4/1/09 DulcimerSessions.com
Backyard Music Dulcimers an Interview with their Manufacturer, David Cross
Editor’s Notes: At a dulcimer festival in the early ‘80s I chanced upon a wildly happy group of young children who were playing and showing us brightly colored mountain dulcimers they had made. They took me over to a man named David Cross, who had showed them how to make and play their dulcimers. I could tell we were onto something important because of the way the children so easily became friends with these cute instruments, from the pretty music their dulcimers made, and from how happy this experience had made the children.
Around 1984, David convinced me I would love teaching dulcimer building and playing to elementary schoolchildren. Twenty-four years later, having taught some 19K schoolchildren with Backyard Dulcimers, I have had great human and musical experiences and am grateful David opened this path for me.
At a time when adults were enjoying the fruits of the Dulcimer Renaissance of the ‘60s-‘80s, David and his new Backyard Music company brought the mountain dulcimer into schools and music education. They are now commonly found in the hands of schoolchildren, beginning adult players, and music educators.
To find out how this all came about, here is our interview with David Cross, owner of Backyard Music.
from The Classroom Dulcimer
Lois (DulcimerSessions.com): Hi, David! How did you come up with the idea of a children-friendly mountain dulcimer to build?
David (David Cross, Backyard Music): A few years after my introduction to mountain dulcimers - that’s another story - I read an article in Dulcimer Players News by a 4th grade teacher, describing how he made cardboard dulcimers with his students. I knew the mountain dulcimer would be the perfect instrument for children, with its diatonic scale laid out so clearly, melodies on one string, etc. I couldn’t figure out a few of the construction details from the article, so I headed to the workshop in the basement, experimented a while, and came up with a fret board that would fit on cardboard panels from the 2’ long boxes in which lunches arrived, every day, in the school in West Philadelphia, where I was teaching 3rd grade at the time. There was a limitless supply of free cardboard! I suppose I had the confidence to attempt this because I had under my belt the experience of assembling a Hughes banjo kit a year before.
Lois: What was your inspiration to start Backyard Music?
David: Several things came together: The mountain dulcimer was a great instrument for children and teaching music theory; the idea of a kit that children could put together themselves. Plus, in 1979 I was taking a sabbatical from teaching, and I figured a little business selling dulcimer kits might offset the lost income as I switched careers. At least, it would make my attendance at music festivals tax deductible!
Lois: How are Backyard dulcimers and kits different from other dulcimer kits?
David: We differ from most wooden kits because our fret board is a single piece of wood, so there is no separate scroll piece to attach. And we use corrugated cardboard for the sound box instead of wood. This saves money of course, but - even more important - it makes assembly very quick, safe and easy. You just paint the die-cut cardboard piece on both sides, let it dry, fold it up, and glue the fretboard over the seam, holding the whole thing together. Even if their schools could afford wooden kits, very few teachers would have the time to build them.
Of course, there are many providers of cardboard soundbox kits these days. We differ from some of these competitors because we use stable wood that doesn’t warp, reliable geared tuning machines, and real metal frets, pre-installed by us. So you get a quality, long-lasting instrument with a quick build time. Our goal is to have folks build an instrument that can be a life-long companion.
Lois: Do people resist the idea of a dulcimer with a cardboard body?
David: Initially, many do, until I point out that corrugated has good acoustical properties - that your stereo speakers have a cone of cardboard around a magnet. Cardboard is more responsive than plywood. And unlike spruce, it doesn’t crack if the temperature changes or if you drop it on the floor. You might get a little dent.
It’s also pretty durable once you paint it. I’ve had teachers using a set of Backyard Dulcimers for twenty years in the classroom before they approach us for a replacement set of cardboard sound boxes. And should you drop your instrument in a lake, or an elephant steps on it, you can easily remove the damaged soundbox and replace it.
Backyard “Simplicity” Dulcimers
Lois: I love the way you have made the hands-on experiences of playing and building mountain dulcimers simple. When you first taught me to build Backyard Dulcimers and convinced me I would love working with children in schools, I felt empowered because as an adult woman I had never built anything, didn’t have any “shop” training, and didn’t think I would be good at it!
David: Most of our customers are music teachers with little confidence around tools. We learned from them, along the way, to make the building process as simple and mistake-proof as possible. For example, we switched from having builders install and level frets to offering only fret boards with the frets pre-installed.
There are a few score of musicians who, like you, Lois, got up their confidence to build a kit and now lead workshops for others. When schools ask me if I can come run a building workshop, I tell them I can, but we’ve made the building process so simple that they get more value hiring me to bring a set of dulcimers and run playing workshops with several classes. Once I show a class of students the finished instruments and the kit parts, they can pretty quickly figure out the assembly steps and their logical order.
Backyard Simplicity Dulcimer Kit
Lois: I can attest to the magical connection between children and mountain dulcimers. I think my favorite part of working with Backyard Dulcimers is that they empower children to make their own music and to acquire musical self-esteem to continue making music.
David: My favorite isshowing 3rd graders how to play. They are totally blown away that they can play a melody, with harmony, within five or ten minutes. The older classes like it, too, of course, but the third graders just assume that this is going to be a difficult and nearly impossible thing for them.
Lois: Adults play Backyard Dulcimers too. Can you give us some of their stories?
