Heidi Muller News

Join us in Joseph, Oregon for a day of Mountain Dulcimer workshops and an evening concert! This is the instrument also known as the Appalachian, lap or fretted dulcimer - a 3 or 4-string instrument with a fretboard, usually in an hourglass or teardrop shape. On Saturday, April 12 we’ll open doors at 8:00 am for registration and start activities at 9:00 am at the Joseph Methodist Church, which is walking distance from the Indian Lodge Motel and a number of B&Bs (the Bronze Antler, Chandler’s and Belle Pepper’s are closest). We’ll have a welcome reception for folks who drive in on Friday to stay over. On Sunday morning, we’re all invited to the 10:00 service at the Methodist Church. A few of us will share our music for the congregation.

Instructors include two players from Seattle who have more than 30 years under their belts — Susan Howell and Niels Andersen, who specialize in swing tunes, cowboy songs, pop songs, Old English and waltzes. Bob Webb, a familiar teacher and performer in this area, is flying in from West Virginia to teach chords and rhythmic strumming, and to conduct a Dulcimer Clinic for instruments that need minor repairs or set-up. I will be hosting the event as well as teaching classes for fiddle tunes, fingerpicking and basic chords.

The entire class grid will be posted shortly — please check back for updates. We will also have some loaner instruments available for people who want to try it out. Please reserve those with us in advance.

Cost is $45 Early Bird registration if received by March 21, $50 pre-registration by April 5 or $55 at the door. This includes all workshops and concert. Concert by itself is $5.00 and the public is invited. Registration can be paid by check to Heidi Muller, PO Box 334, Joseph, OR 97846.

This will be a great way for dulcimer players scattered all over the Northwest to unite, get to know each other and learn from instructors they wouldn’t otherwise see. The dulcimer is a great instrument to start with for all ages, from children right up to seniors, so beginners are encouraged to come! If you have any questions, please leave a comment, drop me an email from my website and also check out the “Dulcimer Day” link from my website home page. Please spread the word and stay tuned for updates!

I got a little package last week that brought me a smile. In it were two CDs in some of the most gorgeous packaging I’ve ever seen — colorful art, photos and a booklet of almost 50 pages, plus a CD with a photo of ice floes that beautifully matched its background tray. The lettering I couldn’t read, except for “World Music Compilation” and the number 4. Many months ago Polyphone Records in South Korea requested my permission to put “Gypsy Wind” on a CD they would call Songs of the Wayfarer. When I saw that my song would appear right next to Peggy Seeger singing “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” I felt especially honored.

And so here it is… with lyrics printed in Korean… and a long list of artists and titles from many cultures. Some of the tunes have a Latin feeling — “Mariposita De Primavera” by Liuba Maria Hevia is especially nice. There are a number of songs in English but most of the artists are new to me. The CD is not currently available outside of Korea, sorry to say. There are some websites listed on the CD, though, that you might enjoy checking out — polyphone.co.kr, aulosmedia.co.kr and sunmoodang.com. I can’t wait to get someone to translate my lyrics from the liner notes!

Thanks to CD Baby for being the wonderful resource that connected my music with this new audience.

It’s a Saturday morning. The good folks of Moscow walk stiffly on snowy sidewalks, crossing slush-beaten, refrozen Sixth St. outside the One World Cafe… not in faraway Russia, no, this is Idaho. I came up last night past Joseph Canyon, over Rattlesnake Grade, and crossed the Snake River to see my good friend Dan Maher play some tunes for the locals. Dan’s been a good friend for over 25 years. I guess I’m biased, but I still marvel at all the songs he knows and the energy he puts into a performance. He sings with such heart, everything from Johnny McAdoo to Scotch and Soda. His dog Orient lays down and snoozes at his feet, having heard it all before… longing for some Dave Beck, no doubt.

This winter, I can get his Inland Folk radio show on one station on Saturday (NW Public Radio) and another one on Sunday (KPBX-Spokane). I love to hear his show. He knows the past five decades of folk music like nobody else in these parts. He’s got all the lowdown on Scottish, Irish and Australian music, knows his cowboy tunes, bluegrass, baseball songs, 60’s folk and current songwriters. He’d be great at a folk trivia quiz… and what’s more, he can sing all that and Jimmy Buffett, too.

