Links – Steven K. Smith Music

Links for Music related sites

Players / Builders

Mike Anderson
Mike is a talented musician, songwriter, storyteller author, and teacher from the Chicago area. He has numerous recordings and books available at his fine web site. His book, “The Great Sled Race” is an award winning children’s book. He’s also a great workshop leader. Don’t miss a chance to attend one of his workshops.

Peter Barnes
Peter is mainly known as a player of the recorder and pennywhistle both on his own, and in the group “Bare Necessities.” His book, “The Barnes Book of English Country Dance Tunes” is widely recognized as THE modern source for music of that genre, and is one I highly recommend.

Bear Meadow Dulcimers is an excellent site maintained by Dwain Wilder, a fine builder and innovator for mountain dulcimers. He is the creator of the “Flexifret” system, which allows you to add or remove extra frets as needed.

Ron Ewing
A fine builder from Columbus OH, and a really good player as well. He is the developer of the “dulcimette” or octave dulcimer, and of the dulcimer capo, which I personally, would be lost without. I play a couple of Ron’s dulcimers myself.

Gary Gallier
A past national champion player who is also a fine builder, and has a great site.

The Kitchen Musician
A fine music related web site, run by a fine hammered dulcimer player, Sara Johnson. She has a great series of books available that are well researched and well focused in theme. Her web site is a joy to read, both informative and funny at the same time.

Madeline MacNeil
Maddie is a fine mountain dulcimer and hammer dulcimer player who is also a great vocalist,. She is a prolific recording artist and author, and one of the most truly gracious people I’ve had the honor to meet. For the past twenty five years or more she’s been the editor of the Dulcimer Player’s News as well. (see below)

Jerry Rockwell’s Dulcimer Page
Jerry is one of the best players around, and is a great builder besides. He built several of the instruments that I play. He has some wonderful books and recordings of and for dulcimer music that are “must haves,” IMHO. Jerry is also one of the first players to apply music theory to the mountain dulcimer in a serious way. His site is one of the best, most informative pages I’ve seen on Mountain Dulcimer issues, and Music related topics in general. Check it out.

Bill Schilling’s folk music Page
Bill is the leader of the Dulci-more group, and runs the festival by the same name in northern Ohio, and is one heck of a nice guy.

Linda Sigismondi.
Linda is a talented sing/songwriter who plays both the mountain dulcimer and guitar. She and Bill Schilling have a really nice recording of canal songs togehter. Linda also is the director of the Fort New Salem Dulcimer Festival.

Tom Strothers
Tom is a former student of mine who has really taken off with the dulcimer. He is now teaching dulcimer workshops himself with his wife Missy, and is also gaining a good reputation as a web designer.

Sweetwater
Sweetwater is a group of three talented ladies, Shelly Stevens, Cindy Funk, and Shari Wolf, from the Dayton/Springfield OH area. Their approach to music ranges from lighthearted to heart wrenching and is always worth hearing. A fourth member, Judy Glibe, retired from the group some years ago, but can still be heard on their earlier albums.

Joe Zsigray’s Mountain Dulcimer Page
An excellent source of information on dulcimers in general, and dulcimer clubs in particular. His site has a good club finder section, sorted by state. Check out his “song of the month page.

Festivals / Camps

Fort New Salem Dulcimer Festival
Linda Sigismondi is the festival director of this comfy little festival. It’s held on a restored Revolutionary War era village at Salem West Virginia in August. I’ve been a part of this festival as a workshop leader and performer since its start in 1991.

Kentucky Music Week
A week of traditional music of all types. One of the best traditional music camps, if not actually THE best.

Dulcimerville
This series of workshops is directed by Lois Hornbostel, and is universally recognized as the “Harvard” of dulcimer education. You get a week of instruction by a nationally recognized master of the dulcimer, plus elective short courses, dynamite concerts, and unbelievable jams. You can literally find jams that include not just one, but several past national champions on the mountain dulcimer, and very likely the current champion as well. EVERY night! They have a scholarship program to support young players (from 12 to 20 years old) so that the tradition continues. You owe it to yourself to go there.

