30th Year Photos/#41

Texas Dulcimer Festival, Glen Rose, TX
About 198?  I very much enjoy playing from a sitting position as long the instrument is on my knees and a nice long monopod.  It is the most comfortable way to play from a sitting position.  Unfortunately, a bad back doesn’t allow me to do that a lot. 

More importantly, the festival is a wonderfully important part of my dulcimer past and present (#111 and 105).  It began back in 1982 by the Lone Star State Dulcimer Society and produced by Dana Hamilton, another very important person in my dulcimer life and a good friend (#139).  He gave me a call only a few months after I had started building and playing full-time in October 1981.  The club was going to produce a festival in May and wondered if I would sponsor the hammer dulcimer contest and play and teach.  Of course I did and now, 26 years later, he is still producing the festival and I am still sponsoring as well as performing and teaching, although I’m teaching less to allow younger performers try their hand at it.  We’ve been blessed with youth dulcimer performers of late (check out # 59, 84 and 100).