I have started conceiving of the way I will approach Tuning Around America. I taught with Peter Park this summer for the second time and we started discussing ways that we could teach weekend classes at different craft centers and woodworking shops. In June I started teaching my Sister how to make the instrument I developed this winter at CFC. The Strumpet is a dulcimer guitar that anyone could play upon picking it up. I know this because it is the only instrument I ever picked up that I could play immediately from reading numbers in a book. My Sister Laura came to my shop in Boston in June and learned the beginning steps. Now I am in Florida at her new shop finishing the instruments we started. A version of this instrument can be made by a non woodworker in a weekend. That makes it the perfect teaching tool. Laura and I are making our first 25 a certain way and the next time we get together we will make them another way. I burn an original drawing into each one. we will not make more than fifty a year. My part of the sales will go to my ongoing life project of empowering people through the act of hand making and my Sister will use her profits to improve her shop and get the tools for more instrument making. Our new project is called strumfactory.com check it out. here are some pictures from this week.
turningaroundamerica 