- Series
- The real eastern Kentucky
- Air Date
- Duration
- 00:30:00
- Episode Description
- Series Description
- Subject(s)
- Creator(s)
- Contributors
- Genre(s)
- Geographic Region(s)
- regions
- Time Period
- 1961-1970
[00:05 - 00:09]
Highway nonsmoking along one fine day
[00:09 - 00:15]
I got all over my own son was in a state waiting.
[00:15 - 00:16]
Sat.
[00:16 - 00:20]
Down on. The run.
[00:20 - 00:25]
You should walk on me but Sweetin. On
[00:25 - 00:30]
the steps of the hold of mine. Your son a
[00:30 - 00:36]
stranger trains. She asked me to.
[00:36 - 00:38]
Officer.
[00:38 - 00:39]
Said hi peppy music.
[00:39 - 00:43]
She stand tall for one lives life.
[00:43 - 00:48]
My path he said. She didn't have any. He's.
[00:48 - 00:53]
On his own leave donor and the real eastern Kentucky. A series of sound
[00:53 - 00:58]
studies celebrating the traditions of heritage pride and accomplishments of the apple is going to
[00:58 - 01:02]
be on time this is part 2. John Jacob Nye our supporter and
[01:02 - 01:08]
collector of folk songs and a talented composer Mr. Niles now resides in Aiden's
[01:08 - 01:13]
Kentucky. His prime interest on the heritage of the eastern Kentucky and as
[01:13 - 01:21]
preserved and retold in songs we knew my goodness to my home and my stay.
[01:21 - 01:25]
At home with me she died trying hard to see a day where I
[01:25 - 01:28]
don't hide behind love me most.
[01:28 - 01:47]
John Jacob Niles Kentucky's leading folk singer and authority on folk music.
[01:47 - 01:52]
Mr. Niles spent the early years of his life combing the eastern Kentucky mountains for songs.
[01:52 - 01:57]
He was looking for ballads brought to this country by the Anglo-Saxon pioneers who kept
[01:57 - 02:01]
them alive an oral tradition his best known songs include I wonder as I wander
[02:01 - 02:07]
and black is the color of my true love's hair. John Jacob Niles is an expert in
[02:07 - 02:12]
making and playing an instrument found among the mountain people the dulcimer the dulcimer as
[02:12 - 02:13]
I understand it is an instrument.
[02:13 - 02:20]
Developed over a great many years it went through many
[02:20 - 02:24]
changes and heavens only knows who made the first American dulcimer.
[02:24 - 02:29]
There is no sound. Absolute secure
[02:29 - 02:34]
historical document on that subject.
[02:34 - 02:38]
I have gone back into the history of this instrument instruments of this
[02:38 - 02:43]
kind then discovered that the Raby are you BDK in the crowd
[02:43 - 02:49]
were the two instruments from which it must have sprung. Ray
[02:49 - 02:53]
beaks in crowds were used in the early English times we'd find that the
[02:53 - 02:58]
Chamberlain to King Henry the Seventh father
[02:58 - 03:03]
of the great Henry ate on the occasion of one of his big
[03:03 - 03:08]
celebrations. Had music played on the Ray beaks and
[03:08 - 03:12]
uncross. Exactly what
[03:12 - 03:17]
music it was and whether it was music to be used as a
[03:17 - 03:23]
complement are for dancing and we do not know.
[03:23 - 03:28]
We know that the instrument had quite a few strings on it and it
[03:28 - 03:32]
must have been played with hammers.
[03:32 - 03:33]
Now they're hammered.
[03:33 - 03:38]
In and there is a hammered instrument in existence in the United States of America and in
[03:38 - 03:43]
other parts of the world I suppose I know it's in the business in our country and it's
[03:43 - 03:48]
called the psaltery. Psaltery is
[03:48 - 03:53]
mentioned in Holy Writ and this mention in the holy writ has led a great many
[03:53 - 03:59]
partially informed people to believe that all these instruments are psalteries they're not at all.
[03:59 - 04:04]
I have never used an instrument counted as hammers.
