A temporary goodbye

Today I found a babysitter — for my hammered dulcimer.

It would be nice to have it around the house to play if I felt like it, but it’s too daunting to think about having to keep it in tune when I’m likely to be lower on energy than ever before.

So one of my students is going to keep it for me until I’m ready to have it back; she’s interested in getting a different dulcimer anyway, so having mine for a nice long time will give her a good idea whether or not she’d want one like it.

It’s a relief… but I’m a little sad to see it gone, too.

Two cute presents

Yesterday my students Keith and Marty came over for a lesson.

First of all, Marty tuned my dulcimer for me while Keith was having his lesson, which was a great help since my thumb is still bothering me.

And the timing was especially good, because I got a call in the afternoon from the woman who used to book me for the Johnson Museum events, needing music that night before a dinner because key guests were going to be late, which meant extending the cocktail hour.

I felt energetic enough, so I went; and afterwards got to eat — there was an unusual salad of watercress (I think), watermelon, and feta (didn’t eat the feta), rack of lamb and duck with a berry demiglace and mashed potatoes and asparagus, and a fabulous dessert of some kind of half-pudding, half-cake thing made with almonds covered with fresh berries and a light creamy sauce.

I was impressed with the caterers, that they treated the photographer and I like the guests, even though we were served in the kitchen; our plates were served up just as fancy and they were just as attentive to my fast-emptying water glass.

Anyway, Marty also brought this cute security blankie / toy she’d made — very soft, and look at the little paws –

And in the mail there was a package from my college friend Sara, with a cute teddy bear pacifier clip; the idea is you attach the pacifier to the little loop (I suppose you could also attach any lightweight toy) and clip the bear to the kid’s clothes somewhere.

Of course, a minute or so after taking the picture, I heard scuffling on the floor and sure enough the kitty was attacking the blankie — and of course she decided to take a bath instead as soon as I got the camera out again.

Dulcimer Circle Shower

Yesterday the regional dulcimer circle met at Liz’s house for our quarterly jam session and dinner. We had three dulcimers (Liz, Eric, and I) plus Ted on washtub bass and Jerry on fiddle. We took turns around the circle twice — I was in low energy mode but did manage to stand up to play on most things. I also didn’t have my ergonomic hammers with me — accidentally left them at the festival last weekend and haven’t gotten them back yet — but was able to play a little without my hands bothering me too much.

To my surprise, when we took a break, instead of proceeding directly to dinner as usual, Eric announced that they’d put together a little baby shower. The group as a whole contributed an electronic travel-size swing and this cute (and very soft!) little bear outfit:

(Funny story: they had planned to get our crib mattress; on Friday Liz called to have Target set one aside, but on Saturday she found that it had been removed from the registry — apparently we beat them to it Friday night!)

A couple folks who weren’t able to attend sent gifts and cards.

This pink sweater and hat are from Sherj, who’s been a regular reader here; in her card she mentioned that pink was her favorite color and that perhaps it would grow on me. Remember that conversation in the comments? Anyway, pink things for little girls are more appealing to me than pink things for me, and this one has cute scalloped edging and other colors in the stripes.

Nancy made this fluffy yellow sweater — I’m not sure exactly how she got all those loops in there. You can’t tell in the picture, but it has tiny white bunny buttons.

We had dessert next, since Jerry had to leave before dinner; mmm, carrot cake with ice cream… then a dinner of vegetarian chili with cornbread.

It was very kind and thoughtful of the group to throw this little shower. Thanks guys!

By the way, Eric took all the pictures.

My weekend

I spent the weekend in Harpers Ferry WV at a dulcimer festival. I wrote about it at my dulcimer site if you care to know more or see pictures!

Not about stuff

Wow, a lot of this blog has been devoted to thinking about and getting stuff. Not that I’m all that materialistic (really), but I guess it’s not surprising considering how much stuff there is to get for a first baby.

What else can I talk about?

She’s pretty active — moving quite a bit as I write. Other times it seems I feel nothing for hours, then there’ll be a flurry for a while.

In some clothes and postures I’m still not obviously pregnant… no big deal, just surprising for over six months.

On the other hand, you should see me carrying the laundry basket across the yard — if I carry it in front of me it’s got to be below the belly, which makes walking awkward, but if I carry it on my hip I still need to use both arms to carry it, which also makes walking awkward.

And the kitty is increasingly frustrated that she can’t sit with me the way she used to. Usually she ends up on my legs, but the other night she decided she’d sit on my collarbone and shoulder. That didn’t last long.