Dan doesn’t have a website, but I’d urge you to go see him, support his music and get his CDs. He doesn’t perform all that often. He works a day job at Washington State University. His radio show streams live from Northwest Public Radio, so you can hear him from most anywhere. He’s a Northwest musical treasure if there ever was one. I am so glad I drove three hours to hear him. Thanks, Dan and all the good folks of the Palouse who came out, helped with sound, and sang along.

Happy New Year! Our good friend Doug Imbrogno, the online arts editor at the Charleston Gazette, has made a beautiful, short video with music, narration, still photos and captions from our Hayslett CD Release Concert that you can see! Tunes are taken from the CD.

Just go to this link: http://thegazz.com/hayslett/

Enjoy!
Heidi

Greetings and Happy Holidays!

This has been such a full year. I’ve been so busy that I forget to blog! It started off with writing grants and teaching for Music Mentors, a program Bob and I have created that gives one-on-one music lessons to at-risk and low-income children. My energies then went into completing and publishing the 200-page Patchwork Dreams book with accompanying CDs, with some school visits and the release party on June 2 at Big Ugly. Then during the summer, Bob Webb and I started to weave together a special CD project that was Bob’s idea for a fundraiser for Music Mentors — a collection of music that would showcase the fiddles, cellos, violas and other instruments made by WV luthier Harold Hayslett, and come out in time to celebrate his 90th birthday. It was one of those delicious ideas we couldn’t resist!

Bob recorded many WV master players including Bobby Taylor and Andrew Dunlap, Dave Bing, Jenny Allinder, Barb Kuhns and Linda Scutt, Greg Bentle, John Lilly, the Montclaire String Quartet and Kim Graham, Darrell Murray and Dan Boyer from the WV Symphony. Tracks by Cathy Grant, Ari Lipsky and Bob and myself were borrowed from existing recordings. And now it’s a reality — a fine CD of music ranging from old-time to classical to original to contemporary, featuring 18 of West Virginia’s finest musicians.

THE HAYSLETT COLLECTION — A MUSICAL TRIBUTE was officially released on December 16, 2007 in a fabulous concert at the WV Cultural Center on the State Capitol campus… 250 people attended with snow falling beautifully outside the huge plate glass windows, beyond the decorated Christmas trees in the Great Hall. Even Santa made an appearance! And the Arts Commissioner, Randall Reid-Smith, read a proclamation from Governor Joe Manchin to commemorate both Harold Hayslett’s lifetime contributions and his upcoming 90th birthday on Dec. 26.

Proceeds from sales will support the Harold Hayslett Music Mentors Scholarship Fund. Every sale of a CD will fund one 1/2 hour lesson for our kids at the East End Family Resource Center, and continued funding will help us bring on other instructors and expand to other locations. We are also accepting donations. Folks have been most generous — such as FOOTMAD (our local folk music organization), the Putnam County Bank, and several private donors. And the Unitarian Universalist Church in Charleston, WV has been our support from the start, helping us to get grants, giving us adminstrative help and now being our home for the scholarship fund until we can become our own 501(c)3. We are most grateful!

You can help, too! CDs can be purchased:
1) ONLINE at CD Baby: go to http://cdbaby.com/cd/hayslett
2) MAIL ORDER: $18 (includes postage, checks made out to “Music Mentors/UUC”) sent to Heidi Muller, PO Box 1064, Charleston, WV 25324
3) STORES in WV: Tamarack (Beckley_, Taylor Books, Cornucopia, and Frog Creek Books (Charleston), Fret ‘n’ Fiddle and Mountaineer Frames (St. Albans), Gorby’s Music (South Charleston), Ferguson Tea Room (Hurricane), Downtown Depot (Huntington).

TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS of any amount can be made to “Music Mentors/UUC” and mailed to Heidi Muller, PO Box 1064, Charleston, WV 25324.

For more information, please visit: www.musicmentorswv.org

Thanks again for all you do to support music and the arts, and especially for being among our friends and audience.

