and usually I play only one verse, letting the hymn be an introduction to another, contrasting, piece in a medley.

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My composition 'Preservation' on solo hammered dulcimer, separated-hands style

[/embed]Preservation-in-G-A-sep.pdf

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