The Hearts of the Dulcimer DVD is no longer available. Hearts of the Dulcimer is both a podcast and a feature-length film. In the podcast we explore the mountain dulcimer's past, present, and future. The feature-length film is about the counterculture and a passion for an often-misunderstood instrument. The mountain dulcimer often conjures up rustic mountain life and simple traditional music from
the American South in a bygone era. From a group of countercultural youth living in the Santa Cruz Mountains in the late ‘60s to Joni Mitchell's influential Blue album in the early ‘70s, the mountain dulcimer found a new voice in a "new land": California. This documentary doesn't hit you over the head with obscure facts. Instead, Hearts of the Dulcimer takes you on a heartfelt journey--both musically and narratively--inviting you to see this musical instrument in ways you might not have imagined. In the late 1800s, dulcimer builders and players living in the Appalachian Mountains were attracted to this rustic instrument's do-it-yourself spirit. They found freedom of expression in the dulcimer; there were no written rules on how it should be built or played. This same DIY spirit captured the imagination of 1960s countercultural youth in California. They discovered this same freedom, and created new musical and art forms with this simple mountain instrument.
