The Sound of Home

“I’ve been involved in music all my life,” muses Mark Eubank, as his eyes shift from mine to the menagerie of meticulously handcrafted dulcimers hanging above the fireplace. “My dad played the guitar and the harmonica, and he sang. He had a family quartet—my earliest memories are of hearing them practice as I went to sleep. And sometimes Dad would play the guitar and sing me to sleep; he had this deep bass voice that would just rattle the windows. I wasn’t blessed with that bass voice,” Mark chuckles in his sharp tenor. As we sit across from one another in the rustic cabin nestled behind his house, Mark reminisces on the people and circumstances which drew him to first begin crafting Appalachian dulcimers nearly 17 years ago.

As a mechanic, musician, and minister, Mark’s father instilled in him the virtue of hard work and the curiosity to “tinker” with things. For Mark, this translated to woodworking, of which he has been a student and practitioner for as long as he can remember. Although Mark was a skilled woodworker, it wasn’t until a chance encounter with a fellow craftsman and musician at a particularly slow craft show that he began to hone in on what would eventually become his niche in the woodworking community. On the second day of the show, Mark brought out his guitar and a gentleman from Texas brought out his dulcimer and they played together to pass the time. In the midst of their playing, the gentleman began to challenge Mark to make a dulcimer of his own.

“You ever think about building these? This is what you ought to be doing; you ought to be building dulcimers, because I can see you take pride in your work,” the older gentleman suggested. “Son, any old man with a jigsaw and a piece of wood can make toys and sell them for nothing— you’re never gonna make a living doing that.”

After carefully inspecting the dimensions and measurements of the gentleman’s dulcimer, particularly the fret board, Mark began work on his first dulcimer. By the time he was halfway finished, he was already considering changes he could make to the next one. When the final product actually played and noted true, Mark was hooked.

The Appalachian (or Mountain) dulcimer emerged in the early 19th century within Scotch-Irish immigrant communities settled in the southern part of the Appalachian mountain region. This iteration of the dulcimer was something new, although it did share some similarities to other instruments in the zither family, whose roots can be traced to various European regions. The Appalachian dulcimer, while evolutionarily tied to the old world, is a uniquely indigenous creation of the Appalachian people.

“I haven’t built the ultimate dulcimer yet--probably never will. But I’m hoping to get closer,” explains Mark. He has been refining his approach to dulcimer design and construction over the better part of the past two decades, though his instruments are always informed and measured by a basic standard: they must produce a resonant sound that notes true. Mark admits, “Anybody can build a box and put strings on it, and some of these will sound pretty good.” A skilled dulcimer crafter, however, understands why it sounds good and is capable of replicating this process. The sound dictates the design to a great degree, and this is always Mark’s primary concern.

The sound of a dulcimer begins with the woods used in its construction. As Mark points out, the traditional dulcimer was typically built from a single hardwood, walnut or cherry. When people began mixing woods, a favorite combination was a walnut base with a wormy chestnut top, although an infinite number of exotic wood combinations have emerged over time. Mark explains, “In general terms, harder woods give you brighter sounds, and softer or coarser-grained woods produce a mellower sound. So if you mix the woods you can take the edge off the really bright tones but still retain the resonance.”

The wood is also central to the overall aesthetic beauty of these instruments, allowing for an array of colors and textures that reflect a simple and natural loveliness. While Mark often adds inlays and ornamental flourishes to his dulcimers, he maintains the attitude that simple tends to better—in dulcimer design and in life. “The embellishment, whatever it may be, I want to be tasteful and simple. And this is not from the standpoint that simpler is easier to do; in some cases it’s harder to make it simple, because then you can’t hide the blemishes and mistakes. Life is simple, but sometimes we just complicate it.”

Traditionally, the dulcimer was an individual instrument whose sound filled many a front porch or living room with the music of the mountains. Today, however, it is far more than simply a symbol of a more primitive time in Appalachian life, a relic to the days of old. In the mid 20th century, the dulcimer captured the ears and imaginations of the broader culture when Kentucky native Jean Ritchie played the instrument for New York City audiences. By the mid 1960s, the dulcimer had become a staple of the folk music revival and a familiar instrument to Americans well beyond the geographic reaches of Appalachia.

Mark has found that many of his non-local customers share a similar story: a tale of families whose lives and livelihoods led them away from their Appalachian roots but who long for a piece of their own cultural history. On rare occasion, Mark has even had the opportunity to use reclaimed wood literally pulled from someone’s past, as was the case when he crafted a dulcimer for his wife from the wood of her grandfather’s barn. “The dulcimer, that’s home to them,” Mark reasons. “The sound of that instrument is home. It just reminds you of home, wherever that may be.” Indeed, as Mark strums the chords of “Morning Has Broken” on one of his many dulcimers, one can’t help but to be filled with a deeply comforting sense of peace and nostalgia.

For more information on Mark’s dulcimers, contact Mark Eubank at markestrings@yahoo.com.