Spiritfest: Celebrating Creativity with Dulcimerhead
in support of the York Region Food Network
April 11th, 2009
Old Town Hall, Newmarket
11:00am to 4:30pm
Dulcimerhead is the musical art project of David Rankine, a well-known local artist. You can see and hear more about this original independent Canadian band at www.myspace.com/dulcimerhead1
Dulcimerhead does more than just create music; it is a cultural manifesto which says that creativity is very important to people, and that we are building community via music and art. We value the York Region Food Network because quite simply, you have to feed the body before you can feed the mind or the spirit.
Creativity is the ultimate renewable resource, and with creativity, we can feed people. Community gardens are only one example of the ways YRFN takes “nothing” and uses creative human activity to generate healthy food and awareness of the hunger issue in York Region. We do not accept that people should be hungry in this affluent region, nor that hungry people should be marginalized and made to feel that they have to hide in shame.
In 2006, Dulcimerhead represented the YRFN with an information booth and promoted your work on Rogers Daytime television and in performance at the Windfall Ecology festival. Dulcimerhead also collected food donations and had a silent auction for one of Dave’s paintings at their concert in June in support of YRFN. The auction raised funds and gave us the opportunity to promote YRFN’s work during the concert intermission.
In 2007, Dulcimerhead had a December concert which collected food donations and had a second silent auction in support of YRFN – sadly there was a severe weather warning so attendance was quite low.
But we are trying again! And this time, we have a number of very creative people working with us to create an event to celebrate art, creative activity AND the importance of feeding people’s bodies, minds and spirits during challenging times.
We want to work with the York Region Food Network to make this festival a community-building occasion, focussed on raising funds and raising awareness of hunger issues in York Region while celebrating human creativity.
Showing posts with label creativity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creativity. Show all posts
Friday, March 13, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
WATCH THIS SPACE FOR MAJOR APRIL EVENT!!!
Dulcimerhead and some very special friends are launching a BRAVE CREATIVE MANIFESTO and you're invited! It's a HAPPENING. Be part of it. Details in two days!
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Join the Dulcimer Revolution: Meet the Dulcimer in Dulcimerhead
Joni Mitchell's Blue album made the Appalachian dulcimer super cool in the sixties. Its “voice” gave clear notes and emotional texture to her most personal album. Today, Dulcimerhead takes the instrument to electric realms it has rarely seen before, inspired by sources like Persian and Celtic dance, sixties psychedelia and the rebellious mod hopping of the mighty Who.
It's a fact that dulcimers are closely associated with traditional Appalachian folk music. It is actually one of the only musical instruments indigenous to North America. Here is a fact I did not know: Pete Seeger's father Charles was the first musicologist to consider the dulcimer to be worthy of attention in its own right, but only as recently as 1958. That puts Joni Mitchell well ahead of the curve on that trend. She always was an iconoclastic type. :)
So let's take some time to really get down and intimate with this simple yet emotive instrument -- also known as the "hog fiddle" or "music box." With only four strings, it can still sing a melody that will move your heart.
I learned more interesting history from Lucy M. Long's site http://www.bearmeadow.com/smi/histof.htm
Dave's dulcimer has stood up to all kinds of punishment over the years -- it was constructed by noted Canadian luthier Peter Cox. You can find Cox at music festivals like the Celtic Roots Festival in Goderich and Summerfolk in Owen Sound. He handcrafts a variety of less well-known stringed instruments such as citterns, bowed psalteries, mandolas and of course guitars and mandolins. http://www.petercox.ca
Dave’s dulcimer is even more beautiful because it was hand-illuminated… by Dave. He does harps and drums too, folks!
One amazing dulcimer player we just found on YouTube is Bing Futch, from Orlando Florida. He hosts a podcast called Dulcimerica and just clearly loves to play! He praises the “progressive and emotive” sound of the electricized dulcimer. You have just got to hear his original tunes -- and check out the cool little dulcimer rocket at the beginning of each podcast. Just great uplifting music. I'm a subscriber! http://www.youtube.com/user/dread66mon
What’s great about the dulcimer is you can make a nice sound on one without a lot of training, which is why it probably became a mainstay in group music making -- you can pick up new songs fast in a community setting, and it's very portable. Dave says you can't make a bad note on one – which goes along with his art philosophy that “there are no mistakes.” With four strings, you can start strumming happily right away; in the Appalachian folk tradition, people used boiled goose quills as picks, to create a kind of droning accompaniment for the vocal melody line. You can't play all the notes and chords of a guitar, but you can embellish with grace notes and slide notes -- very similar texture to Dave's Highland piping experience.