Have a wonderful New Year,
Heidi

“Patchwork Dreams: Songs, Stories and History from Big Ugly Creek and Harts Creek, West Virginia” is now in print! With over 200 pages, including 24 songs and two song-teaching CDs (one complete version and one ‘karaoke’ version of each song), the book made its debut in beautiful Big Ugly and is finding its way into the world. I recorded and transcribed most of the oral histories in the Big Ugly area from 2004 to 2006. This past year, I collected over 150 family photos, combined them with oral history quotes, wrote and edited essays, and created sheet music of our songs, cobbling together a work with six chapters that documents the life and times of this small corner of the universe. It’s got mountains, miners, moonshine and mayhem alongside poems, recipes, and old newspaper articles. It has been an honor to gain the friendship of the people whose words are in these pages, and to take it into the schools to share it with their children and grandchildren.

Patchwork Dreams is a unique anthology of essays, oral history quotes, historic photos, quilt art and songs that weave together the stories of Appalachian mountain families in this remote part of West Virginia. Big Ugly Creek was once a bustling community with stores, post offices and schools. It is now a quiet, country road that extends 20 miles along the creek, with about 150 homes and no public buildings except a couple of churches and the Big Ugly Community Center. Over Greenshoal Mountain is the town of Harts, where the business and schools now are. Big Ugly is part of that extended community.

We had a great release party at Big Ugly last week, with all the local folks in attendance, and Lois Ferrell’s handstitched quilts hanging around the hall. The local bluegrass/gospel group Higher Ground came and played, as well as Elaine Purkey. Elaine is a nationally-known mountain singer who has been featured in Sing Out! magazine and at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. She lives in Harts and gave us two of her songs for the book. Bob and I also sang songs from the book including the very popular “Big Ugly Woman.” We were so pleased to have Colleen Anderson and Dr. Lynda Ann Ewen read parts of their essays for us, along with my right-hand assistant on the book, Dana Kuhnline, and our Step by Step organization director, Michael Tierney.

Now as summer arrives, I’m getting used to the project being finished. Draft pages are fluttering into the recycling box. Papers are being filed. Next thing is to get the book up here on the website and make it available to you all! Please drop me a line if you’re interested in having one. It’s great for history buffs, teaching artists, classroom teachers of music, Appalachian studies, history and social studies, and anyone who loves authentic stories of the way life used to be.

It’s been a gloriously sunny Memorial Day weekend here in Charleston, and I was finally able to attend the Vandalia Gathering at the State Capitol after years of having other gigs. This is one of West Virginia’s favorite old-time music events, with food and crafters, dances and jamming under the trees. And then there are the contests - fiddle, banjo, mandolin, guitar and dulcimer. We have kids’ contests in fiddle and dulcimer, too, and this year Bob was able to coach one of our Music Mentors after-school kids to enter the youth contest yesterday afternoon. 8-year-old Shalor took 2nd place! It was his first contest. He got a fabulous long red ribbon and some money to boot.

This was my first contest, too, at least in the world of dulcimer. I’ve always been uncomfortable with competition - that aspect of comparing yourself to others just doesn’t do much for my playing. I’ve coached students who’ve gone on to win. I have done pretty well in songwriting contests. I’ve also judged both songwriting and dulcimer contests, so maybe that might help. It’s been such a busy time finishing up the Patchwork Dreams book that I hardly gave it a thought all spring, but suddenly there it was - the Vandalia Dulcimer Contest. I knew some friends would be in it, and it seemed like it might be fun to try.

I tossed around ideas of what made a contest song, and finally three days ago I sat down and started working on my ideas. I rehearsed them in my head when I was driving to school gigs an hour away. I put some time in on Saturday night to work out the bugs, but then there were the nerves! I did my best to shoo them away, from meditating to telling myself that 20 years must count for something. When that didn’t work, there was Bob’s favorite elixir to drown out the butterflies: kava tea.

So it came to Sunday afternoon, and Shalor had just gotten his ribbon. I asked him to cheer me on. About a dozen of us, mostly men and two of us women (including my friend Tish Westman, who just won the Mid-Eastern Regional contest at Coshocton, Ohio) ventured forth to play two songs for three out-of-state judges and a couple hundred fans under the oaks and magnolias. I went up about halfway through and made my share of mistakes - you could say I played slightly different arrangements than I planned on. So I was pretty surprised when our emcee John Lilly called me up to the stage to stand in the Top Five. It was even more amazing to take 3rd Prize!

