Would you like to become a legendary dulcimer builder? Me neither. How about, would
you like to have some fun,learn a bunch of stuff they didn’t teach you in school,
discover new levels of patience and humility, and at the end of the week go home
with a beautiful, accurately fretted, smooth playing, sweet sounding classic hourglass
shaped Appalachian Mountain Dulcimer hand crafted by you? If so, read on.
The first ever Rocky Mountain Folk and Craft School Dulcimer Building Class is open to people with any level of woodworking expertise although a working knowledge of common power and hand tools is helpful. Class size is limited to six to assure adequate individual attention and occupies both morning and afternoon time slots.
Participants will learn wood joinery and finishing, fretting (metal not mental) and
dulcimer set-
In addition to tuition for the week, there is a $195 fee covering all the materials
required to make your dulcimer. An assortment of native Appalachian hardwoods will
be available to choose from including but not limited to cherry, walnut, sassafras,
butternut and cedar The completed dulcimer will have 4 strings and chrome Grover
Mini 14:1 tuners. Fancy woods and gold and black chrome tuners will be available
as extra cost options. 
In addition to the building materials, John will bring all the necessary specialized tools required to complete first rate instrument. Things for students to bring from home: an expendable towel for a work table cover, pencil & paper for taking notes and tracing patterns (optional), and a smile. Some folks use this course to jump start a building career, others like the idea of making music on an instrument they’ve built with their own hands and some are enrolled by a loved one as a form Spousal Dulcimer Day Care, Whatever the reason, this year’s Spring Mountain Dulcimer Building Class will provide students with an enjoyable as well as a productive a week.
John Huron learned to build mountain dulcimers by working with legendary dulcimer maker Robert Mize in the early 1990s. His procedures and patterns remain very close to those used by Mr. Mize and in most cases are identical. Robert Mize was the featured dulcimer builder in the book, Foxfire 3 .
John has been s
haring his knowledge of the construction of traditional Appalachian
instruments with students since 1995 at the John C. Campbell Folk School where in
addition to the mountain dulcimer, he also teaches the building of the Stanley Hick’s
pattern fretless mountain banjo, also found in Foxfire 3. And, over the last ten
years, he has taught building classes at a variety of dulcimer events including Western
Carolina University, Augusta Heritage, and Dulcimerville.
Since completing his first fretless banjo in 1990, John’s various instruments have come to reside in well over a thousand homes throughout the world as well as in the collections of the Smithsonian Institute, Tennessee and North Carolina State Museums, and Colonial Williamsburg, Old Salem and Rocky Mount Living History Museums. He is also a contributor to the book Foxfire 12 and you may see a complete overview of his work at www.noteworthyjohn.com.
In the mid 1990s, John pieced together an education
al music program that incorporates
many of the historical reproduction instruments that he produces. Since that time,
his Appalachian Music Sampler (AMS) program has been presented at numerous national
and state parks, museums, schools and festivals throughout the southeastern United
States. His CD, “Pig in a Poke”, is a compilation of much of the material from his
AMS program.
Looking back on nearly 20 years of building traditional instruments and teaching nearly 50 classes John muses,” A while back I began to tally up the number of students I’d had compared to the number of banjos and dulcimers I had made in my shop. I was surprised to discover that I’d taught more people to build those instruments than I had built myself! That was a most satisfying revelation.”
Cost = $385, plus materials.
Instructor: John Huron