David: Folks often tell me they got started with one of our dulcimers. Typically, they still have it. We offer a wooden soundbox upgrade option, but few want to tear the cardboard off their long-time friend.
Lois: I haven’t been so gentle! When the bodies of my classroom set of 30 dulcimers have become worn, it was easy to “reincarnate” them by replacing the bodies with new cardboard or wooden upgrade bodies. They look and sound like new when I have.
David: I have a good story: someone emailed me last year that they found a dusty old BYM red Simplicity dulcimer in a dumpster, went to the music store to find out what it was and to get strings for it, and somehow found us on the internet to tell us how pleased they were!
Lois: Sounds like recycling at its finest!
from The Classroom Dulcimer
Lois: One of the neat features of Backyard Music dulcimers is that they “invite” decoration, making them an artistic medium as well.
David: Your camouflage, flame, and fur-covered dulcimers are notorious! Here are some colorfully decorated Backyard dulcimers made by the students at the Richmond School in Massachusetts, who worked with visiting artist/dulcimer player CarolLynn Langey:
Lois: We’ve seen how pretty they can look. That’s only a small part of the wonder of Backyard Dulcimers. Everyone agrees that there is a rich sound response in the cardboard bodies that produces pretty music. Can we hear one?
David: Here’s a sound file of a Backyard Dulcimer. (Bryan, please link above to the attached Backyard Dulcimer mp3 from David.)
Lois: Another thing that has put Backyard Dulcimers in the hands of so many children and adults is their modest price, and I know you give generous discounts on quantity orders to schools and organizations.
David: We have price breaks at four and twelve. That brings the kit price for schools under $40 each including shipping. We do our best to keep those prices low, so the instrument remains accessible. That was the whole idea.
Lois: You also offer some books that support the process of learning to play.
David: Yes. We do not carry a full line of dulcimer books. But when folks buy a Backyard dulcimer or kit it includes their choice of my 28-page booklets “Meet the Friendly Dulcimer” for adults or “Easy as 1, 2, 3” for children. For children learning alone and for teachers, we offer the excellent book you wrote - The Classroom Dulcimer, drawing on your years of experience as a visiting artist introducing dulcimers to so many school children. We also offer two dulcimer books by music educators - The Mountain Dulcimer by the late Orff teacher Pat Brown, and Dulcimer in the Classroom by Rick Bunting.
Editor’s Note: At the end of this article is a selection from The Classroom Dulcimer, “Shame, Shame on the Johnson Boys,” with a sound file. We hope you enjoy it!
Lois: Backyard has branched out from your very successful dulcimer line into equally friendly and economical banjo and harp kits as well. Please tell us about those.
David: Yes. With my children heading off to college, there was both time and incentive to expand the product line! We now have a 22 string lap harp that can hold optional sharping levers, a 5-string banjo in standard length, and a slightly shorter model banjo designed for junior high, travel, and folks with smaller hands and arms. I tis the same concept as the dulcimers- easy to build, inexpensive, durable, decent looking, good sound. I particularly like the banjos. Most banjos are HEAVY. Ours weigh under two pounds, so they are make a good companion to take with you wherever.
While I am not a harp player, I expect they have the same advantage. I know of one older harpist who after a stroke couldn’t manage her heavier harps, and was delighted that one of ours came her way.
Lois: Thanks, David, for all you have done to further the enjoyment of these instruments among new generations of players and builders.
David: You are welcome! One of the very gratifying things these days is the enthusiasm of the next generation - hearing from younger teachers and folk musicians who recently discovered the dulcimer, understand its value to their students, and are so excited by the results they get with our inexpensive instruments.
David Cross - musical biography
I grew up singing- one early memory is my mom gently clueing me that I didn’t always have to slide pitch between notes! I was one of the bigger kids in elementary school so I was quickly shifted from violin to viola to string bass. I played in the orchestra. Bass and guitar have four strings in common, so when my older brother learned guitar I followed suit. So I played guitar, led songs as a camp counselor, then as an elementary school teacher. A friend in college played banjo. I figured that would be a great instrument, so I built one from a wooden kit. I was introduced to dulcimers in 1977 by an attractive fellow student at a summer training course for music teachers (I was a classroom teacher, but had always done a lot of singing with my students). I fell in love with the instrument the night I bought my first one - playing it all evening long sitting next to a friend’s woodstove off the grid in New Hampshire. I invested a lot of time in Backyard Music in the early 1980s, incorporating suggestions for design improvements, leading workshops for teachers, sending mailings to schools. Since then Backyard Music has been a family business and second job while I’ve worked as a policy analyst for an environmental firm. I still get out occasionally to visit a school or lead a workshop (the photo shows me leading an intro to banjo a workshop for Orff teachers). But mostly I’m content to supply kits and instruments to other folks leading workshops for children or their teachers.
David Cross David Cross and Backyard Music can be reached at: http://www.backyardmusic.com/Welcome.html Backyard Music PO Box 9047 New Haven, CT 06532 Phone: (203) 281-4515 Fax: (203)773-3657
(Bryan, please put here the following sound file.)
Listen to Lois Hornbostel play “Shame, Shame on the Johnson Boys” from her method book for young students and adult beginners, The Classroom Dulcimer. This book is available from Lois at http://www.loishornbostel.com
(Bryan, please put here the two pages of ‘Johnson Boys.’)