Shops

Gila Mountain Dulcimers
This shop in the Southwest has a very complete website. Its run by Kerry Anderson, who makes the beautiful dulcimers shown here, has a nice collection of music recordings and books, and profiles of musicians.

Lark in the MorningA great source of mail-order music and musical instruments

Pinelands dulcimer and basketry
This link appears to be dead. Does anyone have any information about it?
This shop has a nice selection of music and instruments in New Jersey. Their site is a good reference to the Greater Pinelads Dulcimer Society, which runs the French Creek dulcimer retreat in May, in the French Creek state park in Pennsylvania.

Prussia Valley Dulcimers
Gary Sager is the builder behind Prussia Valley Dulcimers. His well built instruments are worth checking out. He’s also a good musician and they have a really nice shop in Waverly OH, near Portsmouth. His site is really good, has a lot of nice extras.

Clubs and other organizations

Ceolas
THE primary source on the web for all things Celtic

The Columbus Folk Music Society
A fine organization of which I am a proud member.

The Dulcimer Player’s News
This magazine is the informational center of the dulcimer world. No dulcimer player should be without it.

Dulcimer Sessions
A web-zine hosted by Mel Bay publications and edited by Lois Hornbostel. (See the entry for Dulcimerville, above.) This covers both mountain dulcimer and hammered dulcimer, and would be a great souce of information even if it didn’t include my article on Elizabethean dulcimer for the Mountian Dulcimer.

Everything Dulcimer
An audacious title, but they make a pretty good attempt at living up to the name. It has a very complete set of links, a marketplace, information, and chats. This site has possibly the world’s most extinsive library of free dulcimer TAB, submitted by many contributors, including a couple by myself, and many by my namesake, Steven A. Smith from Western North Carolina. Worth a look around or two.

The Folk and Acoustic Music Exchange (FAME)
Reviews of folk and acoustic music recordings, mostly singer-songwriters.

FolkBook: An Online Acoustic Music Establishment.
A wealth of information on folk and acoustic music venues

Gourd Music
I wasn’t sure if I should list this under Players / Builders or not, since this site is Neal Helman’s presence on the web. Gourd Music is a label and distributor of acoustic music, including many fine mountain dulcimer players, not the least of which is Neal himself.

Mel Bay
The main publisher of sheet music and books in the United States, if not the world. Their books are available at nearly every music store you are likely to go in, and their web site has extensive search tools. They also host the Dulcimer Sessions web-zine, edited by Lois Hornbostel. (See above)

Mountain Dulcimer Society of Dayton (Ohio)
This active group of Dulcimists meets on the first Saturday of the month just north of Dayton. They sponsor Dulcimer Doin’s (see my biography) in February each year.

The Public Domain Information Project
This site is a wealth of information for anyone with an interest in the music that belongs to us all. A must for anyone who performs in public domain venues, or who would like to start one.

The Sweet Music Index is a compendium of information gleaned from the Sweet Music mailing list hosted by Dwain Wilder. Lots of good info…

Esperantaj Ligoj / Esperanto Links

Literaturo en Esperanto / Literature in Esperanto
Cxi tiuj pagxoj de Don Harlow estas nepre la plej kompleta kaj plej bona kolekto de Esperanta literaturo havebla en la Reto, kaj tradukita kaj originala.
These pages of Don Harlow’s are without doubt the most complete and best collection of Esperanto literature available on the Web, both translated and original.

Esperanto Access / Esperanta Aliro
Jen bona komenc-loko por multaj esperantaj retaj pagxoj, aparte …
Here is a good starting point for many esperanto web pages, particularly …

Virtuala Esperanto-Biblioteko / Virtual Esperanto Library
Vera trezorkesto da informo en Esperanto kaj pri Esperanto en multaj lingvoj
A veritable treasure chest of information in Esperanto and about Esperanto in many languages

ELNA, The Esperanto League for North America
Cxi tiu Groupo subtenas Esperanton kaj Esperantistojn en Norda Ameriko. Gxi ankaux havas bonegan liston de haveblaj libroj en Esperanto, kiujn oni povas acxeti.
This organization supports Esperanto and Esperantists in North America. It also has an excellent list of available books in Esperanto, which one can buy.