So -- add some electric powerchords and some feedback, some heavy duty percussion, some synergistic musical influences and you have -- Dulcimerhead! True to the dulcimer tradition, they are building community through music.
Check Dulcimerhead's latest sounds out at http://www.davidrankineart.com/Dulcimerhead.htm today!
It's a fact that dulcimers are closely associated with traditional Appalachian folk music. It is actually one of the only musical instruments indigenous to North America. Here is a fact I did not know: Pete Seeger's father Charles was the first musicologist to consider the dulcimer to be worthy of attention in its own right, but only as recently as 1958. That puts Joni Mitchell well ahead of the curve on that trend. She always was an iconoclastic type. :)
So let's take some time to really get down and intimate with this simple yet emotive instrument -- also known as the "hog fiddle" or "music box." With only four strings, it can still sing a melody that will move your heart.
I learned more interesting history from Lucy M. Long's site http://www.bearmeadow.com/smi/histof.htm
Dave's dulcimer has stood up to all kinds of punishment over the years -- it was constructed by noted Canadian luthier Peter Cox. You can find Cox at music festivals like the Celtic Roots Festival in Goderich and Summerfolk in Owen Sound. He handcrafts a variety of less well-known stringed instruments such as citterns, bowed psalteries, mandolas and of course guitars and mandolins. http://www.petercox.ca
Dave’s dulcimer is even more beautiful because it was hand-illuminated… by Dave. He does harps and drums too, folks!
One amazing dulcimer player we just found on YouTube is Bing Futch, from Orlando Florida. He hosts a podcast called Dulcimerica and just clearly loves to play! He praises the “progressive and emotive” sound of the electricized dulcimer. You have just got to hear his original tunes -- and check out the cool little dulcimer rocket at the beginning of each podcast. Just great uplifting music. I'm a subscriber! http://www.youtube.com/user/dread66mon
What’s great about the dulcimer is you can make a nice sound on one without a lot of training, which is why it probably became a mainstay in group music making -- you can pick up new songs fast in a community setting, and it's very portable. Dave says you can't make a bad note on one – which goes along with his art philosophy that “there are no mistakes.” With four strings, you can start strumming happily right away; in the Appalachian folk tradition, people used boiled goose quills as picks, to create a kind of droning accompaniment for the vocal melody line. You can't play all the notes and chords of a guitar, but you can embellish with grace notes and slide notes -- very similar texture to Dave's Highland piping experience.
So -- add some electric powerchords and some feedback, some heavy duty percussion, some synergistic musical influences and you have -- Dulcimerhead! True to the dulcimer tradition, they are building community through music.
Check Dulcimerhead's latest sounds out at http://www.davidrankineart.com/Dulcimerhead.htm today!
Friday, January 23, 2009
Fund Radical Peaceful Art Happenings Today!!
This is a very timely message from the someone who has spent more than 20 years making the world a more beautiful and creative place! I am talking here about artist, musician, educator and writer David Rankine, founder of progressive rock band Dulcimerhead.
It ain't just the music that's progressive.
I cannot resist passing on this blog cribbed in its entirety from his site at www.myspace.com/dulcimerhead1:
"Getting Comfortable with Creativity"
Hello Folks!
A few years ago I had a showing of my art in a public gallery. It was the largest display of my visual art to date and the gallery room looked marvelous. The show was set to last a month and the Gallery decided to hold a second "meet the artist" day on the final Saturday of the show. This day happened to coincide with an Anniversary of D-Day (June 6th) so the Gallery had set up extra displays of wartime memorabilia in the same room as my art. Talk about contrasts!
On the day of the event, I observed many people looking at the displays of memorabilia- (photos, ration books, helmets, rifles, gun and howitzer shells, bullets etc) but very few people looked at the art on the walls. I overheard some comments like: "oh look -a 20mm cannon shell" but I did not talk to anyone about my art. In fact most people seemed a bit intimidated by the art on the walls...yet they seemed comfortable with the artifacts of war and extreme violence and hardship in the display cases.
