Formula Indie Sessions _ Interview with Sam Edelston on the Dulcimer
There’s an American musical instrument called an Appalachian dulcimer, also called a mountain dulcimer, lap dulcimer, or fretted dulcimer. It’s a long soundbox with a fretboard, and usually three or four strings. Like most of its European ancestors, the fretboard was originally diatonic (like the white keys on a piano), though most modern dulcimers have one or more additional frets. Most players put it on their lap, fret it from above, and strum or fingerpick it. It’s considered a folk instrument, and most of the people who play it stick fairly close to folk-ish repertoires.
When I first came across mountain dulcimers, I was a fancy fingerstyle guitarist who liked to play melody, chords, and a moving bass all at once. I couldn’t imagine ever being interested in playing something with only three strings.
But then in 2004 it became necessary for me to buy a dulcimer. (Long story.) And in less than two hours with my new dulcimer, I began playing songs with two, and even three, distinct voices. But, instead of traditional tunes or folk songs from over 100 years ago, I was playing songs that meant something to me – popular songs I knew from the radio.
What is your earliest memory connected to music?
Um…Music class in kindergarten. I didn’t like the songs they gave us, so I just opened and closed my mouth to make them think I was singing. But I got over it. By second grade, I was getting solos in the school concerts.
How did your passion for creating music begin?
Crazily enough, one evening when I was 14, I thought of a pun, for some reason decided I should make up a song about it, and started banging it on the piano and singing it at the top of my ample lungs. A few days later I made up another song, and then another. My parents soon suggested that I try the guitar, which I could bring upstairs to my bedroom – but, crucially, they never told me how awful I sounded. I just kept at it – I wrote my 400th song while I was still in high school. Somewhere along the way, I got good at both songwriting and fingerstyle guitar.
What’s the story behind your current music project?
I had gotten really good at the mountain dulcimer. In fact, I had discovered that it was paradoxically easier for me to play the kinds of full-sounding arrangements on three strings than on six. I could play jazz chords, Scruggs-style bluegrass fingerpicking, a bit of tapping. And you can put electric pickups on a dulcimer just as easily as you can on a guitar. (And electric dulcimers love effect pedals!) 😊
I’m not the first person to play rock or pop music on the dulcimer. In fact, stars like Joni Mitchell, Cyndi Lauper, Harry Styles, and even Jimmy Page had recorded with them – but I’ve never heard any of the famous folks play anything close to what I and a handful of others were playing. Meanwhile, two of my solo rock dulcimer videos had even gone viral. So, I had come to realize that I needed to make an album to show how much dulcimers can do as a featured instrument, leading rock bands.
Over the course of nine months, I spent more than 30 days in a recording studio with an engineer/co-producer named Kevin Kelly, and we created a groundbreaking album. Fourteen songs, almost all classic rock, with my dulcimer, backed by bass and drums or percussion. Half of the songs have vocals, and on the other half I let the dulcimer do all the singing.
It ranges from mellow songs like Billy Joel’s “She’s Always a Woman” and the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses,” all the way to extreme songs like “Lucy in the Sky” and “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Along the way, I sort of shatter a bunch of stereotypes about what a dulcimer can’t or shouldn’t do. It’s gotten great reviews. I consider it a landmark album, because it’s the first studio album featuring a fretted dulcimer fronting a rock band and focusing on classic rock. And here’s the thing: Dulcimer is much easier to play than guitar!
How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before?
Whatever kind of song I’m playing, I always want to do justice to the song, and I’ll keep at it until a listener might think the song was written for a dulcimer. Sometimes, that means making my dulcimer sound like multiple instruments at once. (Without looping.)
A fair number of reviewers have assumed I was playing a guitar. The differences are subtle. Paradoxically, though, I actually can do some things on a dulcimer that I can’t do on a guitar. The two instruments are complementary.
What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music?
I was a totally acoustic fretted dulcimer player until a fellow player named Robert Force invited me to try out a prototype electric dulcimer he was developing with a luthier. I tried it, and it felt so good that I had to get one for myself.
Once I started experimenting with pedals, it added an incredible, new dimension to the rock music I was already playing. For example, when I made a YouTube video of “Whole Lotta Love” a few years ago, I split my dulcimer’s signal into two channels and found a way to create a sort of Phil Spector wall of sound texture on channel B, while channel A was used distortion for the melody. That video went viral.
What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process?
