The Michigan Daily - Friday, July 27,1984 - Page 5
The 'sweet sounds' of
dulcimers attract fans
By MARLA GOLD
The Ann Arbor summer art fair is
generally a place to find paintings,
jewelry and other arts and crafts. But
one exception to the usual range of,
works displayed this year is the
dulcimer.
If you've never heard of a dulcimer
before, you aren't alone.
The dulcimer, which means "sweet,
sound" is a musical instrument. And
there are three booths selling the ob-
scure instrument at the fair this year.
Dulcimer maker Curt Sanders, a'
member of the Artist's and Craftsmen's
Guild, estimated that about 80 percent
of his sales come from beginning
dulcimer players.
"Quite a few people who end up
buying the instruments have never
heard of one before. Linda (Foley, San-
ders' dulcimer maker partner) gives
them a half-hour lesson and they end up
buying one," said Sanders, who is
selling his dulcimers on Main Street.
Sanders said there are two kinds of
dulcimers - the mountain dulcimer,
which was invented about 150 years
ago, and the hammer dulcimer, with
origins dating back thousands of years.
Hammer dulcimers are a distant
forerunner of the piano.
The mountain dulcimer's origin is
unknown, but one theory is that im-
migrants from the British Isles who set-
tled in the Appalachian' Mountains
around 1800 invented them for enter-
tainment because they are relatively
simple to make, Richard Wilson,
another dulcimer maker, suggested.
The mountain dulcimer resembles a
mandolin in shape, but its sound is
unique. Peter Cooney, a dulcimer
salesman on State Street, when asked
to describe the sound, said "the English
language doesn't have words to
describe musical sounds." To the un-
trained ear, it sounds like a high-
pitched mandolin or a guitar-like folk
instrument.
Cooney, a University graduate and
now a medical student at Indiana
University, became interested in
dulcimers after hearing one on an
album by Richard Farina - Joan
Baez's brother-in-law. His first
dulcimer was from a kit, but the in-
struments sold from his booth are
assembled from scratch.
"Every instrument may have even be
symmetrical - they are really hand
made," said Cooney.
The cost of a dulcimer ranges from
about $75 to $450, depending on the ex-
tras. It takes 13 to 40 hours to complete
one, depending on the intracacies.
Cooney and Foley both carve on their
instruments and Wilson does mother of
pearl inlays on his.
Some of Wilson's dulcimers double as
wall decorations.
One woman in Florida bought a $900
dulcimer, with an inlaid dragon design,
complete with castle and winding road,
to hang in her "dream room," Wilson
said.
Hammer dulcimers, which stand
upright, are reminiscent of clavichor-
ds, instruments which were popular in
the fifteenth century but practically
obsolete by the nineteenth century.
The sounds of a hammer dulcimer
vary greatly, ranging from a tinny
honky-tonk piano to a harp, making it a
favorite for many listeners.
The only hammer dulcimers at the
fair were at Sanders' and Foley's booth.
Hand-made dulcimers, with their distinctively intreguing tone, are always
an art fair favorite.
Foley described their sound as "haun-
ting and exciting," and then gave a
short concert to let the curious listeners
hear the "sweet sound" for themselves.
Sanders and Foley, who waited five
years to get a spot at the fair, consider
it one of the best around. The other
dulcimer sellers heartily agreed.
Sanders and Foley had sold four
hammer dulcimers yesterday, even
though Cooney and Wilson, both seven-
year art fair veterans, said the good
sales don't usually come until Friday
night, when people with more money
come to town.
Sanders said hammer dulcimers
probably sell better than mountain
dulcimers because they are loud, and a
lot of curious people are drawn over by
the sound.
Unlike many sellers at the fair, the
dulcimer makers do not seem very
competitive - in fact, all seem very
friends. After talking with Sanders
about his instruments, he inquired
whether the other dulcimer sellers at
the fair had been spoken with yet. He
then asked how Cooney was doing in
medical school.
Hand-made kites add color to State Street
By PETE WILLIAMS
People come to the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair to see
a wide variety of art, but few expect to see an eight-
foot kite among the wares on display.
The kite appears in a colorful booth on State Street
occupied by Frank Krill of Sun Oak kite manufac-
turers, an Indiana firm.
