[Giles County Dulcimer #2]

[Giles County Dulcimer #2]

This dulcimer was purchased by the current owner for his grandmother when he was in high school to replace her dulcimer which had burned years earlier in a house fire. He remembers hearing her talk of it often and located this one which had originally belonged to a Mrs. Holt. He purchased it from a woman who had bought it from this Mrs. Holt, later bringing it back to Mrs. Holt who tuned it for him.<

The two closest strings (actually one string looped around a single end nail) were tuned to the same note and the other two (again, a single string wrapped around a single nail) were tuned together a 5th above. The dulcimer was strung with piano wire which they purchased from Reeves drugstore.

The owner's grandmother (Mary Eugenia Ann Garrett Moore, b. 1879) told him it was just like her dulcimer which had burned except hers was lighter in color and "a little fancier". She used the term music box and said that her had been bought from the gypsies when she was 6 years old. The owner remembers her playing with her brother John Garrett on banjo and first cousin Lee Wisdom on fiddle, with tunes such as "Going Down to Lynchburg Town to Lay My Banjo Down," "Old John Morgan," "Froggie Went a Courtin," and "Little Orphan Girl." He remembers her singing and strumming the dulcimer with something thin.

Giles-2

Giles County, Tennessee

C

Y., Pulaski, Tennessee

Pulaski, Tennessee

S. Conatser, D. Carpenter

1993-09-01

27 5/8" x 12 3/4" x 3 1/2"

26 1/4" x 1 3/8" x 1 3/8"

unknown type of wood; dark stain; decorative paint appears to have been yellow and red for designs and red subtle streaks; sound holes measured from center of hole to bottom of dulcimer; corners of box were mitred; 15 staples for frets; 4 strings (2 strings used); original O-ring tuners; numbers painted on fretboard with stencils & yellow paint