Christie Burns: vocals, hammered dulcimer, mountain dulcimer (3), guitar(4, Kara Miscio: vocals | Brian Miscio: guitar (2, 3, 6), vocals | Charles Allison: vocals Lynn Wamp: bass (4, 9) | Matt Evans: banjo (8) | Lisa Ferguson: hammered dulcimer (10) Jack Magee: fiddle (4) | Aaron O’Rourke: guitar (1, 5), mountain dulcimer (7) Recorded at [...]

  That’s not exactly true, because the couple at the core of Naragonia, Toon and Pascale, are arriving to a party that had already gotten started by the folk dance bands that came before in Flanders… But with the way people talk about Naragonia in the traditional music circles around Belgium, you’d think it was the capital [...]

I’m thrilled to be invited back to teach hammered dulcimer at MuziekMozaiek’s music camp in Gooik this August. It’ll be my fourth time in Belgium, and every time I go back, I do a little bit more, connect with more musicians, see more of the country, (try a few more beers) etc. Last summer, there were [...]

Well here’s the latest on one of my all-time favorites. This is me and Kara Miscio practicing a whole new set of chords, harmonies, and rhythms for Sail Away Ladies. We’ll take these ideas to the studio this week and see if we can get a good take! My new CD is coming, slowly but [...]

This is my last day at this wonderful week at the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, WV.  I’ve been teaching the intermediate hammered dulcimer class, and really enjoying my hardworking students, and getting to know all the other instructors here.  The music has been wonderful!!  Definitely a highlight has been playing fiddle next to Gerry Milnes (who [...]

Actually, it’s hardly a lazy afternoon… In fact, I’m enjoying what feels like a miracle that I can take a moment to play a dulcimer and have fun improvising a bit with a tune, in the midst of all the folk school work.  I’m pretty much obsessed with the Folk School of Chattanooga and all its potential [...]

But it’s a good one!!
meow.

Chattanooga is a great bicycle town.  Now that my office at the folk school is pretty much put together (I’ll be having to haul less stuff back and forth), and now that the weather’s getting better, I’m looking forward to daily bicycle commutes– And counting on my bike to be the official vehicle of my [...]

What a wonderful surprise in my mailbox a few days ago, right in the dead of winter, a cd reminder of a summer week spent in Gooik, Belgium.  I’ve written on this blog before about working with Maarten Decombel , and what a pleasure it was to get to know his music.  This recording is from the [...]

This is too important. Must share.

More progress on the RC-50, and still loving it.  This was my first time trying a whole song in live performance mode.  I mean, tonight my only audience was a sleeping Simba, but still I played it as though it were a performance.  Up ’til now it’s just been playing with loops and not giving [...]

More fun with the Boss RC-50. Still learning how the darn thing works… Haven’t figured out starts or endings yet, but anyway, it’s loads of fun!

Here’s a brand new Christmas song I made myself!  With a little help from my new toy, the Boss RC-50.  Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun.

Merry!

I have to take a break from this Christmas program to show off this clip I found today!  Thanks to my friend David, who mentioned the famous Youtube “piano playing cat” to me, right after his daughter drew a picture of a cat playing the piano (which now lives on top of my piano!).  As [...]

Ok, it’s not Carol of the Bells, and it’s not Wexford Carol… It’s just something I’ve been playing with and wanted to record before I forgot the interesting chordy things I was doing at the beginning.  I know the vocals aren’t the greatest, and the piano needs a visit from the tuner.  Not much has [...]

I know, I know, the official twelve days don’t start ’til later, but I’m calling this MY twelve days of Christmas, because I will post twelve different Christmas songs between now and… um… when the wise men get here. I guess. So that’s the goal. Creative people need projects and goals. Even goofy ones help! [...]

I’ve been having such amazing visits with a baby grand in North Chattanooga lately… Such a different experience from playing a 100-year-old upright, and it brings out totally different music from me.  Most people around here don’t even associate me with a piano–Heck!  I certainly don’t talk about myself as a pianist.  Never totally developed [...]

Well here’s me skipping a month of blogging, all for starting a folk music school…building local connections stronger, deeper, and more intricately woven than before.  It’s been an amazing month since returning from Belgium.  For one thing, I hit the ground running with the promotion of the Mountain Music Folk School fall schedule.  I’ve been the [...]

There’s some pretty incredible stuff going on with the folk music scene in Belgium.  I was just teaching at a week-long festival in Gooik, a small village that gets completely overrun with folk musicians… All day long there are classes for all the different instruments: fiddle, bagpipe, accordion, guitar, hammered dulcimer (that’s me!), percussion, hurdy [...]