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.

JUN
23

The making of the album Sycamore Rapids

The making of the album Sycamore Rapids

This is my personal favorite among my albums.

This is perhaps the project in which I've most featured my own special techniques on solo hammered dulcimer --- at least that's how it felt at the time and as I reconstruct the pieces in live settings (in the studio we usually do much more than just record solos) and the creative vision is worked out in great detail and with much joy!

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2860 Hits
JAN
22

Noon and midnight

12 p.m.: when is that?

12 a.m.: when is that??

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11353 Hits
JAN
20

Play music in the moment!

When you’ve developed a performance piece, or even just something you’ve learned which you like to play on your own, it may be easy to simply draw on your memory of the way the composition goes, and bring it out and replicate it.

Or it may turn out to be a big challenge to reconstruct all the details in the way you intended originally, and you have to struggle to get it right.

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2851 Hits
DEC
30

Young parents: share your music with your children!

Young parents: share your music with your children!

When I was a baby, my mom would sit at the piano in the living room and play Beethoven, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff, and she would sing Romantic pieces such as ‘The Holy City,’ ‘Gesu Bambino,’ and ‘O Holy Night,’ exclaiming how wonderful these works were and how she didn’t really do them justice --- and I absorbed every nuance of these experiences.

 

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2604 Hits
SEP
12

Four distinct ways a melody can move


Recently I’ve come to the realization that the typical melody has four simple traits that we can easily look at and figure out --- whether we’re learning a new tune or coming up with our own new composition.

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6845 Hits

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