[04:04 - 04:10]
Mind mother God rest her had a
[04:10 - 04:13]
zester and she also had
[04:13 - 04:20]
another kind of an instrument she called his sister which I do not believe was actually as uttered
[04:20 - 04:25]
and she hit it with some little hammers that she carried that she
[04:25 - 04:30]
used to in each hand. That instrument
[04:30 - 04:34]
went the way of Simmons's disappeared sense but and her
[04:34 - 04:39]
death or disappeared to visit her is somewhat
[04:39 - 04:44]
related to the early rain beacon in-crowd family.
[04:44 - 04:49]
And naturally then to the Dolphin.
[04:49 - 04:53]
In the United States of America particularly in the backwoods the high lands of the state of
[04:53 - 04:58]
Kentucky remain your Tennessee
[04:58 - 05:04]
North and South Carolina Virginia West Virginia and.
[05:04 - 05:07]
You'll find their.
[05:07 - 05:11]
Customers old dulcimers and when I say old none of them are more than
[05:11 - 05:18]
15 Rs 60 maybe could be 75 years old but I doubt it.
[05:18 - 05:22]
You find instruments in that and not age bracket. Usually
[05:22 - 05:28]
possessing three strings. I
[05:28 - 05:33]
encouraged a mountain preacher who was a one
[05:33 - 05:37]
time a part time delta manufacturer he did this to
[05:37 - 05:43]
moonlighting operational his part I suppose to support his numerous
[05:43 - 05:48]
family. I encouraged him to make me a dulcimer with four strings on it once.
[05:48 - 05:53]
And then seeing the possibility of another sale and
[05:53 - 05:58]
he agreed to make one with six strings on it. It never really
[05:58 - 06:03]
worked out. You didn't to prove to be very effective because his tools were not
[06:03 - 06:07]
sharp and his wood was not cured and
[06:07 - 06:13]
for all the reasons he he didn't understand music instrument
[06:13 - 06:15]
making very well.
[06:15 - 06:20]
He was a sweet honest fellow and I was all for for giving
[06:20 - 06:24]
him the certain amount of encouragement and giving him some business so he could
[06:24 - 06:29]
support his family. Now. Gi my
[06:29 - 06:34]
own dulcimer started when I was a very small child. A dozen or else three
[06:34 - 06:37]
strings.
[06:37 - 06:39]
And they were tuned this way.
[06:39 - 06:47]
I jokingly say my father bought it for me for a dollar and a half and got the man to
[06:47 - 06:49]
vote for and that is me.
[06:49 - 06:53]
Almost a fact. We have our own way of managing
[06:53 - 06:57]
politics in Kentucky you know.
[06:57 - 07:02]
Papa got me his dulcimer and I use it in uses and uses near-zero pluck.
[07:02 - 07:06]
The wood guys not cured the glue was made out of a bile
[07:06 - 07:12]
calf's foot or a hog foot perhaps and.
[07:12 - 07:17]
I have since discovered that that's not the way to make glue. I mean for instruments
[07:17 - 07:21]
and I have also discovered that the world has got to be very
[07:21 - 07:27]
carefully. Matured it has to be seasoned.
[07:27 - 07:32]
Has to be cured it has to be dried it cannot be
[07:32 - 07:35]
had green has much of the wood.
[07:35 - 07:40]
A mountain workman in use. Think he was popular in the poppers and actually
[07:40 - 07:45]
green in color not only green and age.
[07:45 - 07:49]
However my three strangles were led me
[07:49 - 07:54]
into experimentation and I decided to make a
[07:54 - 07:57]
delta of my own perhaps or luxury.
[07:57 - 08:03]
And now. I wonder as I wander out under the sky.
[08:03 - 08:05]
Who are wrong that I am how I am.
[08:05 - 08:18]
This is.
[08:18 - 08:25]
Why.
[08:25 - 08:30]
I.
[08:30 - 08:37]
Was.
[08:37 - 08:52]
There. Jesus was you know how.
