Appalachian Dulcimer Traditions

by Ralph Lee Smith

  After my phone conversation with Mary, she and Rella teamed together to buy the instrument. They subsequently donated it to the Appalachian Cultural Museum at Appalachian State University, where it is proudly displayed.

  The sound holes of their purchase closely resemble those of the Beck-with instruments. The top of the “triangle” is made of tiger maple. A notable difference between this instrument and the other four above is the simple decoration, which is confined to handsome stripes painted on the top.

  The name “Bennett” is stenciled on the bottom of the box, and the initials TLB are scratched in script in the center of the bottom. There is no way to know whether this person was the maker or an owner.

  The triangular-shaped instrument body of the scheitholts-in-boxes thus far discovered indicates that they have a common prototype. At one time, the basic design was known to more than one maker. The quality of the workmanship of all the instruments signifies that they were made in small shops and were intended for commercial sale. Perhaps the original idea, and some of the instruments, emanated from the shop of a skilled German-American zither maker as a relatively simple, easy-to-play variant of his main line of products. But that’s guesswork. As with so many features of scheitholt and dulcimer history, we have barely started down the path of discovery.

  4 Virginia Traditions

  Virginia Traditions

  It seems likely that, in making his 1832 dulcimer, John Scales of Floyd County, Virginia, was following or adapting a design that existed in the early dulcimer world of southern and southwestern Virginia. Features of the design were perpetuated in traditional Virginian dulcimer-making throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

  These features can be seen in a 19th-century dulcimer owned by Polly Sumner of Pulaski, Virginia, illustrated in figure 4.1. Her instrument was on loan to the Jeff Matthews Memorial Museum in Galax when I saw and photographed it. All Sumner knew about it was that it had been in her barn for a very long time! The instrument came with a bow, not unusual for 19th-century Virginia dulcimers, although bowing had largely passed away by the 20th century. The dulcimer owned by Jacob Connoy, found by Kimberly Burnette-Dean in 1849 Grayson County estate records (see chapter 3), also came with a bow.

  As with the Scales dulcimer, Sumner’s instrument has four equidistant strings. Wire staple frets pass under two of the four strings. The player fretted the two strings that pass over the frets with a stick or piece of goose quill, while the other two sounded as drones.

  Traditional single-bout Virginia dulcimers do not have heart-shaped sound holes. Instead, the sound holes are f-shaped or S-shaped or consist of various patterns of small holes. In Sumner’s instrument, the upper pair of sound holes consists of a pattern of small diamonds, and the lower pair of small drilled holes in an S-shaped pattern.

  As with the Scales dulcimer, two sound holes are drilled into the fret-board, which is hollowed out. This feature makes the fretboard part of the soundbox. Hollowed-out fretboards into which two, three, or four holes are drilled are a standard feature of traditional single-bout dulcimers. Drilled fretboards do not appear on traditional hourglass dulcimers.

  Figure 4.1. Dulcimer owned by Polly Sumner of Pulaski, Virginia, from the second half of the 19th century.

  Hourglass-shaped dulcimers have a depression or “strum hollow” at the foot of the fretboard, which provides clearance for the action of the strummer. This practical feature, cut into the solid rather than hollowed-out fretboards that are usually found on hourglass dulcimers, is not found on single-bout dulcimers. The makers apparently never thought of shortening the inside hollow to accommodate it.

  The absence of a strum hollow often results in damage to the bottom of the fretboard by the action of the strummer. Such damage, consisting of grooves worn in the wood, can be seen on Sumner’s instrument. Many old Virginia instruments show plenty of strumming damage. In a few cases, the wood has been worn all the way through.

  Sumner’s instrument has three small feet, a feature that it shares with many old dulcimers of both the single-bout and hourglass traditions. In addition, a pattern of sound holes is drilled into the bottom, a characteristic that is found in old Virginia dulcimers but does not appear in hourglass dulcimers.

  Like the Scales dulcimer, Virginia dulcimers often have semicircular tailpieces, which may be solid, pierced with one to three holes, or open in the shape of the letter D. Sumner’s dulcimer has an open-D tailpiece with a horizontal strut in the middle.