I discovered I don’t dislike blueberries as much as I thought I did. Or at least the ones I picked with Margaret the other day were not nasty thick-skinned like what I remembered. I still don’t think I would want to just eat them by themselves whether fresh or in a pie, but I’ve liked these fine with nectarines and yogurt and in oatmeal.

My trio played last night for the first time since early June. We have a private party gig this Saturday, and last night made me realize I have a lot to practice today and tomorrow. Unfortunately I think I’ll have to tune again, too. And since I broke the second lowest Bb string while tuning the other day, I’ll have to replace it; not sure if I have that size on hand or will have to order it. Good thing it’s not one I use in many tunes — just three I can think of.

I’m reading the textbook from the Old Testament class Mark took in college. It’s not great, but still has some interesting stuff. I’d like to read more real textbooks on various aspects of the Bible. Far beyond the somewhat fluffy things you find at a Christian bookstore.

Anyone put their pictures on CD to get prints made at a store? I like to crop and otherwise edit my digital pictures in PhotoShop, but then I can’t get them back on the camera, so I’d like to try putting them on CD. I’m not sure if DPI matters or not, but I’m trying at least to establish the correct sizes in inches. It’s a bit confusing.

Okay, I have to mention one bit of stuff; my mother-in-law found the Richard Scarry book the other day for us!

One more thing; I just noticed today’s date. Would have been my grandmother’s birthday.

Not safe, but good, again

Not Safe, But Good, Again

I’ve written before about the idea that God is not safe, but good. God is not in the business of wish-fulfillment or comfort or convenience. Not that all wishes, comforts, and conveniences are bad, but that sometimes there is something more important. God’s purposes and ways are higher than ours, and can be quite dangerous to us in an earthly sense, but we can have confidence that whatever he brings our way, he will carry us through it, and all things will work together for our ultimate good (Romans 8:28).

I have been thinking about the upcoming Cranberry Gathering, a festival for mountain and hammered dulcimer and for autoharp. I will be teaching two classes, and my friend Rick Davis from North Carolina will also be teaching. He’s arriving next Wednesday evening, so that we’ll have some time to practice for a piece we’ll do at the Friday night coffeehouse concert, and we’ll also spend Friday morning playing out on the Commons before heading to Binghamton for the festival.

That means that I’ll have to tune on Wednesday, and hope that my dulcimer stays sufficiently in tune for the whole weekend. With the weather being somewhat various lately, especially in terms of humidity, that hope seems really thin.

So what, right? If you were me, you’d just tune it again; Friday between playing out and arriving at the festival, and maybe again Saturday or Sunday sometime. And that’s what all the other dulcimer players will be doing. At least all the ones who care about being in tune and who are not raw beginners.

I’m not like those people. I can’t seem to ever tune in less than an hour and a half, and my average lately is just over two hours. And that’s not even all in one sitting; I get stressed enough that I generally have to take at least one serious break and sometimes two. I typically set aside a day for tuning, and work on it in bits throughout that day.

My reputation is at stake. I’m a professional performer. And I’m actually teaching some of these workshops. If my dulcimer doesn’t stay in tune, what will I do? I could leave it alone, or I could try to adjust it and hope that it doesn’t take too long, or I could try to adjust it and burst into a crying fit if it’s not cooperative. What will people think?

I’m dreading this.

Yesterday afternoon I was thinking about it. I was reminding myself that generally my dulcimer sounds pretty good to other people even when it sounds off to me. And that in the past my dulcimer has indeed stayed quite reasonably in tune for weekend festivals. There was one time when I did some visiting in Virginia before heading over to the Upper Potomac Fest in WV, and I had to retune in WV, and had a terrible time of it, but then the rest of the weekend it was fine.

Still worried, I tried the opposite approach, instead of trying to dismiss the fear, facing it head-on: what’s the worst that can happen? My dulcimer will sound awful, and I won’t be able to use it to demonstrate the things I’m teaching. I’ll try to tune it, wasting the entire class time, and having a panic attack, maybe even going into a rage and hitting someone or smashing my dulcimer. Everyone will think I’m absolutely crazy, or a fool, and that I have no right to be there at all, participant or teacher. I’ll never be able to go back. In fact, I’ll be blacklisted from all the other festivals, too, and wherever we go once the husband has finished here at Cornell, I’ll never again be able to play or teach dulcimer in public.

That’s pretty dire. But not the end of the world. Do I really care more what the dulcimer community thinks of me than what God thinks of me? Isn’t God big enough to provide for me even if I lose this career? I’m not saying it’ll be easy or that it won’t hurt a lot. But surely I can trust that God is good even when I’m a fool and humiliated?

