Music Festival is a Gateway
(...To Dulcimer Dependency and
Banjo Mojo)
by Kevin Doyle
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Mark you calendars for the
2nd Annual Bayou City Old Time Music &
Dulcimer Festival, Thursday, July 20. |
When my parents first approached me last July
about going to the First Annual Bayou City Old-Time
Music and Dulcimer Festival, I must admit I was a
tad reluctant. After all, my father plays the
dulcimer. I’ve witnessed first hand how quickly it
can take over a person’s life.
As the second annual festival approaches, I
thought I should share my story with those who might
consider attending. It all started innocently. My
dad came home from a trip to Arizona with this weird
instrument I’d never seen before. He told me it was
a mountain dulcimer. I thought nothing of it at the
time, but soon after I noticed that he played it for
hours on end every single day.
The family’s music collection gained one dulcimer
CD, then two, then six... before I knew it our
entire CD collection had been supplanted by old-time
music. Like any gateway drug, my father moved from
the dulcimer on to stronger stuff like the banjo.
Now, just a few years after buying that one
dulcimer, my father and mother were helping to run
an entire festival with their old-time music
friends. Would this be my fate? Would going to this
festival set me on the path of old-time music and
dulcimers forever? And most of all, would they teach
me how to play “Dueling Banjos?” (Because that song
was cool!) In the end, I decided to find out. The
festival has classes and workshops of all sorts.
Dulcimer, banjo, auto-harp, guitar, fiddle, and bass
lessons are offered at all levels from beginner to
advanced. I chose beginner guitar.
I walked into the room with my mother’s guitar
and absolutely no prior experience or lessons of any
kind, and only a vague notion of how to tune the
thing. But in an hour and a half my instructor had
taught me four basic chords, how to use the guitar
pick, and even taught me a song called “Boil That
Cabbage.”
I followed that up with a workshop on shape-note
singing, the style of music featured in the movie
Cold Mountain. Led by an incredibly talented
instructor, we classmates learned to sing a number
of haunting melodies in beautiful harmony. The
festival had vendors selling CDs and instruments, as
well as all sorts of arts and crafts. For a small
price, meals and snacks were also available. The
evening concerts (held each day) are a featured
event.
However, the heart of any music festival is the
venerable jam session, and the festival offers some
good ones. You'll know you found one when you see
musicians clustered together in a corner of a room,
playing various instruments, while groups of
listeners spontaneously start dancing. Then the
musicians, noticing the dancers, play even faster,
causing a chain-reaction, and it becomes a manic,
old-time Appalachian shindig.
I even managed to get a picture of my sister
dancing, something I never expected to see and
sincerely doubt she’ll let me see again (see above
photo). The Bayou City Old-Time Music and Dulcimer
Festival provided a captivating weekend full of
events. The festival is the perfect place for those
who, like me, find the latest musical offerings from
contemporary music bands sorely lacking compared to
the O’ Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack.
Who knows? A couple of years, a couple more
festivals, and I just might find myself jamming on
my brand new dulcimer, next to my dad.
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