  As noted in chapter 1, the usual vibrating string length (VSL) of traditional single-bout dulcimers, 24 to 26 inches, is shorter than the typical 28-inch VSL of hourglass dulcimers. Scales’s dulcimer, at 23b inches, is slightly shorter than even the usual minimum. The VSL of Sumner’s dulcimer is 25¼ inches.

  SAMUEL F. RUSSELL (1860–1946)

  The tradition represented by both Scales’s and Sumner’s dulcimers was followed in the early 20th century by Samuel F. (Sam) Russell of Marion, Virginia. (A wonderful photo of Russell with one of his dulcimers on his lap, taken by famous photographer Doris Ullman, faces page 138 in Allen H. Eaton’s 1937 book Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands.) Russell made dulcimers in the 1920s and 1930s, and perhaps sooner; he was 60 years old in 1920.

  Russell was a contemporary of the great Kentucky makers of hourglass dulcimers, James Edward “Uncle Ed” Thomas and Jethro Amburgey (discussed in chapter 6). He sold instruments as they did and was the only person who produced a significant number of Virginia-style dulcimers for sale prior to the post–World War II folk revival. Russell made and sold fewer than were sold by Thomas and Amburgey, who produced more than a thousand each over their lifetimes, and consequently he was less well known. In 1975, Allen Smith, author of the Catalogue of Pre-Revival Appalachian Dulcimers, interviewed Russell’s son Woodrow, who said that his father had made “several hundred” instruments. Woodrow said that Sam’s father also made dulcimers, although Woodrow had never seen one of his grandfather’s instruments.

  Sam Russell’s dulcimers had single bouts, four strings, three holes drilled into their hollowed-out fretboards, no strum hollow, and an open-D tailpiece. The upper sound holes were single drilled holes, and the lower ones were S-shaped. The VSL of the one I possess, pictured in figure 4.2, is 24a inches.

  Russell was born in Grayson County, Virginia, in 1860 and died at age 86 in 1946. He learned much of his music from his mother and father. In addition to the dulcimer, he played the fiddle and the fife. After his marriage, he moved to Marion in Smyth County, which adjoins Grayson County to the north and west, and made his living as a carpenter and cabinetmaker.

  In the 1930s, Russell played at the White Top Folk Festival, a major event that was held annually from 1931 to 1939. It was at White Top that he made many of his sales contacts. Woodrow said that his father sold most of his dulcimers to customers in New York and Florida. In 1936, Russell made a beautiful a capella recording of the Anglo-American ballad “Geordie” for the Library of Congress, which can be heard on the record Virginia Traditions: Ballads from British Tradition (BRI-002), issued by the Blue Ridge Institute. In the 1930s, Russell played in a family band whose members included his son Joe, his son-in-law Worley Rolling, and Joe’s son Robert. Figure 4.3 shows the group playing together.

  Figure 4.2. Dulcimer made by Samuel F. Russell, Marion, Virginia, first half of the 20th century.

  In August 1998, guitar virtuoso Seth Austen informed Madeline MacNeil that an old dulcimer was for sale in the Vintage Fret Shop in Ashland, New Hampshire. A time-darkened, handwritten paper label inside the lower left sound hole read: “Made By / S. F. Russell / Marion, Va.” MacNeil informed me, and I called the Vintage Fret Shop, talked to David Colburn, the proprietor, and bought the instrument over the phone. A note from Colburn that accompanied the dulcimer when it arrived said:

  Here’s the Russell dulcimer. . . . In my experience, used dulcimers almost never play in tune; we usually modify them so they will, but didn’t alter this one, because I thought i
t might be historically important. I got the instrument some years ago from a dealer in New York who specialized in wind instruments, and mentioned that he’d had it in stock for longer than he cared to admit.

  Figure 4.3. The Russell Family Band, about 1935. Left to right: Samuel Russell playing one of his dulcimers; Worley Rolling, Samuel’s son-in-law; Joe Russell, Samuel’s son; Robert Russell, Joe’s son. (Courtesy Blue Ridge Institute)

  I took the dulcimer to Keith Young, a dulcimer maker and restorer in Annandale, Virginia, for a minor repair. Young shook the dulcimer and detected a faint sound inside the box. Out of one of the sound holes fell a small splinter of quill!

