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It's so nice to meet you!

Hi there! Thanks for visiting me here at my internet home. I hope you'll sign my guest book and let me include you in my newsletter so you'll know where we're going and when. Maybe we can get together. I'd love to sit around and jam with you or just chat.
Chuck and I stay so busy we're hardly ever home, except when I'm teaching, but come back and visit us here whenever you can. We'll keep the lights on for you! We'll keep the events page updated, and I'll try to put up some music for you every few weeks. Come back again real soon,.... y' hear?
Peggy

My story

My earliest childhood memory is sitting on my Daddy’s shoulders watching a parade in which many of the young people from our church (of which my Daddy was pastor) were marching in the high school band. I’ve been told that I expressed my wholehearted pleasure by exclaiming, “Daddy! I LIKE that noise!” From that first musical experience I have arrived at a place in my life in which music takes much of my time and energy.

After many years in the public school music classroom I am now teaching and performing music on the hammer dulcimer and Appalachian Mountain dulcimer across the USA and abroad. I can’t tell you how hard I worked to sharpen and polish my skills. I started going to festivals and attending workshops, and my hard work paid off after several years when I won both the Texas and the Southern Regional Hammer Dulcimer Championships. I auditioned and was accepted as a performing artist under the auspices of both Young Audiences and the Texas Commission For the Arts.

My husband Chuck and I joined the North Harris County Dulcimer Society and enjoyed playing with other dulcimer players. In order to increase our opportunities to play with all other acoustic musicians we formed the Houston Area Acoustic Music Society (HAAMS), and put together a Summer Acoustic Music Festival (SAMFest). In addition to SAMFest, HAAMS sponsors “Strings and Things” a folk ensemble made up of many acoustic instruments, and a monthly acoustic showcase and jam session at Hickory Hollow Barbecue Restaurant in Houston. We also sponsor many workshops, concerts, jam sessions, and we even organized an acoustic music tour to Ireland and dulcimer cruise to Cozumel. I am currently president of HAAMS and am the Artistic Director of SAMFest. HAAMS mission is to provide opportunities for acoustic musicians to get together and jam whether abroad, on the ocean, or here at home.

I have taught both mountain dulcimer and hammer dulcimer at Houston Community College, and North Harris County College. I also teach private lessons at my home and offer correspondence lessons to many who have no teacher available. Several of my students enjoy dulcimer competitions and one of them, Josh Messick, won the Texas state hammer dulcimer championship when he was only 15 years old.

Since dulcimers are hard to find at music stores we started a small business to provide these instruments and accessories for my students in the Houston area. We expanded our business by going to festivals as vendors, and we offer our instruments on line, along with my books and Cds.

Let me give you a little background about how I got interested in playing the dulcimer: Chuck and I were living in Houston in the ‘60’s, and on a vacation trip to Chuck’s hometown, Asheville NC, we attended the Bascomb Lamar Lunsford Folk Festival and I was absolutely captivated by the music of the mountains! I met Jean Ritchie whom I’ve come to consider as the “mother” of modern-day dulcimer playing. I also met Homer Ledford, an old-time musician and dulcimer builder from Kentucky, and bought my first Appalachian dulcimer. It had wooden friction tuning pegs, only 3 strings, and wire frets that were only under the melody string. On the train trip back to Houston, I learned to play with a noter and a turkey quill, and I performed this style of playing for the next 20 years.

In the 70’s we left Houston and moved to Asheville, NC where I became Choral Director at North Buncombe High School and began playing solo performances with the mt. dulcimer for churches and community events including Shindig-On-The-Green. On a trip to far Western North Carolina I met Frank Profitt, Jr. and added more old-time mountain tunes to my repertoire. Frank is a rare musical treasure, so later, after we moved back to Houston, I decided to feature him at our first Summer Acoustic Music Festival (SAMFest) in Houston in 1995.

While living in Asheville we attended the Southern Highlands Handicraft Guild Fair and somewhere in the distance I heard the most intriguing sound I’d ever heard. Following the sound I discovered Jerry Read Smith and the hammer dulcimer. Jerry explained the basics and soon I was playing a few simple tunes and of course we placed an order for a hammer dulcimer before we left. Within a few months I was playing a beautifully crafted instrument which Jerry designed and built, with carved cardinals (the North Carolina State bird) in the sound holes, and mother-of-pearl dogwood blossoms (the North Carolina State flower) surrounding the sound holes. The soundboard is spruce and the body is “flame” koa. I believe it is the most beautiful dulcimer I have ever seen. A curator from The North Carolina State Museum saw it while
it was still in Jerry’s shop and asked if he would make another just like it to place in the Museum. You can see it on my home page.

Western North Carolina had a big influence on my musical development with many rich experiences listening to and playing with some excellent old time players, including Chuck’s Uncle Elmer Carter who played the fiddle and his cousin Bo Carter who played banjo. (Bo’s son continues the tradition and plays in a bluegrass band in Asheville.)

On a trip to Grandfather Mountain near Boone, NC. Chuck and I noticed a small sign on the side of the road that said, “Bluegrass Tonight!” We followed the signs up a mountain road. We asked who was playing and were told that it was just some local musicians. We were surprised to find that Doc Watson from Deep Gap, NC was one of the locals. I was asked to sit in and play, and I learned some great tunes from Doc Watson. One of the tunes, “Pear Tree” can be found on my lesson page.

We moved back to Houston, Texas in the ‘80s and I took a day-job as a middle school choral director. I realized what a great tool the dulcimer is to teach musical skills to young people, and in1990 I secured a grant to buy dulcimers for the students in my middle school General Music classes. My students performed for other school groups in our district and began getting invitations to perform for many events all around Houston. For ten years I used dulcimers in my general music classes and helped some of the elementary music teachers get started with the dulcimers in their schools. My dulcimer students and Mixed Choir produced two videos featuring their singing and playing. After my dulcimer class received so much recognition I was invited for the next three years to be a presenter on using the dulcimer in the classroom at the Texas Music Teachers’ Convention. Today there are many music teachers throughout Texas using dulcimers in their music classes.

While continuing to teach full time I began writing dulcimer and choral arrangements and some original music which my students performed. My choral arrangements are today being published by BriLee Publishing Co. of Nashville, TN.

I also sang in the Houston Symphony Chorus and continued to perform with my dulcimer. In two tours, I performed in Germany, Austria, The Czeck Republic, and in Ireland. Last year I was invited to perform for the Scottish Highland Games in Sterling, Scotland, and to teach at the first dulcimer festival in Cork, Ireland, but had to decline both because of a demanding performance schedule in the USA. Over the last several years, I have performed and taught workshops all the way from here to California, and from North Carolina to North Idaho.

I enjoy playing in two bands which feature the hammer dulcimer..... ”The Merry Waits of Windsor” and “Texas Bound”. We play dance music for Ceilidhs, Socials, Balls and Festivals in and around Houston. We’ve been featured on stage at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the Texas Folk Life Festival in San Antonio and the Kerrville Arts & Crafts Fair. In addition we’ve performed at several Ranching Heritage Festivals and Country Peddler Shows throughout Texas and Louisianna. For ten years we’ve performed on stage at Home-For-The-Holidays in Old-Town Spring, and other festivals.
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Peggy has recorded several Cds including "Take Me Home", "Jes’ Playin’ Folk", and "Look Back With Love" ,plus one video titled "One Family West". She has written instruction books for Mt. dulcimer and hammer dulcimer which are listed on the Pick n Hammer page.

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