And now it’s Monday, the holiday, a day to kick back and relax. I love my yellow ribbon and I’m proud of Shalor. I’m closer with Tish and Dave, having shared the hair-raising experience (she won 4th, he won 2nd). Maybe these contests aren’t so bad after all.

Bob and I just got back from New England, rolling into Charleston with reports of a Nor’easter chugging toward the place we left behind. Winter is finally here though no one really believes it can last for long, since we were so spoiled by those 70 degree days back in December… and then, of course, there were the groundhog predictions for an early spring. The groundhog rules. But that’s not much comfort to the folks in New York State who have 12 feet of snow…

Down here in Charleston, a little snowfall like 4″ can actually wreak some havoc. It’s an embarrassment to some of us who think we’re winter warriors. And just before we headed north a few days ago, we got one of those snowstorms with luscious fat flakes that set the city spinning. Our good friend at the Charleston Gazette, Doug Imbrogno, sent out his photo crew to take pictures for The Gazz website. He created a lovely little slide show and set it to music, using my own song “Snowdance”. Thanks, Doug!

You can check it out here: http://thegazz.com/snowday/ 

We’re also happy to report that Sunday’s benefit concert for Don Moore’s sawmill was an incredible success! With just 100 people, it is amazing the amount of money that was raised. Folks gave $200 for the cookies and brownies alone. The final report was $9000 coming in just on Sunday. Thank you to everyone! We loved hearing Don Sineti, who is such a personable, barrel-chested, deep-voiced singer — you can see him at Mystic Seaport if you’re up Connecticut way. Thomasina sang so beautifully with her velvet voice, so true to pitch, and playing her collection of dulcimers. We found after singing “Old Joe Clark” that there really was a man named Joe Clark in the audience! Wonder if he has a mule… Jim Sherman who came down from Macchias, Maine, pleased the crowd with his 12-string and singalongs, including his (in)famous “Butter Beans”. Channel 3 from Hartford filmed some music and an interview with Don Moore for the TV news. Don and his boys are a little closer to a new building at the mill and lots more sawdust flying through the air. They send their humble thanks to all.

Take care and cuddle up in these still-cold days. The forsythia is just around the bend…

It’s amazing how much you can get done from a computer. I’ve been working on my book project for weeks, publicizing the concerts in New England (check out the Tour Page), booking the next round of work, and today I made out a grant application. But I feel good tonight ’cause something I’ve been cooking up from afar is going to come to pass, and it will make lots of other people feel good, too.

My friend Don Moore, a fellow dulcimer player, runs a sawmill in Bloomfield, Connecticut that’s been passed down in his family for five generations since 1875. Last Friday I found out that a fire broke out on January 16 and took down a good deal of his operation. He and his sons lost about 80% of their ability to produce an income to support their families. Don had just offered to put on a house concert for me and Bob on February 11, before this all happened.

Bob and I felt we had a perfect opportunity to pay Don back for all he’s done for the music community, and his friendly support of my own music. He’s driven to NJ at least twice to surprise me at a concert. He’s encouraged many dulcimer players through his work with the Dulcimer F#olk Association and attending various festivals. We had just visited and taken a tour of his mill last May. So it was a no-brainer to get on the computer last Friday at midnight and see if this house concert could be changed to a benefit. With the help of email and well-connected dulcimer friends in Virginia and Maine, the wheels started to turn…

So I hope any of you who are within shouting distance of Hartford will make the trip next Sunday, Feb. 11 at 2:00 to the Marilyn Michaelson Senior Center at 300 Park Avenue in Bloomfield. Bob and I will be joined by Jim Sherman from Macchias, Maine doing a few rousing singalongs; Don Seneti singing his wonderful sea shanteys; and Thomasina Levy, last year’s Conn. State Troubador and dulcimer player/songwriter. If you can’t make it, consider sending a donation to help us raise the mill, and Don’s spirits, back up again. A building restoration fund has been set up through the generosity of many of the local townspeople and businesses to help restore this historic “oldest family business in Bloomfield”. Checks made payable to Moore’s Sawmill Restoration Fund can be mailed to: Simsbury Bank, P.O. Box 376, Bloomfield CT 06002.

You’ll feel good, too.