Indeed, this was VERY interesting! I was observing the fact that we (as a society) are more familiar and comfortable with acts of violence than acts of beauty. Our media is full of it and often references it while art- has little place in it. Generally people are uncomfortable in art galleries - as Art has been sold and promoted as something "professional" artists do- just as music is something "Musicians" create and the rest of us listen to.
So perhaps that is where the problem lies - not that we "like" war (or violence) or are comfortable with it, but that we no longer seem to have a reference point for acts of beauty or acts of creativity. We are so often told that Humans are a violent species- that violence, and therefore war, is inevitable. But, how often do we read that we are a creative species- that acts of beauty and creativity are inevitable? So, instead of accepting that violence and warfare are human, let us focus on and accept that it is our creativity that makes us human and divine and our acts of cruelty and violence that take us further from our humanity.
For more of the art, music and philosophy of David Rankine, please visit www.davidrankineart.com -- a feast for the eyes, heart and mind!
Monday, December 29, 2008
Creativity can make a big difference!
Hope everyone is surviving the holidays!
Dulcimerhead is taking a well-deserved break but will be back soon with an awesome new CD and more live events!
Despite the dire economic predictions, I PERSONALLY predict that 2009 is going to be a year when people dig down and do something meaningful with their lives.
It's time, right? The economy is in the crapper, but people are discovering that the Dow Jones is not actually a measure of happiness. Yes, there will be less cash and fewer toys -- and this is the time to find out what money can and can't buy.
At one time, humans used their creativity to invent complicated economic systems and ways to measure them. But at its base, our economic system is not much more than a confidence game that world governments play with individual consumers. So, best not to waste too much time doing the "rabbit in the headlights" thang. A state of panic is a great way to keep us all in a fear-based frame of mind so we will mindlessly follow our leaders.
Dulcimerhead has always been a band that focusses on the MOST renewable resource of them all -- human creativity. At past gigs, Dulcimerhead has raised funds and goods for the York Region Food Network -- because it is plain wrong that people should not have secure access to healthy food. Creativity -- not technology -- is a way to address inequities like this one.
One fantastic example of this is http://www.freerice.com/!
I have been watching this site since October 2007 -- thinking it was too good to be true, I checked it out on the scambusters sites. It is on the UNESCO World Food Program website as well, so it must be on the level! Check it out, and marvel at the simplicity of this tool to raise awareness and funds for the world food shortage.
A few clicks can make a difference! Each of us might only be one click on the big screen, but see how it adds up, given a positive direction.
So in 2009, let's try to be creative and remember -- we ARE the economy. We can choose.
Dulcimerhead is taking a well-deserved break but will be back soon with an awesome new CD and more live events!
Despite the dire economic predictions, I PERSONALLY predict that 2009 is going to be a year when people dig down and do something meaningful with their lives.
It's time, right? The economy is in the crapper, but people are discovering that the Dow Jones is not actually a measure of happiness. Yes, there will be less cash and fewer toys -- and this is the time to find out what money can and can't buy.
At one time, humans used their creativity to invent complicated economic systems and ways to measure them. But at its base, our economic system is not much more than a confidence game that world governments play with individual consumers. So, best not to waste too much time doing the "rabbit in the headlights" thang. A state of panic is a great way to keep us all in a fear-based frame of mind so we will mindlessly follow our leaders.
Dulcimerhead has always been a band that focusses on the MOST renewable resource of them all -- human creativity. At past gigs, Dulcimerhead has raised funds and goods for the York Region Food Network -- because it is plain wrong that people should not have secure access to healthy food. Creativity -- not technology -- is a way to address inequities like this one.
One fantastic example of this is http://www.freerice.com/!
I have been watching this site since October 2007 -- thinking it was too good to be true, I checked it out on the scambusters sites. It is on the UNESCO World Food Program website as well, so it must be on the level! Check it out, and marvel at the simplicity of this tool to raise awareness and funds for the world food shortage.
A few clicks can make a difference! Each of us might only be one click on the big screen, but see how it adds up, given a positive direction.
So in 2009, let's try to be creative and remember -- we ARE the economy. We can choose.
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