
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 16, 1991                   TAG: 9103160214
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: JOE TENNIS/ SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

DULCIMERS RING AT RADFORD HIGH

Students at Radford High School were handed a piece of Appalachian culture Friday afternoon, with orders to find the notes to "Oh, Susanna!"

Slapping cardboard instruments resembling backwoods guitars across their laps, the 40 teen-agers were left with just one clue: The song begins with a note on the third fret.

Fortunately, the frets on these dulcimers were numbered. The students began strumming the dulcimers with picks, trying to find some of the notes they learned minutes earlier.

Soon, most of "Oh, Susanna" came strumming from the two dozen dulcimers - few of them together. Then they tried another tune, "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," and this time they sounded like pros.

The hour-long dulcimer workshop conducted by Madeline MacNeil of Strasburg closed the third annual Fine Arts Week Celebration at Radford High and Dalton Intermediate schools.

MacNeil, nationally known for her dulcimer performances and knowledge of the instrument, said she likes talking to students in the Appalachian region because many of them, through family traditions, are familiar with the dulcimer.

"Often times the Appalachian dulcimer is not an unknown entity," she said. "But in an area like Ohio, they look at the thing like it's a left-handed sewer pipe."

MacNeil has recorded four albums, one of them a national award winner. She also wrote a book, "You Can Teach Yourself Dulcimer," and for the past 10 years has published the "Dulcimer Players News," a quarterly journal.

Randy Jennings, a 16-year-old French horn player, shared a dulcimer with Julie Crawford, also 16, a member of the school's concert choir.

Crawford said her father bought a dulcimer in Hungary about five years ago, but it was sold some time ago. After playing one of MacNeil's cardboard models, Crawford said she might want another one.

MacNeil hoped she might have left the Radford students with a lasting impression of the instrument.

"Maybe one of these students will end up as some sort of rock musician and later deal with the sound of the instrument," she said.

MacNeil's appearance was sponsored by Radva Corp., Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Council for Community Enrichment of Radford.

by CNB