Laughing at my crying

Yesterday I burst into tears because I broke a glass. I was washing dishes, and when I set one down on the towel to dry, it made another fall against the glass. I had a good cry, feeling on the one hand that this was the last straw, and that I loved those glasses, and that God and the universe were so obviously out to get me, and on the other hand laughing at myself for this irrationally strong reaction.

Ever notice how when one big thing is going wrong, you start perceiving everything else negatively, too? Once the big thing started frustrating me, I started getting excessively irritated by the fact that I constantly have a runny nose, that the house was cold, that at lunchtime I couldn’t get one plastic container out of another one-handed… etc., and then the glass.

The big thing yesterday was tuning. In January I thought if I set myself a goal of being able to tune in an hour by June, I would approach each tuning session determined to move through the process as quickly as possible, and eventually this would have to shorten my sessions. Yesterday I had just this attitude as I got ready to tune. I even thought I would tune all at once, instead of taking the break I usually take in the middle. By the time I got to the G’s I knew this was going to be a longer-than-usual session, and that I needed that break. (Total tuning time ended up being about three hours.)

It is just SO FRUSTRATING when I can’t get the tuning wrench to move the way I want it to, or when the strings behave in ways that don’t make sense and that I can’t figure out how to deal with. And I could accept it all if I weren’t the only dulcimer player in the entire universe that takes so long to tune. It just doesn’t make sense. If most of the trouble I have seems to be tuning wrench and string issues, then it can’t possibly be my perfectionism or stubbornness that’s the problem. But everyone else uses the same kind of wrench, and only poorly-made dulcimers present insurmountable string problems. My dulcimer is NOT poorly made. What other conclusion can there be but that God is out to get me?

And so I laugh at myself again. Other people are being killed, or they have cancer, or they’re starving. Some of them are able to continue trusting in the goodness of God, because they understand that there is more to Life than this life. And what gets to me? I have a runny nose, though otherwise in good health. My house is cold, but I’ve got a house. I can’t tune my dulcimer normally or quickly, but I’ve got a dulcimer. I broke a glass, but I’ve got some others. –God sent his only son to pay the penalty for my sins, and offers me this gift even when I am still in rebellion, but because I have a runny nose and a cold house and a broken glass and tuning problems, he’s out to get me. Yeah. LOL.

He might really be out to get me, for my own good. Sometimes sanctification hurts. And when there’s no apparent earthly explanation for my “troubles,” it makes sense to look for a spiritual explanation.

Final comment: I’m not trying to say that those of us who aren’t being killed or don’t have cancer or aren’t starving should just “buck up and deal,” just stop feeling sad or angry or afraid because other people’s troubles are worse. Remembering the range of troubles possible in this life doesn’t change or stop my emotions, it just puts my situation in perspective. It doesn’t mean I have to stop crying or stomping around the house, it just lets me laugh gently and compassionately at myself while I do so.

“Cast all your cares on him, for he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

PS — That gentle and compassionate laughter is one of the reasons I LOVE Anne Lamott’s books. They’re not PG-13, but if you can handle some language and some frank sexuality, check out both her novels and nonfiction.

Tuning Day

Tuning Day

Today is tuning day. About once a week I tune my dulcimer; lately that’s been Thursdays because The Hanshaw Trio is recording on Thursday evenings.

Tuning is my least favorite thing about the hammered dulcimer. That’s putting it mildly. My screensaver says “Tuning is evil.” I’ve called it my nemesis. It’s sometimes had me in tears, and once almost ready to quit dulcimer altogether. It’s been a while since I’ve felt that bad about it, and in fact lately I’ve been feeling, if not enthusiastic, at least less frustrated.

A little background on what it’s like to tune a dulcimer. Mine has ninety strings, all of which are tuned by turning little squared off pins with a T-shaped, star-bit wrench. Thirty-eight of these strings are on the treble bridge, which is the only bridge that divides the strings into two playable notes. So for these thirty-eight strings, I have to pay attention to both sides, making sure both notes are in tune.

Most dulcimer players can tune in twenty minutes, maybe forty, rarely an hour. I, on the other hand, have a history of tuning times averaging two hours, sometimes taking as much as twice as long. Now the first thing to remember is that I take a lot of time to do everything, and another thing is that I’m a hypersensitive perfectionist. These two things probably explain my longer tuning times. I’ll also note that it’s worse when I’m recording, because I’m even more perfectionistic and sensitive about something as permanent as a recording than I am about live performances.