[08:52 - 08:57]
I took the first two lines from a little girl on the streets of Murphy North
[08:57 - 09:02]
Carolina nine thousand nine hundred thirty three. And
[09:02 - 09:07]
I never could get her just saying anymore of a care I was using for three
[09:07 - 09:12]
lines again and she garbled them pretty badly at the word
[09:12 - 09:15]
but when you hear these things.
[09:15 - 09:18]
And I took what I had.
[09:18 - 09:24]
And constructed the other two verses in the last two lines of the first verse.
[09:24 - 09:29]
And I think I can say that then I wonder as I wander has gone all
[09:29 - 09:30]
over the world.
[09:30 - 09:59]
Tell.
[09:59 - 09:59]
Us.
[09:59 - 10:11]
Ah.
[10:11 - 10:15]
Now those of you who love her. The big orchestra is there for the orchestra anywhere the
[10:15 - 10:19]
world will recognize those sounds.
[10:19 - 10:24]
Not that pitch exactly. It need not be that pitch but that little man with
[10:24 - 10:30]
the hammer is back there striking the top of the timpani.
[10:30 - 10:36]
All those notes could not dead those strings could not be changed in pitch.
[10:36 - 10:40]
They always then remained exactly as I had to my original and that
[10:40 - 10:43]
is instead.
[10:43 - 10:48]
So when I got this combination on day and the left side of
[10:48 - 10:51]
the keyboard of my dulcimer.
[10:51 - 10:54]
I got this.
[10:54 - 10:56]
And I see that fits together.
[10:56 - 11:01]
But when you change the harmonic structure
[11:01 - 11:06]
on the left side of the keyboard. You cannot change those bass
[11:06 - 11:11]
notes. They still are there. Zach. Believes the same
[11:11 - 11:15]
no.
[11:15 - 11:21]
Not supposed to go into the minor elation.
[11:21 - 11:25]
Yelling to end.
[11:25 - 11:30]
The inversion.
[11:30 - 11:35]
If you do not strike them with your fingers with your thumb.
[11:35 - 11:40]
Toward the middle finger of your right hand. Be striking with your cold
[11:40 - 11:48]
sleep or they will begin to sound sympathetically.
[11:48 - 11:53]
You that sound.
[11:53 - 11:58]
Up this side of my face going on all while.
[11:58 - 12:03]
You can sing almost anything to those open fits.
[12:03 - 12:07]
But it's very nice to have the. Money.
[12:07 - 12:14]
Development. On the left side of the keyboard. Now this.
[12:14 - 12:19]
Is one of the greatest of all the parallels is called Seven joys of
[12:19 - 12:24]
married young old lady blind and deaf chaplain and who
[12:24 - 12:26]
having.
[12:26 - 12:31]
In English. Is said to have been responsible for the original text
[12:31 - 12:33]
call Joyce phone.
[12:33 - 12:40]
While their first pressing his was
[12:40 - 12:43]
the best thing.
[12:43 - 12:55]
To say how the wiseguys.
[12:55 - 12:59]
Got a wilderness and.
[12:59 - 13:03]
Hard lawsuit. Was to.
[13:03 - 13:07]
Through only. 12 men
[13:07 - 13:13]
expressing a guarantee. That it was the passing of two.
[13:13 - 13:16]
To think on it. To Jesus.
[13:16 - 13:20]
Good news by bill through the
[13:20 - 13:26]
back.
[13:26 - 13:26]
Wall.
[13:26 - 13:31]
Of the luminosity hole. Maybe we.
[13:31 - 13:33]
I.
[13:33 - 13:39]
Go. Through old heat.
[13:39 - 13:43]
Again expressing it where he has the backing of 3
[13:43 - 13:47]
to think on. The name.
[13:47 - 14:02]
Out of the wilderness noone.
[14:02 - 14:05]
Caught us on a. Stick. Through all
[14:05 - 14:11]
this.
[14:11 - 14:16]
While in expressing that. It was the betting
[14:16 - 14:18]
of will.
[14:18 - 14:24]
To think our little Jesus with me. The rich to cool.
[14:24 - 14:30]
Rich.
