An Interesting Musical Mix

Have you ever heard a Mountain Dulcimer and a Saxophone played together?

I thought not.

I hadn't either, until May of 2007 (you guessed it, LEAF).



Expecting to spend the weekend in the tent alone (although with many friends very close by), I didn't expect to be playing as much music as I had hoped.

I ended up sharing the tent with a friend from Charleston (yep, it was Joey).

We were dancing one early afternoon, and had had enough, so we decided it was time to go play some music. We walked up to the tent, and I grabbed my dulcimer. Now very few things in life make me nervous, cute girls being the main culprit. But let me tell you, if you really want to see me melt into a puddle of shivering goo, whip out a saxophone.

That's just what Joey did. I expected him to pull out a drum, but instead, out came this large, brass, windblown contraption that sent fear unknown to man until that moment trembling through my body. It took a few minutes, but we worked up to where we knew where we were with each other key-wise. After figuring that out, I taught him how to play one of my favorite Old-Time tunes, a fun tune called "Sandy Boys." After that, he got me started on a Wild Asparagus tune called "Baghdad Gus," which I'm still working on perfecting to this day.

After a year of playing like this, we've decided it's time to hit the dance halls as a contra dance band. We'll be practicing as much as we can over the coming months, and if things go as we hope, we'll be starting to play dances toward the beginning of 2009, along with another friend of ours.

More on this story as it develops in the future. But I will say this...I'm not longer afraid of a saxophone. As a matter of fact, it's one of my favorite things to play with (along with Bart Saylor's Bouzouki).

See you at a dance hall soon.