(Laughing) For cover songs, I get inspiration from the radio, CDs, concerts, and anywhere else I listen to music. Whenever I have music on, part of me is asking, “Would this song be interesting on a dulcimer?” Sometimes I’ll free-associate and start thinking about a different song from what’s playing. And for original songs, often, I’ll do my ideating in a nice, long shower, or a long car ride.
Which indie artist or song are you loving right now?
I’ll give you a cluster of artists who are nothing like me, but who put human faces on groups that get put down a lot in the abstract, and who help others see the world through their eyes. I think their voices are very important right now. [My descriptive quotes are from their websites.]
- Crys Matthews, “a preacher’s kid, a Black woman, a Butch lesbian, and a proud Southerner who sings social justice music.” Sample song: “One and the Same” … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDY3ZB5eXSU
- Flamy Grant, “shame-slaying, hip-swaying, singing-songwriting drag queen” originally from western North Carolina. Sample song: “What Did You Drag Me Into”… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruDdDw0uamw
- Spencer LaJoye, “a coast-to-coast singer/songwriter from the Midwest making queer indie folk music for everyone.” Sample song: “Plowshare Prayer” … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhOZv5i7CHY
How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision?
I was aware of fretted dulcimers for many years before I realized that they might be interesting for me. But that day I bought my dulcimer, when “Bang a Gong” came out of it, that was my “Green Eggs and Ham” moment: “I will play it in the car, and I will play it in a bar, and I will play it on the stage, and I will make it all the rage, and I will play it here and there, and I will play it anywhere…” Just like the book, I became an evangelist for it. That certainly influences me to play songs I think people will react to.
What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work?
Playing music for people is a great responsibility: You’re asking them to set aside whatever else they might be preoccupied with in their lives, in order to pay attention to you. So I want to be always entertaining, never boring.
Specifically, when I arrange a song for the dulcimer, I hope it’ll sound like that’s where it really belongs. And I especially hope I’ll inspire some people to take up the instrument and exceed whatever I may do. Somewhere out there is the dulcimer’s Chuck Berry or Carlos Santana or Eddie Van Halen who will truly bring it to the masses. If I can help inspire them, that will be a great service to the world.
What’s the most important lesson music has taught you so far?
My father was fond of saying, “You can do anything you want to, if you want it badly enough and are willing to pay the price.” My music has been a living demonstration of that.
What is a dream venue or festival you would love to perform at?
I don’t fantasize about playing the Super Bowl or Woodstock or anyplace with humongous crowds and big echoes. I think it would be really cool to play a well-attended tour of 500- or 1,000-seat theaters, with the ability to meet the crowd afterward, and maybe do dulcimer demos or teach dulcimer workshops beforehand the way some artists do “VIP experiences.”
If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why?
Brandi Carlile has really impressed me with her authenticity, as well as her music, and she and her bandmates wrote her Grammy-nominated song, “You and Me on the Rock,” on a dulcimer (which is why I included that song on my album).
Where can our listeners follow and support your music? (Website,Spotify, IG, links)
Follow me at:
Website … www.samthemusicman.com
Facebook … www.facebook.com/Sam.Edelston.Music
Instagram … www.instagram.com/contemporarydulcimer
The best way to support any artist, of course, is to buy their music, either on disks or digitally. Streaming only pays fractions of a penny, but I’m on the various streaming services, too. I’m listed as Edelston & Dulcimer.
Bandcamp … edelstondulcimer.bandcamp.com/album/making-waves
Spotify … open.spotify.com/album/3XX4KKjlWlMtFvnb58urM9
Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey?
This is really a dream for the fretted dulcimer, because my mission is a mission for the dulcimer, and I’m just the vehicle to make it happen. A typical 3-string dulcimer is so simple to play that I could teach somebody to play an interesting song within minutes. (For a well-behaved song, the mistake notes simply aren’t on the instrument.) I can teach someone three chords, and they can immediately play hundreds of songs they already know and love. Instant feeling of success! There ought to be millions of young people wishing for one for their next birthday.
And yet, the dulcimer can be a real virtuoso lead instrument. I believe dulcimers deserve to be as widely known as guitars, leading rock bands and performing solo.
What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?
I’ve stumbled upon a really logical, really amazing niche, and I’d love to have lots of other people join me in it!
If you want here you can add a representative Youtube video to insert below the interview 🙂
“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” performed at FabFest, a Beatles festival in Charlotte, North Carolina.
