A group of musicians are gathering in central Ohio this week to jam — but not with drum sets or electric guitars. Their annual festival celebrates a folkier instrument: the dulcimer.
Musicians across the state gather regularly to play the string instruments in groups like the Buckeye Strummers of Columbus and Central Ohio, the Firelands Dulcimer Club near Norwalk and the Dulcimer Society of Trumbull County.
The annual Buckeye Dulcimer Festival gives them a chance to practice and perform together, while introducing people to the music.
“Our mission has been to connect people with the dulcimer community,” said Joe Steiner, one of the event’s organizers. “Because, as far as groups of musicians go, the dulcimer community is very welcoming.”
A dulcimer lesson
Ahead of the festival, I met Steiner and two of the event's other organizers at a dulcimer jam session in Tipp City, north of Dayton, where they placed a three-stringed instrument flat on my lap.
“You can't be a lady. You've got to kind of spread your legs out a little bit,” organizer Shari Wolf instructed me.
Then, Wolf explained how the dulcimer works, starting with its long, wooden neck.
“Originally with the Appalachian dulcimers … they would make a fretboard and they would use nails for the frets,” she said. “And they put it over like a box or a tree or something that's open that can vibrate sound.”
The Appalachian dulcimer on my lap is a little more sophisticated: It’s handcrafted from wood.
Wolf started me off with the basics.
“So we do four strums to a measure,” she said, counting as my fingers swept over the strings.
Most of the other musicians jamming this evening also play the Appalachian (or mountain) dulcimer. But others play a different instrument entirely: the hammered dulcimer, which they tap with wooden mallets so it rings like a piano. The two are related in name only, but musicians often play them together.
That sense of community is one of the things Wolf loves most about the dulcimer.
“The instrument has opened up like a whole group of people I would have never, ever met other than through here,” she said.
Making music at the Buckeye Dulcimer Festival
It’s why she works with Joe and Chris Steiner to put on the Buckeye Dulcimer Festival each year. The five-day event started on Wednesday, bringing together dulcimer players from all over the region.
“One of the most beautiful sounds is [when] you walk into a classroom and you hear everybody tuning up,” Joe Steiner said. “There's nothing that speaks to the heart like that.”
The next few days of the festival will be filled with intensive workshops, toe-tapping jams and evening concerts.
“There’s something infectious about this music,” Joe Steiner said. “You get a bunch of dulcimers playing together — you start the tune and you get going on the tune and you just kind of live in the tune.”
Personally, I still have a long way to go. But by the end of my lesson, I can eke out an elementary-level song.
The players assure me there’s room for beginners in their dulcimer community.
