Teenage dulcimer player feels like youth ambassador for new generation of musicians

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Sarah Morgan, 16, plays one of her dulcimers at her home in Sharps Chapel. She’ll be performing this weekend at the Townsend Winter Heritage Festival.

Sarah Morgan plays the mountain dulcimer

SHARPS CHAPEL - On a recent afternoon in this small community in Union County, 16-year-old Sarah Morgan sat on the couch with her favorite dulcimer, the one she won at last year's Southern Regional Mountain Dulcimer Competition in Batesville, Ark.

Across the living room, the television was tuned to the 24-hour sheep channel. Like her brother and three sisters, Morgan is homeschooled and raises sheep as her 4-H project. During lambing season, from January through March, a remote camera in the barn monitors the flock so when a ewe goes into labor, the family sees it on the television and responds right away.

Raising sheep is how Morgan pays for her dulcimers. She now has five, her fanciest being a dulcimer with an ebony fret board, mother-of-pearl inlay, spruce top, and cherry back and sides.

In Morgan's hands, the instrument sounds like a harp from heaven. The first piece she played is titled "Suicide is Painless," better known as the theme song from the television series "M.A.S.H." With her right hand, Morgan picked the dulcimer in a style reminiscent of classical guitar, while all five fingers of her left pressed down on the fret board to create lush chords that belied the fact the instrument has only three strings.

"I love the purity of the sound," Morgan said. "The dulcimer is probably one of the simplest instruments to learn, but it takes a lifetime to master."

Forget what you thought you knew about the Appalachian dulcimer. In Morgan's hands, the instrument's range of expression stretches beyond folk music to modern opera and the occasional pop song. A regular teacher at the Knoxville Area Dulcimer Club, she competes in dulcimer competitions at the national level, and she'll be performing this weekend at the Townsend Winter Heritage Festival.

Morgan began playing at age 9 after her father discovered an old dulcimer in her grandparents' attic.

It was not love at first sight. For three years Morgan just didn't get it. She wanted to quit, but her parents stood their ground. When she was 13 she found a gifted dulcimer teacher in June Goforth, a retired phys-ed teacher in Knoxville whose no-nonsense teaching style clicked with Morgan's affinity for self-discipline and hard work.

"I fell in love with it bit by bit," Morgan said. "I was extremely shy, and learning the dulcimer brought me out of my shell. My parents were amazed."

Morgan says she prefers playing the dulcimer with her bare fingers, but she plays equally well with a pick. She gives dulcimer programs at local schools and has performed at the Big South Fork Storytelling Festival as well as at the Cumberland Dulcimer Gathering at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.

And, yes, she has endured her share of dulcimer jokes - like people calling it a stringed kazoo.

"Sometimes I feel like an ambassador," she said. "You go to a dulcimer festival, and there might be two people there under the age of 25. I get real excited when people my age get interested in the dulcimer. If we don't bring it to another generation, it could die out."

This spring Morgan is scheduled to perform at a house concert in eastern Kentucky with the folk-bluegrass duo Joe LeMay and Sherri Reese. In September, she hopes to teach dulcimer at an elderhostel in Indiana.

When not doing homework (her favorite subject is microbiology) or tending to her sheep, she finds time to practice the dulcimer at least two hours a day.

"I'm not sure what my future will be, but music will be a big part of it," she said. "I don't know - I enjoy lots of stuff. The hard part will be narrowing it down."

Morgan Simmons may be reached at 865-342-6321.

© 2011, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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