[14:30 - 14:35]
Come on ya do know slowly being.
[14:35 - 14:37]
My son.
[14:37 - 14:39]
On the. Wall we've
[14:39 - 14:47]
learned expressing that. It was the best thing of.
[14:47 - 14:52]
You. To think her little Jews. Could make.
[14:52 - 14:53]
Their. Own laws.
[14:53 - 15:12]
Lord.
[15:12 - 15:15]
Bless him. It was the passing of six
[15:15 - 15:36]
little kid.
[15:36 - 15:40]
Lolita.
[15:40 - 15:44]
That was the
[15:44 - 15:51]
blessing.
[15:51 - 15:53]
And go all the way to heaven.
[15:53 - 16:07]
The most.
[16:07 - 16:10]
Obvious some.
[16:10 - 16:18]
Of the most.
[16:18 - 16:22]
Knowledge take up the stringing of it understand the dulcimer is made in such a way
[16:22 - 16:24]
as far as I'm concerned.
[16:24 - 16:28]
Now there may be other ideas and other makers and other uses but for me
[16:28 - 16:33]
personally the dulcimer has got to have a table to to lie along
[16:33 - 16:38]
and the player has got to have a chair to sit on and he plays it
[16:38 - 16:42]
from left to right.
[16:42 - 16:47]
Not the way the guitar is played from right to left.
[16:47 - 16:54]
The high strings are on the left side of the instrument. There.
[16:54 - 16:57]
Then the low strings are on the right side of the instrument
[16:57 - 17:03]
and it's played either this way or in the other direction.
[17:03 - 17:12]
This instrument in be are nearly there.
[17:12 - 17:17]
I tried to check my pictures and I haven't been
[17:17 - 17:20]
in the room Bowron
[17:20 - 17:27]
self-constructed perhaps the automatic system of
[17:27 - 17:32]
pitch. Oh all musicians are supposed to have it some have more some have less and
[17:32 - 17:36]
some days I have more some days my pitch is as accurate as it can as a pitch
[17:36 - 17:39]
but other days it does not know.
[17:39 - 17:45]
This instrument tuned with too high straining.
[17:45 - 17:49]
Bomb a bomb and then I blow a defense. Bar
[17:49 - 17:54]
and down there.
[17:54 - 17:58]
Now those of you who have sound in mixed choruses will
[17:58 - 18:00]
recognize this.
[18:00 - 18:05]
Da da. 3
[18:05 - 18:11]
1 5 and then the base.
[18:11 - 18:24]
Noun. The first spraying has Fred sun brick and it can produce this.
[18:24 - 18:31]
The second string has only one fret.
[18:31 - 18:41]
The third string has quite a few Freds.
[18:41 - 18:45]
And the fourth string has just a few frets.
[18:45 - 18:58]
I do not use the dulcimer to produce tunes
[18:58 - 19:01]
on its own.
[19:01 - 19:05]
I use a doll's Merc to supply me with a harmonic structure to
[19:05 - 19:08]
support my singing voice.
[19:08 - 19:14]
I think it all right if you want to use a noting stick so-called and run up and down
[19:14 - 19:18]
that first string and then you get a tune.
[19:18 - 19:23]
I'm afraid it wouldn't get very far in a big audience it
[19:23 - 19:27]
may me. I don't know I'm not going to say that it won't but I'm going to tell you
[19:27 - 19:32]
that you can support the voice more easily with a harmonic
[19:32 - 19:37]
structure created on the keyboard of the dulcimer you can do that more easily
[19:37 - 19:40]
than you can make to me as such.
[19:40 - 19:49]
I have. Three of these instruments here before me.
[19:49 - 19:53]
One of them in this key.
[19:53 - 19:58]
One I'm a little bit lower. And one in three or four notes higher.
[19:58 - 20:04]
And then I have two instruments here. Incomplete they are.
[20:04 - 20:09]
The back is falling off of one little possibly never be repaired.
