Reel No. 1 [Study Score]

The origins of this piece… were inspired by an impulse buy.

If you’ve never been to Western North Carolina (or the western part of Virginia, or Eastern Tennessee), imagine majestic mountains (the largest east of the Mississippi River) that have a somewhat magnetic “pull”, small Appalachian towns, lots of artisans who take pride in their work, beautiful foliage in the autumn, cleaner air (compared to NYC)... and yeah, maybe some other stuff that isn’t so nice (areas that are deep red), but we don’t need to talk about that.

In Black Mountain, NC (a small town about 20 minutes East of Asheville), there was a shop that was dedicated to selling handmade hammered dulcimers called Song of the Wood (they still exist, but they are currently only an online store and a workshop in East Asheville where Jerry, the owner, handcrafts the instruments). They also made bowed psaltries, mountain dulcimers, and they even had a couple Celtic harps for sale. And they let you try them out and play them as long as you want there! As soon as the soft side of my hammer hit one of the strings, I knew this was something I wanted to have and perhaps write for (as of yet I’ve been unsuccessful in the latter). I briefly tried to curb my impulse (it was April, and money was just given to Uncle Sam, as well as a plane ticket for a competition, as well as the Tire Gods…), but I walked out of the store as a proud owner of a $400 hammered dulcimer, stand, case, and hammers that was on consignment because the markings for the strings were mislabeled. I also bought a book of Celtic tunes to practice with.

*This is a study score only (PDF format). For complete score and parts, go to the “Scores and Parts” section of the store. Once you download the file for the first time, you will have an additional 24 hours to access it.