Here are some of the issues that hinder tuning quickly:

Wrench / tuning pin issues: Sometimes the wrench seems to be turning the pin, but when you let go the note slips back to where it was. Sometimes the pin is really stiff and difficult to turn; then you might finally get it to move and it goes too far. Other pins are a bit loose and turn too far even when you’re very careful. These issues just have to be endured.

String issues: Each of my strings is doubled; that is, it starts at one tuning pin, goes across the dulcimer, around a hitch pin, and back across to a second tuning pin. Sometimes tuning one half of the string affects the other half a little; it helps to go back and forth between them. The treble strings sometimes have trouble because of tension and friction. One side may be in tune, and if the string sticks a little on the main bridge or the side saddles, the other side may not be in tune. Lifting the strings gently off the bridge and setting them down again helps; sometimes pushing on the sharp side of the string or the top of the bridge also helps. Occasionally the treble bridge itself is not in exactly the right position, so that it doesn’t have the necessary perfect fifth interval from one side to the other. I have a tool for adjusting the bridge position, but it’s a last resort.

Tuner issues: I used to use a digital tuner with an LED display of lights and a “needle.” Then I switched to a tuner with a mechanical needle. Both would sometimes have a delayed response, or would respond differently to the same input, or waver. The mechanical one was a little more steady. I suppose there are three issues here. One is that these tuners are not that precise; I think it’s maybe +/-3 cents. Another is that these tuners use sampling, rather than continuous real-time reading. The other issue is with the dulcimer: so many strings means some are going to resonate sympathetically, which could interfere with the tuner’s reading.

I tackled the first two issues by getting a strobe tuner, a Conn Strobotuner ST-11 from the 70s. Strobe tuners are precise to I think +/-1/100th cents, maybe 1/10th. They also read continuously in real-time. I also really like the display. It’s a wheel with a black and white pattern on it, spinning at the frequency of the desired pitch. Behind it are lights flashing at the frequency of the input. When they match, the pattern appears stationary. It seems to rotate left if it’s flat, and right if it’s sharp. Sometimes I get good strong clear readings. Sometimes sympathetic vibrations — the third issue — cause a little wavering. I can usually help that by hand damping the other strings that have the same pitch.

Ear issues: The more I concentrate on what I’m doing, and the longer I’m at it, the more sensitive my ear gets, so that I hear, or think I hear, awful dissonances even when the tuner thinks the strings are in tune. Taking breaks helps, by allowing my ear to relax. (You might think that my more precise tuner would make this worse, but it actually makes it better. “Really close” on a digital tuner rarely sounded good enough to me, but the lack of precision meant I couldn’t really do anything about it other than trust my ear, which, getting too sensitive, would not be very trustworthy. “Really close” on my Conn is so precise I can relax and know it’ll sound great even if my ear doesn’t think so at the moment.)

Will issues: All of the above issues are real and need to be dealt with. But the one issue that has made me dread and hate tuning, that has made me cry over it, is the issue of Will. Coming up against one of the above issues, I might will myself to overcome it; but you can’t overcome these things by will. Just because I want the tuning pin to move a certain way doesn’t mean it’s going to. Just because I want the tuner to give a clear reading doesn’t mean it has to. And, most of all, just because my ear insists that a) the note is off and b) I should keep at it until my ear likes it doesn’t mean that I’ll succeed. My ear is ready to hear dissonance, and the more I try to please it the more it’ll resist. I’ve learned that I need to practice caring less about precision, trusting my tuner. And I need to treat the strings like problems on a math test. If I have trouble with one, I should move on to the next and come back to it later. Most of the time, when I come back to it, my ear has relaxed and likes it just fine.

I have often thought that it would be nice if I could approach tuning the dulcimer the way I approach changing my guitar strings. I love changing guitar strings. I get to sit down with my guitar and take good care of it, removing the strings, polishing the body, putting a treatment on the fretboard. And I know how great it’ll sound with new strings. In the same way I know tuning my dulcimer is taking good care of it. I also dust the thing and clean / polish the strings whenever I tune. I think, as I’m making progress with this issue of Will, that I’m getting closer to the time when I can enjoy tuning like I enjoy changing guitar strings.

Ministry

It’s all in how you read the word.

Ministry.

It could mean a formal, official, structured program, or it could describe spontaneous, informal service. You could think of it as what you have to give to others to make their lives better — and you could think of that proudly or arrogantly or anxiously or naturally or even selfishly. Do you think you have no needs, or that you can keep people at a comfortable distance by only giving to them and never receiving, never letting them into the secret places of your life? Do you think you can turn aside God’s wrath or manipulate his favor by serving others, or do you fear that he’ll only love you if all you ever do is serve? Maybe you minister in order to keep up your holy self-image or to win the approval of others in your church.