[20:09 - 20:14]
It's too much of a job for me I am tired and weary and I've got
[20:14 - 20:19]
too many other things to do. Music to write and concerts to get I haven't got time
[20:19 - 20:24]
to worry was a new doves making a dozen Moreover I've just recently read stored and
[20:24 - 20:29]
repaired my big Adolf's in my Which was a arable job days and days of
[20:29 - 20:34]
it and finally I've gotten together it doesn't vanish to shellacked
[20:34 - 20:39]
yet it looks a little raw but it sounds quite wonderful. You will
[20:39 - 20:45]
hear that in a few moments and there's another one here in the key of C.
[20:45 - 20:49]
It never did come off it always sounded to me
[20:49 - 20:54]
and it still sounds tending and I suppose I will never use it
[20:54 - 21:00]
in my performance as it will possibly go in a museum with the rest of my instruments out in
[21:00 - 21:01]
Waveland.
[21:01 - 21:06]
This dulcimer I had before me was made out to have a cello
[21:06 - 21:11]
as I have said in the attempt to make humor. I never played the cello well.
[21:11 - 21:17]
I had a disabled finger on my left hand and I could not press down hard
[21:17 - 21:22]
enough on the strings so all that out the
[21:22 - 21:27]
cello was sawed in half and made into two
[21:27 - 21:32]
dulcimers one both of them are here on the table before me this
[21:32 - 21:35]
one I'm using all the time.
[21:35 - 21:38]
Sounds like that.
[21:38 - 21:43]
Has been with me for many years and it was successful find I had not had one and
[21:43 - 21:47]
had to be made over three or four times before it was a complete success. The
[21:47 - 21:52]
pegs I made out of Ebony and one peg was
[21:52 - 21:56]
broken off by the railroad companies in shipping
[21:56 - 22:01]
and it has a metal screw head in it now instead of a peg and I'm going to put the peg
[22:01 - 22:06]
back in there sometime when I have time to turn off another Ebony peg the
[22:06 - 22:11]
top of this dulcimer is made of ponderosa pine and it was completely
[22:11 - 22:15]
reconstructed after I returned from Alaska.
[22:15 - 22:20]
Now I thought I would do to give widely mill love song called Go
[22:20 - 22:26]
away from my window.
[22:26 - 22:33]
Going to my window was written in nineteen hundred and eight.
[22:33 - 22:37]
When I was 16.
[22:37 - 22:44]
Took it many years. He has to get rooms of the public knowledge zones around the world.
[22:44 - 22:46]
First it was not received.
[22:46 - 22:51]
Records your way from I went.
[22:51 - 23:01]
Through. The doorway and from my gold. Gold.
[23:01 - 23:03]
Legal LOL
[23:03 - 23:08]
LOL.
[23:08 - 23:14]
But I'll give you back your letter. Give you back your writing.
[23:14 - 23:21]
Down so did my truth.
[23:21 - 23:24]
So.
[23:24 - 23:30]
As long as Sol wards.
[23:30 - 23:35]
Go tell all my brother told my sister that the
[23:35 - 23:38]
reason was. All good.
[23:38 - 23:46]
LOL LOL
[23:46 - 23:54]
LOL Your only goal was.
[23:54 - 24:00]
To remember to.
[24:00 - 24:03]
Eat Live Love.
[24:03 - 24:07]
I am in charge of World
[24:07 - 24:12]
War II when warfare from
[24:12 - 24:21]
my. Cold.
[24:21 - 24:23]
Cold
[24:23 - 24:27]
cold.
[24:27 - 24:35]
Well this is from a XYZ today is that the top is made of ponderosa
[24:35 - 24:40]
pine and the keyboard which is raised about an inch
[24:40 - 24:44]
and a sixteenth above the body of the instrument is made
[24:44 - 24:49]
of soft pine white pine
[24:49 - 24:55]
and the knot at the end at the bottom of the instrument is
[24:55 - 24:58]
made of walnut.