La Retpagxoj de Sylvan Zaft Sylvan Zaft’s web pages.
Dr-o Zaft kaj lerte verkas kaj tradukas esperante, kaj ankoraux bone verkas angle. Lia libro, Peter Jameson’s Secret Language ja estas gxuinda por kaj junuloj, kaj plenkreskuloj, kaj lia Esperanto: A Language for the Global Village estas tre bone rezonita klarigo pri la kialoj lerni esperanton.
Dr Zaft both skillfully writes and translates in Esperanto, and also writes well in English. His book, “Peter Jameson’s Secret Language” is indeed worth enjoying by both youngsters and grownups, and his “Esperanto: A Language for the Global Village” is a very well reasoned explaination of the reasons to learn Esperanto.

Backpacking Links

Anything Wild
The web site for the TV progam by that name concering wilderness travel.

Backpacker Magazine
Lots of good information, including online versions of some of the articles in the magazine.

Campmor
Mail order sales of camping equipment. Also includes links to other camping and back packing infomation as well.

Discovery Trail
A series of linked hiking trails, some along backroads, that will eventually cross the nation.

Glade Creek Backpacking Trail
A short, easy, and restful trail along a trout stream in the New River Gorge area of West Virginia. I’ve enjoyed this trail several times.

Renaissance Festival Links

The Ohio Renaissance Festival
An Elizabethan era (1574) RenFaire featuring Theatre in the Ground (imagine a cross between Shakespeare and mudwrestling), The Swordsmen (Comedic Theatrical Swordplay), and Queen Bess herself, not to mention great Elizabethan Mountian Dulcimer Music.

The Renaissance Entertainment Corporation
A company that runs several renaissnace festivals around the country. A publicly traded NASDAQ corporation. (Forsooth!)

International Renaissance Festivals Ltd.
This company runs the Maryland and Ontario Canada RenFests.

The Renaissance Fair Page
Includes a good US Renfaire locator page.

The RenFair Junkie
A fun and informative site by and about “Lady Liz”

The Offical SCA Website
The Society for Creative Anachronism’s official site. For those who are SERIOUS about historical accuracy.

Scribe
All sorts of in depth information regarding Renfaires, performers, merchants and more. This is THE authorative source of information about Renaissance Festivals. (Web design by “Lady Liz” — see above a couple of entries.)

ooshirts
This is a link a 5th grader named Mia found and sent via her teacher. It’s got a lot of great information about fashion and clothing in general from Ancient Egyptian times though the 1980s. Thanks, Mia!

Poetry

Roy Bentley
Roy is a local boy to my town who has “done real good.” He’s an NEA award winning poet with several collections published. Aside from the fact that his work is really good, it’s fun for me to see references to places I know locally when I read his poems.

Limey Louie’s
Limey Louie’s is a little corner bar in Newark OH that hosts Speakeasy, a poetry reading on the third Thursday of the month.

Millennium Papers
An award winning webzine of arts, both verbal and graphic. I have a couple of poems published here

Pudding House
Pudding House is one of the best known and respected small publishers that specialize in poetry. Publisher and editor in chief is Jennifer Bosveld.

And Just for Fun…

The Astronomy Picture of the Day
Every day a different view of our universe with a description written by a professional astronomer

The Solar System Simulator
A really cool site that allows you to generate views of the planets and their major satellites from many different locations in the solar system. Want to see what Saturn looks like from Titan? The Earth from Mars? Then check out this site. Be sure to allow a lot of time for browsing. If you’re like me, you’ll probably want to spend a lot of time here.

The Word Detective
Evan Morris’ column on word origins has been described as a cross between William Safire and Monty Python. This is the online version, which is updated approximately monthly. It’s great fun. It also includes an alphabetical index of hundreds of words and phrases that have been covered in past columns.

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