  THE MELTON FAMILY

  In June 1993, I was an instructor in dulcimer history at the Annual Dulcimer Playing Workshop at Appalachian State University. I invited Jacob Ray Melton, an old-time Virginia dulcimer maker and player from Galax, Virginia, to come with me to explain old-time traditions, to sell his dulcimers, and to perform.

  On the stage at the workshop concert, the 69-year-old Melton performed in public for the first time. He placed one of his big double-bottom dulcimers on his lap, removed a stripped turkey quill from his shirt pocket, and played “Ebenezer,” a tune that his sister Ruth had played to win the dulcimer contest at the first Old Fiddler’s Convention in Galax in April 1935, and “Walkin’ in My Sleep,” which his mother, Lina Whit-tington Melton, had played to win second place. He received a standing ovation.

  Showered with acclaim, Melton and his wife Dainease attended the annual workshop at Appalachian State for several golden years. Jacob Ray Melton passed away in 2003, and Dainease soon thereafter. He was the last maker-player of a family that had made and played dulcimers in southwestern Virginia for more than a hundred years.

  The Melton family was associated with a variant of the traditional Virginia pattern that has come to be known as the “Galax style.” Galax dulcimers are large-bodied instruments, and many have double bottoms. During the 20th century, they became disseminated in Carroll and Gray-son counties in the general vicinity of Galax, which lies on the border between the two. Unlike hourglass-style dulcimers, which underwent a lot of adaptation during the folk revival, Galax dulcimers, and their associated playing techniques, were basically unaffected by the revival.

  The Patriarch: Stephen B. Melton (1817–1897)

  The progenitor of the Melton family was Stephen B. Melton, who was born in 1817. In 1836, he married Elizabeth Bryant, who was also born in 1817. She bore him 10 children and died in 1884. As mountain men often did, when the wife who bore him a large number of children died, Stephen married a much younger woman, Caroline E. Todd, born in 1850. Caroline died in 1918, 101 years after her husband was born.

  No one knows whether Stephen Melton was involved with the dulcimer. In view of subsequent family history, it seems likely that he was, but we have no instruments or other record of it. What is clear is that the family was firmly associated with dulcimers by the time we come to two of Stephen’s sons, Amon and Stephen Jr.

  Amon Melton (1840–1925)

  The existence of a dulcimer that was owned by Amon Melton and may have been made by him was unknown until I got a tip while I was in southwestern Virginia in the summer of 1993. Go to Harmon’s Western Wear, outside of Hillsville, I was told. The owner, G. H. “Gooch” Harmon, is a mountain history buff who has built a large addition onto his store to house the “Harmon Museum.” There are a couple of dulcimers in there, people said.

  I entered Harmon’s and asked if I could see the museum. Gooch Harmon smiled happily and waved toward the wide entrance on the opposite wall. Inside the museum, in a dusty corner with some old farm tools, were two large diamond-shaped dulcimers, one made by Jacob Melton and the other by Raymond Melton, both of whom we will soon discuss.

  There was something else interesting hanging on the wall. It was a certificate issued on September 1879 to Jacob’s and Raymond’s grandfather, Amon, to operate a legal still! The certificate is an Internal Revenue Service form, entitled “Report of Survey of Stills Used for Distilling Brandy from Apples, Peaches, or Grapes, Exclusively.” The form provides detailed information on the features and capacity of a copper still located on “Steve Melton’s Plantation” in Woodlawn, Carroll County, and owned by Amon Melton. The form says that the still was capable of producing 7.8 gallons of apple or peach brandy in 24 hours.

  This form harks back to days long before the income tax, when a major portion of U.S. revenue was raised by the taxation of alcohol and tobacco. The Revenue Service maintained a large network of locally based agents in the mountains, who monitored every kind of distilling apparatus for the purpose of collecting tax. In those days, Uncle Sam had no problem about home brew—as long as the tax was paid.

  As it happens, one of the veteran employees at Harmon’s is Virgil Melton, whose father, Glenn, was a first cousin to Jacob and Raymond. Virgil doesn’t make dulcimers, but when he and Harmon learned about my interests, they told me that Virgil’s uncle, Rodney Melton, owns a very old dulcimer that had belonged to Amon. As far as Virgil and Harmon knew, no folklorist had ever seen it.

