Dulcimers In Rock Bands (Posted by Richard Ash on 9/28/2009)
You hear, all the time, about Appalachian dulcimers performing with banjos, fiddles, mandolins, and even other dulcimers. A less-common combination is when you hear a dulcimer performing with a bass guitar, drum set, and vocalist. How many times have you seen an Appalachian dulcimer on stage in a crowded club? This Folkcraft Community page is going to introduce you to a Folkcraft dulcimer playing a Top 40 song in a popular local venue.
Those of you with much contact at all with Folkcraft know Nick Young. Nick is the person that answers your emails, designs our website, and does a bit of most everything else here at Folkcraft Instruments. You've seen him at the NAMM shows, and talked to him on the phone. What you may not have known is that Nick is an accomplished musician.
A guitarist before joining Folkcraft, Nick is the heart of a number of northeastern Indiana bands, and is the guy a lot of other bands call when they need a substitute guitarist. Of course, now that he works at Folkcraft, Nick is a dulcimer player, too!
Last weekend, Nick took the plunge, setting aside his trusty Fender Strat and picking up his Folkcraft Custom. Here's a video of him playing with "Mind's Eye" at a local Fort Wayne, Indiana club, Columbia Street West.
Nick is the person whose hands you can see behind the lead singer. The group is performing Pink's "Please Don't Leave Me". As you listen to the audio, you'll hear bass, drums, dulcimer, and vocals. There is not a guitar in the mix, so the "guitar" part is actually a dulcimer. If you watch carefully, you'll notice Nick switching back to electric guitar at the very end of the video.
Nick's dulcimer is a Folkcraft Custom. It is a walnut/butternut beauty, with a Fishman pickup and Fishman Prefix Pro preamp installed. The sound engineer at the venue took one look at the instrument, noticed the Fishman electronics, and said "no problem". As the venue was pretty loud, feedback would normally have been a concern for an acoustic instrument, but the sound of the Fishman was so natural that an external microphone wasn't necessary.
Nick's Folkcraft Custom
Are you using your Folkcraft dulcimer in a non-traditional performance? If you are, please let us know - photos and videos are great, if you have them.
When people think of heirloom-quality instruments, they think of Folkcraft. Here's why: Our instruments are handmade in the United States of America, not in a cheap overseas factory. Our instruments are crafted one at a time, not on an assembly line. Our instruments are made of solid woods, not out of plywood.
Folkcraft instruments are made with pride and tradition, using the same methods as our founders used in 1968. Folkcraft Instruments is a family business, with two generations of luthiers putting their skill and experience into every instrument they create.
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