K&K's Artist of the Month: Dan Landrum
July 2003
"In
1987 I was Program Director at a National Public Radio/ Classical music
station in Chattanooga, Tennessee. One hot July afternoon an announcer
played a piece of music on the air I had never heard before. The magical
sound conjured up images of a harp player on steroids. I loved it, but
I also knew it wasn't something in our regular playlist.
Curiosity sent me straight to the on-air booth where I flipped over the album and found a photo of a man standing over a trapezoidal oddity with two sticks in his hand. The album was Malcolm Dalglish's 'Jogging the Memory'. The cut was 'New Waltz'. The discovery changed the course of my life.
Here was an instrument that I, a 26 year-old frustrated drummer, could sink my chops into. The welcome demands of being a good husband and father were rapidly relegating drumming to the 'something I used to do' category.
It is very easy for me to remember when my hammer dulcimer enlightening occurred. My wife, Angie, was almost 9 months pregnant with our daughter at the time. Less than a week after I experienced 'Jogging the Memory', she reluctantly maneuvered her pear-shaped torso into our unairconditioned Civic for my pilgrimage to what I was told was the Mecca of dulcimers, the Gatlinburg Tennessee area.
I was a little disappointed to discover a wide selection of lap dulcimers, but only a couple hammer dulcimers. I settled on the only one I could afford, a 12/4 model (no longer) made by Pigeon River Stringed Instruments. I was hooked. Our daughter was born a couple weeks later. One of my favorite photos shows me holding our nearly two year old son and learning to play my new instrument at the same time.
I also quickly outgrew my first instrument's limited range and, alas, it did not survive my attempts to transform it into a 12/11. I've played and owned many instruments since then."
Dan Landrum
1040 Druid Drive
Signal Mountain, TN 37377
dan@danlandrum.com
http://www.danlandrum.com/