Imagine a little cabin in the woods in the Pacific Northwest, surrounded by pines and manzanita, one o'clock in the morning. The walls of the tiny living room are natural finished pine boards, the floor is stone, and they reflect sound fully and quickly. There's music being played in the room, the players and listeners are totally immersed in the rich acoustic sound of the instruments, and in the melodies and counter melodies that are entwining in and out and around each other. It's not a performance. It's much more like a conversation. Two musicians warmly and enthusiastically improvising around beautiful melodies, talking together and with the others in the room in the language that expresses so much more than words.

The place is the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, a 25 year old gathering whose main function is to deepen our involvement into music and string-instrument playing. The players are Richard Scholtz and Eric Schoenberg, both long-time teachers and organizers of the workshop. Richard, from Bellingham, Washington is a collector of beautiful tunes from all over the world, and a master of milking the richest nuances of these melodies on the autoharp and dulcimer. Eric, formerly from Concord, Massachusetts and now from Tiburon, California, is also a lover of these great tunes and is endlessly fascinated with the possibilities of harmony and melody afforded by them. Together they strike a resonant chord of agreement and shared love for these harmonic and tonal vibrations. The album concept is to put an example of these conversations on tape. Eric and Richard sat around Richard's living room and played into two great microphones running directly into a DAT machine. There are no edits, just minor EQ and balance adjustments, in order to convey the natural flow of an evening of music instead of a highly rehearsed technical performance.

Wild Mountain Thyme
A well known Scottish tune that resonates particularly well on these two instruments. I found it one day hiding in a G chord, and it just fell into place, first on the guitar and then on the autoharp.

Peacock Feathers
A fun reel, learned from the dulcimer of Leo Kretzner

Old Lang Syne
Brought to the duo by Richard. Beneath this old saw lies a melody that is ageless and rich.

Bye Bye Blues
A Merle Travis-inspired arrangement. I played it as I imagined Merle would, although the poor guy didn't have that beautiful autoharp behind him!

Heart Like A Wheel
Written by Anna McGarrigle, this version comes direct from a radio performance by her sister, Kate, on vocal & piano. That concert happened around 1971; the tape I made of the radio show has engraved the performance on my brain via literally thousands of listenings.

Captain O'Kane
Some say that this is O'Carolan's first piece, and some say he didn't write it. I'm inclined to believe the latter. Amazingly, the tune pops up again as "The Wounded Hussar", sung by the late Lotus Dickey, of Bloomington, Indiana. Our version probably harks back to both, due to the unintentional folk process. [download mp3]

Afofuni
Composed by H. Lebovitz, an Israeli. Discovered by Richard.

Ki Ti Nam
A wonderful melody, an Israeli folk dance, learned from Debbie Langstaff. [download mp3]

The Straw That Broke The Camels Back
A very-late-night conversation, this was made up on the spot. Four or five takes were recorded, we chose the one we like best, and that was that.

In the Cstori Mountain Foothills
A Russian tune collected by Richard. I don't know where the Cstori Mountains are, but if this tune is any indication, the foothills are a haunting, powerful place.

Planxty Irwin
As you can see by now, we're suckers for tunes like this! This is one of O'Carolan's simplest and most beautiful pieces. [download mp3]


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