[24:58 - 25:02]
And then there are Birch liners in the side of
[25:02 - 25:07]
a head made of walnut. It took two kinds of wood to hold the pegs
[25:07 - 25:12]
a ball that by itself slipped and I experimented and found out that I
[25:12 - 25:17]
could lie on that walnut head with another kind of
[25:17 - 25:21]
wood in the two Woods acted worked against one another a nuff so that it held the
[25:21 - 25:27]
pegs in a considerable tension on these pads.
[25:27 - 25:31]
The back of this instrument through on and before me
[25:31 - 25:36]
here is well Ned and the belts that is to say the
[25:36 - 25:40]
sides are of course curly maple like the curly maple you
[25:40 - 25:46]
find in every other first rate cello.
[25:46 - 25:51]
The sound the sound grows was a very small thing to
[25:51 - 25:56]
begin with and it was utterly incapable. It didn't
[25:56 - 26:01]
do anything for it at all. I carved a cross in it
[26:01 - 26:07]
and glued it in for knob. Then I made two large f
[26:07 - 26:12]
hole the size one would find in a cello or a double bass
[26:12 - 26:17]
and cut them into the top.
[26:17 - 26:22]
I found however after making them that they had a tendency to break off if
[26:22 - 26:27]
you leaned on love the wood was was fragile there and the top is not very
[26:27 - 26:32]
thick so I made a series of diamond shaped pieces of wool.
[26:32 - 26:37]
And glued then in to the sound holes
[26:37 - 26:42]
and in that way I have been able to protect them from.
[26:42 - 26:47]
Being maced in my admiring friends
[26:47 - 26:51]
who always feel as if they have got to retune and
[26:51 - 26:54]
examine and correct it.
[26:54 - 26:59]
I dulcimers after a performance.
[26:59 - 27:00]
There.
[27:00 - 27:05]
Was an old farmer went off without losing there was an
[27:05 - 27:10]
all farm when I offered up while he himself an ox and an ass and a cow with the
[27:10 - 27:16]
news saying nothing new no new thing saying.
[27:16 - 27:20]
The devil flew by with the flick of the flak with the notion
[27:20 - 27:25]
that I am a Bible opening to black. Hair. Need a picture.
[27:25 - 27:30]
Mark wrapped up in a sack and then a farmer's cursed wife one of
[27:30 - 27:34]
the humorous satirical
[27:34 - 27:40]
ballads coming from the child collection
[27:40 - 27:46]
originally of course. This version comes from my collection
[27:46 - 27:52]
and follows the original the
[27:52 - 27:57]
child original very well when I say child I mean the ballads
[27:57 - 28:02]
taken from English tradition and Scottish tradition.
[28:02 - 28:08]
And backed up by investigation in Denmark and the Norwegian countries.
[28:08 - 28:13]
A collection brought together by France is called English and Scottish
[28:13 - 28:18]
popular by Professor child did not work in the
[28:18 - 28:22]
United States of America as a collector he taught at Harvard to the end of his
[28:22 - 28:27]
days. But he did not know that we had these
[28:27 - 28:32]
evidences of the great ballads right here among us. He
[28:32 - 28:38]
supplied us with watch might be called the encyclopedia or the Bible.
[28:38 - 28:41]
The American feel about A.
[28:41 - 28:45]
Small comrade Lenin our chains were that it was a
[28:45 - 28:46]
salmon.
[28:46 - 28:51]
Come right on there Jane she's earned their brain
[28:51 - 28:58]
with an Uzi have a sing sing sing.
[28:58 - 29:02]
The other small devils look over the long thing I think the others
[29:02 - 29:06]
my me
[29:06 - 29:15]
are the thing that go sing sing sing.
[29:15 - 29:20]
Seven years ago on 6 coming back with the news saying nothing.
[29:20 - 29:25]
Seven years on and six coming back she asked the current home as he left the
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track saying next thing I'm going to go through
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all what I will do
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anything you want to tell me that
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I have enough to meet the right. Thing next thing.
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You sing I'll sing.
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This program was produced by Morehead State University in cooperation with the Corporation for
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Public Broadcasting in the studios of WUOM K-Y FM Morehead
[29:59 - 30:03]
Kentucky this is the national educational
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radio network.
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