  The next day Virgil brought it in, and figure 4.4 shows him holding it. The instrument appears to represent a link between the mainstream Virginia style and the features that became prominent in Melton family dulcimers.

  The dulcimer is painted red, with top and bottom overlapping the sides, and two simple round holes for sound holes. Like the Scales dulcimer and Polly Sumner’s instrument, this one exhibits major features of the ancient Virginia design. It has four equally spaced strings, two holes drilled into the fretboard, a VSL of 25½ inches, and a D-shaped tailpiece into which three holes have been drilled. The instrument is diamond shaped. The diamond theme is prominent in both the body design and the sound hole design of dulcimers made by various members of the Melton family in the 20th century.

  Of significant interest is the integration of mechanical tuners into the design of the peg head. Mechanical tuners are sometimes found in old Virginia dulcimers other than those made by the Meltons, but they generally appear to be later replacements for wooden pegs. Depressions have been cut into the bottom of the peg head of this dulcimer to accommodate the turning of the tuners, making it certain that the tuners are original with the instrument and integral to its design. In the 20th century, mechanical tuners became a standard feature of Melton family instruments. In their earlier instruments, the tuners were usually cut from plates of guitar or mandolin tuners.

  Figure 4.4. Virgil Melton in front of Harmon’s Western Wear, Hillsville, Virginia, holding a dulcimer owned by Amon Melton and perhaps made by him.

  Stephen Jr. (1852–1917)

  In 1891, Amon’s younger brother, Stephen Melton Jr., made a dulcimer as a wedding present for Amon’s son Samuel (1863–1933) and Samuel’s bride, Maggie Todd (1874–1960). This instrument, shown in figure 4.5, has standard Virginia features: four strings, a VSL of 25c inches, two holes drilled into the fretboard, and a D-shaped tailpiece into which three holes have been drilled. The upper sound holes consist of four small holes that form a diamond, the same pattern as the upper sound holes of Sumner’s dulcimer, except that the holes are round. The lower sound holes consist of four small holes in an S-shaped pattern.

  Figure 4.5. Dulcimer made by Amon Melton’s younger brother Stephen in 1891.

  The dulcimer has two additional features—a large body and a double bottom—that are hallmarks of the Galax style, and, in fact, this may be the instrument that established the style. The apparent purpose of the double bottom is to keep the sounding bottom off one’s lap, thereby preventing the vibration of the sounding bottom from being damped. It takes the place of the combination of feet and sound holes in the bottom, which were designed to provide maximum volume when the instrument was played on a table.

  The four strings of Stephen Melton’s dulcimer were all tuned to the same pitch, and this was true of Galax dulcimers made and played by members of the Melton family throughout the 20
th century. This represented a radical departure from hourglass dulcimer tunings, which typically employed a bass string tuned five tones lower than the matched pitch of the middle and melody strings. It is not known if this feature began with this dulcimer, nor whether Amon’s dulcimer, or any other 19th-century Virginia-style dulcimers, were tuned this way.

  Typically, the Galax dulcimer is strung with four banjo second strings, or strings of equivalent gauge (.012 inch), which are raised to a pitch of D, three tones higher than the designated A pitch for the strings. The player depressed two of the four strings with a stick or stiff piece of goose quill, with the other two sounding as drones. A stripped turkey quill was used for strumming. The long, carefully prepared quill, often with about an inch of its thin end clipped off, was held by its thicker end, with the thin end to the strings. Use of the long quill permits swifter strumming than is possible if one holds a flexible strummer between index finger and forefinger. The Galax dulcimer with its massive body, played swiftly with a quill with strings set to high pitch and no bass by consequence of having no bass string, produces one of the most wonderful sounds of world folk music.

  High Tide: Samuel and Maggie Melton’s Family

  Between 1892 and 1917, Samuel Melton (Amon’s son) and his wife Maggie had 14 children. This family produced dulcimer activity that is unique in American musical history. One virtually needs a scorecard to keep track.

  To begin with, Maggie herself played, using a bow, a skill that no subsequent family player acquired. Three of her boys—Jacob, Daniel, and Raymond—made and played dulcimers, Jacob and Raymond being especially active.