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.