Or maybe ministry is just what happens as you live your life before God.

I remember in college, the general feeling among the Christian students seemed to be that ministry was a central question in the matter of choosing a spouse. If you could envision a shared ministry, then maybe marriage would be okay. As if the whole point of marrying was to better carry out ministry. What a recipe for guilt and resentment! I think it’s great when couples have a shared ministry, but I can’t imagine making that the sole purpose of marriage, nor a requirement among other marital purposes. It seems to me instead that each spouse is to love the other — love in the deep, rich, broad sense, not just the emotional fluffy stuff we have so little control over. And that in the process of learning to love this way, marriage provides for our sanctification and also represents to us and to those around us a picture of Christ and the Church.

The husband and I do not have any official shared ministry. I used to be involved in youth ministry, but that’s not the sort of service that suits him. (Yeah; I think the best ministry is the ministry that suits your gifts, skills, and passions. Sacrifice is often necessary and good, but you shouldn’t choose a ministry just because it’s an opportunity to make sacrifices!)

Youth ministry is partly a formal, official, structured program. There are weekly meetings, outings, Sunday school, with lessons, activities, etc. But that’s really just the shell, the scaffolding in which the real ministry happens, as the students and leaders get involved in one another’s lives.

I don’t feel ministered to by a program, or the leaders of a program, unless they become my friends. The kind of ministry that I can receive is to be loved well — to be accepted, understood, known; and to be allowed to accept, understand, and know in return. In other words, to be in relationship. Then when something official like a Bible study or a talk or a discussion about doctrine comes up, in the context of that relationship, I’m far more likely to pay attention and look for what I can learn. The primary ministry, for me, is the friendship — any official lessons learned are secondary, at least until they become integrated into our lives.

Now I’m a musician. Most of what I do is instrumental background music — playing at weddings, or busking at the Farmers Market or on the Commons.

Is this ministry?

I don’t preach or hand out tracts or survey the audience about their spiritual lives. I don’t usually sing, either, so there’s no message in words in the performance.

What I think I’m trying to do is simply make beautiful music. I think simple beauty can be a blessing. It can give a moment of rest or refreshment to folks who are having a rough day or have just been working hard without much time to themselves. It can give a glimpse of transcendence, which just might spark some spiritual response — the Holy Spirit can use music to move someone to seek him.

I try to talk to folks who have questions about the instrument or the music even if I’ve heard the same questions many times before. Or chat with folks who just want to chat about dulcimers or music. Fairly often people will tell me they have a dulcimer, too, and so I’ve been able to connect these folks with one another by organizing a dulcimer club. Being able to get together with other dulcimer players can be refreshing and exciting and fun, especially for folks whose dulcimer has been under the bed for years, who have felt isolated and without resources. I also teach privately, helping, I hope, people to make music which can be healing, moving, or simply fun.

So… while I don’t typically think of what I do as ministry in any official sense, I suppose the word can fit. Maybe the same is true of the ordinary things you do in the course of your work or home life.

Mostly Celtic

My band, the Hanshaw Trio, has been booked for a St. Patrick’s Day gig at the Moosewood Restaurant here in Ithaca.

One of the persistent questions in my musical life is the question of identity. There are musicians who are experts in a particular tradition like Irish music, or Renaissance, or Baroque; they study their genre by listening to recordings, studying with masters, doing research in music libraries, and so on. Then there are musicians who just do their thing, working on their own and developing their own ideas and techniques. And all sorts of others in between.

“Who’s right?” is probably not a proper question. Musical identity depends on the musician’s interests, learning style, background, passions, gifts, etc.

If you come to our show, you won’t be getting authentic Irish music. I have very little background in it — I played a year or so with a guy who knew Irish music well, and I took a class on Irish ornamentation for dulcimer, and I have some recordings with some Irish music on them, and that’s about it. Our fiddler is in the same boat I think. Our guitarist comes from a rock and roll background.

But does that mean you should be disappointed in our show? Or that the Moosewood should be embarrassed to promote it? Or that we should feel ashamed of our lack of “authenticity?” I don’t think so. We play a lot of Irish and other Celtic tunes, and some other things, and we play them the way we like them. We’ve got energy, good rapport with one another, and some creative arrangements. Our instruments sound great together. It’s not like we’re promoting ourselves as a traditional Irish band — we call ourselves “mostly Celtic,” and that’s what we are.

Come to the show and hear for yourself.