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While primarily a vocalist, I also collect and play a variety of folk instruments.

To the left is my cláirseach, a small "travelling" harp. Twenty-four strings; custom-made from walnut by Dan Speer at Argent Fox Music in 2002. Note the signature design on the pretty tension-plate (silver foxes! Get it?) Dan made my very first harp back in 1990. We've both come a long, long way in our craft since then. Last August we finally sat down long enough together for him to put sharping levers on it (thank God!) These function like a capo on a guitar; when flipped onto a string, they raise its pitch a semitone. The upshot is that it makes the instrument more chromatic and less diatonic, ennabling you to shift keys from song to song without stopping to retune the instrument.

Gothic harps were used throughout continental Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The modern neo-Celtic harp is a hybrid between the Gothic and "true" Celtic body designs. I bought an unfinished 30-string Gothic harp in February of 2002, and have been working on it intermittently since then. It remains not quite done, largely due to some unforgiveable sloppiness on the part of the luthier. Among other oversights, when the time finally came to string it, it became apparent he'd shipped me a headstock drilled for 30 strings, and a soundboard drilled for 26! Conveniently, about that time the offending twit also disappeared. With some basic woodshop skills, and good advice from Dan, I tried to make the best of things: fashioned a new hardwood "rib", drilled it with the correct amount of holes, and strung it. But whether it will ever be playable remains to be seen. The music marketplace can be a treacherous realm. Find yourself a reputable luthier, preferably through a friend, and stick with them.

UPDATE, 12/19/08: Well. Despite considerable and, by now, pretty well-fermented cynicism, over Thanksgiving weekend I gave it another chance. During its years in storage, the wood had rested and "crowned": i.e., the soundboard adjusted to the tension from the strings (which is always considerable), forming a slight convexity in the belly. It is now, at long last, fully strung, functional, holds a tune, and appears as the main picture on our front page. In fact, I've begun recording with it. As you will hear in the new Christmas downloads, it goes a full octave below my cláirseach and has a nice, deeply resonant voice. Granted, this is still more despite its dingbat-luthier's involvement than because of it. The phrase caveat emptor still applies.

My primary guitar is this vintage mahogany Kay® (above), which I was given in the spring of 1995. Kays are something of an anomaly in the music world. They were THE mass-produced department store guitars of the 50's — but those that survive from that era have proceeded to age beautifully, the way you'd expect a far more expensive instrument to do. Surprised everyone. This quirk has made the humble Kay a bit of a collector's item. True to form, this guit has the silky voice you'd expect from any good, seasoned antique guitar. She's been taken on the road, subjected to the elements, stolen by frat-punks and rescued by cops, abused by ex-boyfriends, knocked about by baggage handlers, repaired and restored. That's just since *I'VE* had her. An old girl, who’s definitely still "got it."

Sometimes the Kay is too big to lug around; or, sometimes I'm attending an event or photo-shoot where a more period-looking guitar is preferable. At those times I might pull out this Amigo backpacker (left), which I picked up at a flea-market in 2003. Backpack guitars as a species don't project very well; that's the tradeoff for having a smaller, more compact soundbox. In fact, depending on the brand some of them sound downright tinny and twangy. Still, they can be quite attractive. I made and added the soundhole-cover with the triskelion pattern on it, to enhance the Amigo's lute-like appearance. It was certainly a better deal than this turkey...

In '91, I decided to temporarily shelve the harp in order to concentrate on guitar more. Rocky Mountain Enterprises® ended up selling me this lute-shaped guitar (right), much to my later chagrin. It turned out to be kinda...not playable. Eventually, I decided to make lemonade out of this lemon by turning it into an attractive display-piece. Sanded off a lot of nasty yellow shellac to expose the original blonde wood, and pyrographed some Renaissance designs onto the body. Then the whole thing was rubbed with a tung-oil finish, to give it a more natural look. Finally a decorative disc of thin wood was cut into a rosette and placed over the sound-hole, which got some shiny new bronze strings. I cannibalize them as spares whenever the Kay® loses one. As the current picture suggests, it looks pretty nice on the wall. Through Ragnarr, the following instruments are also in our joint guitar-collection:

"Trigger", an acoustic guitar by Ibanez. Action is brutally high; we're hoping to have that adjusted someday.

A McNally Strumstick he bought at a Ren-Faire...

...and, the Carlo Robelli acoustic bass I got him for Christmas 2006.

Finrod, a lap-dulcimer that I gave Rags for Christmas back in 2002. Poplar wood, custom made. Also called the Appalachian or Mountain dulcimer, this instrument has a colorful history. It is a variation on the zither: the mother of all stringed instruments, or at least those of the box-with-strings variety. Many types of zither are found all over the globe, under various guises and charming names. The Germans called theirs the scheitholt . It evolved into the instrument you see here, which the Germans brought to America with them. Scots-Irish immigrants immediately recognized how adaptable it was to their own harmonics, re-tuned it, and eagerly brought it into the Celtic music scene.

The "hammered", or percussive, version of the dulcimer dates to ancient Persia, where it was called the santur. Instead of being strummed, the strings are lightly struck with padded sticks. It's similar to how sounds are produced by the modern piano. In recent years, Dan at Argent Fox has begun making hammered dulcimers. This small "student" model is a wise investment for someone wanting to experiment with the instrument, prior to investing in a full-sized one. It's also a lot easier to transport. (I got this one in 2007 and record with it occasionally.)

Throughout college I played recorder in an ensemble (the way the instrument was meant to be heard, really) and to this day, enjoy collecting a variety of folk flutes. At the far right are displayed my Irish whistles: a D, two C's, and a low F. Next to them are pictured my alto, soprano and sopranino recorders. There is also a charming double-whistle made by my friend Trevor, a maplewood fife (center) and a small set of panpipes.

Drum-and-dance circles rarely seem equipped with non-percussive musicians, and the ney seemed a good way to fix that. So here is a seven-piece set of Egyptian nayat I got in 2006. That was before chatting with some Near Eastern musicians, who cackled: "congratulations! End-blown flutes are among the hardest woodwinds to learn on the planet. Good luck with that." Maybe I'll actually get a friggin' sound out of them someday. Probably around the same time I get one out of that Turkish kaval (bottom left; also end-blown. Dammit.)

The bodhrán is a traditional Irish frame-drum. I've accumulated the three pictured here. The drum-head is made of goatskin, and the instrument is played one-handed, using a double-headed drumstick called a "tipper." While the bodhrán, played as we know it, is a fairly recent innovation (probably 19th century), the design of the common frame-drum is thousands of years old. Examples include the "tabor" of medieval Europe, the daf, dayereh and tar of the Middle East, and so on. (Not pictured: my zills, timbrel, and other minor jinglies.)

Ardival Harps Argent Fox Music Caswell Harps Dusty Strings Harps by Witcher Salvi Harps Silvershell Instruments Steen Harps Stoney End Triplett Harps (Want to recommend another luthier for this list? Submit name and link here.)

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