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Mountain music is alive on Shelter Island: Coming together around the sweet sound of the dulcimer

Linda Betjeman is the minister of music at the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church, and one day near the beginning of the pandemic, while cleaning out her office, she found three cardboard dulcimers made from a kit. “I strummed one and thought, well this sounds good,” Ms. Betjeman said.

The sweet sound of the dulcimer brought Linda back to the impromptu musical gatherings that were part of her life growing up in the Ozarks.

Every Wednesday evening in a one-room schoolhouse outside her hometown of Branson, Mo., someone came in early to light the potbelly stove. People came with food and drink and dulcimers, a wooden stringed instrument about the size of a fiddle, but much easier to play. 

“They play for an hour or so, take a break to eat something and then they sing and play on. Everyone sings, and everyone plays, the young, and the really old guys” Ms. Betjeman said. “Nothing is arranged.”,

A dulcimer group, she thought, was perfect for COVID-times. She got three or four people from the Presbyterian Church choir interested, and they were off. With a portable instrument that can be played outdoors, everyone could sit far apart and be masked.

Two years later, Sweet Island Dulcimers gathers indoors when the weather’s too cold for the beach club, and the masks are mostly off, but the haunting strains of “Barbara Allen” and “Wayfaring Stranger” remain. With a strong musical background, member Marianne Baird often leads the group when Ms. Betjeman can’t make a meeting.

The Mountain Dulcimer possesses a pure, mellow tone that even a beginner can produce, and for 200 years has been a staple of American folk music.

An elementary school music teacher once told Ms. Betjeman he could have any child playing “Go Tell Aunt Rhody” on the dulcimer within 10 minutes. “It’s such an easy instrument,” she said. “You play by number. If you can count to eight you’re in.”

Starting the Shelter Island dulcimer group forced her to learn some new music.

“We started with melodies, but now we also play chords,” Ms. Betjeman said. “I have a few loaners, that’s how I start new members. We meet once a week in the winter and sometimes twice a week in the summer, often over a picnic supper down at the Heights Beach Club.”

The roots of the word dulcimer are Latin and Greek and mean sweet sound. Many a dulcimer player has fallen so in love with the instrument, that they take multiple wives.

Teardrop-shaped or hourglass, cherry or walnut, redwood or spruce, they have been called the potato chip of musical instruments due to the tendency of dulcimer players to acquire more dulcimers.

Diane Blagburn’s instrument has a lovely, intricately- carved design on the top. (Credit: Charity Robey)

Several of the Shelter Island dulcimer players have more than one instrument. Susan Ahlborn spotted a dulcimer gathering dust on a friend’s bookshelf, admired it, accepted it as a gift (she is also a guitar player) and now owns several more.

A resident of Sag Harbor, she found the Shelter Island group through word of mouth.

At a recent jam, member Katherine Moore played a cardboard dulcimer, made from a kit, a low-cost option for beginning players who are not yet ready to invest in a wooden instrument, which can cost hundreds of dollars.

The sound was impressive, producing the sweet notes that have made dulcimer playing a fast-growing activity in recent years.

“We play gigs,” member Diane Blagburn told a visitor at a recent jam, as she admired the fanciful carving on the top of her instrument. “We’re happy to perform if people invite us, or even if they don’t,” confirmed Ms. Betjeman. “Churches, children’s groups — we like to share.”

The dulcimer is an ideal instrument for nursing homes and hospitals because of its soft tones and familiar repertoire.

Since the group’s inception, membership has fluctuated from as many as a dozen during the summer to six or seven in the winter. Regulars include Marianne Baird, Cindy Belt, Karin Bennett, Diane Blagburn, Wendy Clark, Holly Cronin, Anne Danforth, Aimee Fokine, Christina Herman, Linda Kraus and Katherine Moore.

“It’s a floating crap game we’ve got going here,” Ms. Betjeman said.

During a recent meeting, the group dove in to “House of the Rising Sun,” picking out the melody first, before practicing the chords. “I’ve got Eric Clapton’s version in my head,” someone said as they all tried to play the melody in unison.

But the dulcimer, as played by this group is not really a solo instrument.

A community of song and traditional music is what they’ve created, and everyone can share.