Folkcraft Player - Nori Gill
I was introduced to dulcimer by a friend in 2009. I accompanied him to Mountain View Arkansas where we spent 4 days learning to play dulcimer from Margaret Wright. My musical interest had started years before with accordion lessons when I was only 8 years old. I had progressed through recorder, simple piano, classical guitar, and electronic autoharp all on my own and primarily self-taught after that. I always played just for my own enjoyment. During my youth and young adulthood I also wrote poetry. It was an emotional outlet which later grew into a few attempts at song writing.
After my friend and I returned from Mountain View, we started practicing together weekly and eventually joined a group in our local area. That group led me to another group I played with in Civil War Era costumes. Eventually I got brave enough to perform in public with one or two other players in a few settings.
During the early years of my playing after 2009, I learned of the Folkcraft factory not far from me. So a few of us started driving from Toledo, OH to Woodburn, IN for the Second Saturday jams and workshops. Then in 2014 I felt I had gotten good enough as a player that I wanted to replace my older E-Bay dulcimer with a better and newer one. I decided to have Richard Ash make me a Folkcraft custom dulcimer. After he asked me several questions, we decided on African Purple Heart Wood for the back, sides, and fretboard and a lighter wood for the top. I do not remember what that lighter wood was. I had the dulcimer made with a 27.5" VSL, four strings that had the option of 4 equidistant or a double melody on a 3 string, and 1+, 6+, 8+, and 13+ frets. Then I waited. I finally picked up my new baby in September that year at the end of the Indiana Dulcimer Festival. It took a little while for me to get used to playing with the 1+ fret but now I can't imagine being without it.