SUN OAK has been making interesting, colorful,
and large kites and selling them in art shows across
the nation for three years now. The company, which
is managed by kitemaker Richard Langdon, takes
about a thousand orders a year from nearly as many
kite enthusiasts.
Krill, the Ann Arbor exhibitor, is also the com-
pany's kite cutter. He said despite the vast quantity
they sell in shows such as Ann Arbor's, the company
is still relatively small, consisting only of Langdon,
his mother and father, and Krill.
"I do the cutting, his mother does the sewing, and
his dad makes the reels," Krill explained.
KRILL, BY his own definition, is a "senior as far as
credit hours and a junior as far as grades" studying
art at Ball State University. He said his printmaking
and silkscreening abilities don't help him much on
the job but that it is a great way to put yourself
through college.
"I love to come to the different art shows because I
don't get a chance to do it much any more. I used to
travel more but cutting is a full time job," he said.
All of Krill's work is done by h'and with either
scissors or a hot knife, an apparatus he likened to a
soldering iron. Anything that will be sewn can be cut
with scissors, he explained, but for the more difficult
cuts where there are no seams, he uses the hot knife
"so the kite won't unravel."
TO MAKE a kite that looks like a fish, Krill said it
would take him 45 minutes to an hour to cut the pieces
out of colored nylon sail material and another hour or
two for someone to sew it together.
He plans to show off his wares a little more during
the course of his stay in Ann Arbor. "I was going to do
some flying, but I didn't get to it today," he said Wed-
nesday.
The kite he would have flown is a multi-colored con-
traption with an eight-foot wingspan called the Delta.
It most resembles a hang-glider in both size and
proportion. The Delta is Sun Oak's best selling kite
because, Krill said, "It is so easy to fly."
"This is not the kind of kite you have to run with.
The wind just takes it up," he said. "It is modeled af-
ter the Delta aircraft."
But the Delta is by far not Sun Oak's largest kite for
sale. The company will take special orders for kites
up to 20 feet in wingspan and, perhaps, beyond. The
price for such a kite would be somewhere over $300,
depending on the work involved.
Krill said that although some of their products are
original design, the company learned most of their
trade from the famous kite maker and flyer Ansel
Tony. Tony seems to be a hero of sorts for Krill.
"He's got to be about 90 years old now," Krill said.
"And he still flies his kites in the winter. We learned a
lot from him. "
Art fair draws crowds despite dreary weather
(Continued from Page 1)
ping and buying. I do enough art shows,
it doesn't bother me. Some of my best
sales are in the rain. People decide
quicker. They come here from pretty
far away, and some save all year for
this show. They don't want to leave here
without a piece of pottery or a pain-
ting," Taylor said.
Professional framer Marion Betts
also wasn't disturbed by the rain. .
"Who's going to change it? Everything
people can control has been wonder-
ful," she said. "People are still just
walking about. The attitudes are great.
Everybody's saying, 'So what if it's
raining? I'm enjoying the fair."'
But not all proprietors were prepared
to deal with the rain. "(The rain is) a
disappointment and also a discomfort.
It's wet and cold," whined Helen Hense,
whose daughter, Ann, took a long lunch
break from her stand selling hand-
woven pillows and coverlets.
Fair visitor Gerry Wilson said Ann
Arbor's show was "overwhelming." "I
like people, but I don't like them
crawling all over me," said Wilson.
Wilson and her friend had bought just
a few odds and ends, but they were
most proud of what they had bought to
carry their purchases around in - a
plain brown shopping bag emblazoned
with the phrase, "bag lady in training."
David Geyer and his wife got into the
pottery business 11 years ago and came
to Ann Arbor's fair two years later
because "I was making more than I
could give away," Geyer said.
Geyer and his wife were both
teachers before they became
professional potters. "We just got fed
up with kids and discipline problems. I
haven't had a pot talk back to me in
nine years," Geyersaid.
And neither Indiana native regrets
their decision, even though they both
had tenure. "We just said phooey to it;
we're going to make pots. Our friends
all thought we were nuts," Geyer said.
"Most of them still do," his wife added
softly.
Daily staff writer David Vanker
filed a reportfor this story.