CHAPTER 4: Dulcimers in the British Isles since 1800 > Dulcimers in the later 20th century

David Kettlewell - Electric dulcimer

Apart from performing with Trotto, I worked with members of the Albion Country Band on the documentary LP, The Compleat Dancing Master, although the final mixing was such that all that is left of the dulcimer is a faint jangling of hammers on strings, and two bars of wood-clopping-against-wood (hammers on the body).

It has to be said that my real successes of that album were playing clarinet and piano - but says 'dulcimer' on the sleeve anyway ...

I also made several multi-tracked recordings in the studio of the University of Surrey.

Two of these experiments were particularly successful:

• in Concoxa Mas, Juan Encima's beautiful villancico from c.1500, the dulcimer plays the tenor line below two zithers and above the guitar, while a zither-harp outlines the changes of harmony;
• Tallow Candles is a more ambitious arrangement of a traditional Devon song: here the piano sound is given a treatment called 'limiting' - i.e. the decay is artificially delayed - and the dulcimer is tuned up a fourth higher than normal to match. The bass-guitar playing and singing are also mine, but I was able to involve a friend, Peter Wilson, for the percussion.