Editor’s Note: Lorraine’s arrangement of “When Jesus Wept” first appeared in Vol. 23 No. 2 (1997). Excerpts from the original “Mini Profile” are reprinted here, along with an update from Lorraine.
Vol. 23 No. 2 (1997)
One of my favorite composers is William Billings, a self-educated Massachusetts Yankee whose stark harmonies and emotional lyrics retain their power and beauty after two centuries. You may be familiar with his name from the shape note hymns in the Sacred Harp singing tradition. He also wrote songs to stir and sustain Boston’s patriots throughout the American Revolution.
Billings was born in Boston in 1746. He supported his family as best he could from his income as a tanner, but he apparently had trouble keeping a steady job. It is said he sometimes became distracted and started drawing out notes on a hide he was supposed to be tanning. His songs were loved and widely sung by the people of New England, but criticized by a classically trained elite for their “primitive” quality. He died in 1800 and is buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave on Boston Common.
What follows is a 2- or 4-part round that is also beautiful as a simple song. I have marked the round entrances with numbers above the staff. The 3/2 count suggests a very dignified tempo. The song is in a minor key although we are in the familiar d-a-d’ tuning.
Vol. 50 Update
When Phil Mason mailed me the very first issue of Dulcimer Players News, from Front Royal, Virginia, that address sounded elegant and so very far from my New England home in those pre-internet and limited travel days. But those few typewritten pages connected me with a community of people who have woven through and enriched my life. What a joy to have this new DPN energy honoring dulcimer people and the dulcimer past and celebrating the dulcimer’s present and future. Hooray!
I grew up in a Northern Appalachian community where making one’s own music was still a part of daily life. Coming from that traditional music background I was swept into the folk revival of the nineteen sixties. On my eighteenth birthday, in 1962, Vermont folk musician Margaret MacArthur put her dulcimer on my lap in her Marlboro, Vermont, farmhouse. I was already a ballad singer and played banjo, mandolin, and autoharp. But in the mountain dulcimer I found a musical voice that continues to delight and astonish me as it has so many other players through the generations.
Speaking of generations, I play dulcimer in a wide variety of instrumental combinations. For New Year’s Eve 2023 in Rockport, Massachusetts, our grandson Erick Lee played tuba with us. Dulcimer, guitar, and tuba – what a great sound!
The dulcimer came along for our Amtrak Boston/San Francisco round trip adventure in September when my husband Bennett and I traveled to play for a friend’s wedding in Sonoma. It will be with me when I teach at upcoming events, including the Mandolin Camp North and Banjo Camp North (musiccampsnorth.com) in Charlton, Massachusetts, this spring, and the WUMB/Summer Acoustic Music Week (samw.wumb.org/camps) in Moultonboro, New Hampshire. I will teach an all-level dulcimer class Aug. 18 – 24; Pam Weeks offers one July 14 – 20.
An ongoing interest of mine is to keep the traditional music I grew up with alive. Readers may enjoy visiting the Cornwall (Connecticut) Historical Society website to look at and listen to the “Ballads and Barn Dances” online exhibition at cornwallhistoricalsociety.org/introduction-homemade-music.
With support from the Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury, Vermont, I am currently mentoring a folklorist and ballad singer, Grant Cook, who is learning that history and repertoire now. We’re planning a summer concert.
Mostly these days Bennett and I are focusing much of our energy on playing, writing, and recording. I doubt either of us will run out of projects any time soon.
Lorraine Lee Hammond is a former Dulcimer Players News columnist and long-time supporter, currently living in Brookline, Massachusetts. Email her at dulcimers@comcast.net and find her online at lorraineandbennetthammond.com.
Note on the music: “When Jesus Wept”
I tabbed out “When Jesus Wept” in the familiar three string D-A-d tuning to make it accessible to players accustomed to that string set-up. My own dulcimer has four equidistant strings, the set-up I have used for (gulp) some fifty years now. I have always played dulcimer primarily by ear, using tablature as a starting point to help players access the music. I hope this tab succeeded. – L.L.H., 2024
In the Archives
- Cover photo, Vol. 1 No. 4 (1975)
- Lorraine Lee – An Interview, by Amy Fonoroff, Vol. 6 No. 2 (1980)
- How Should I Your True Love Know? – Dulcimer Playing Techniques of Lorraine Lee and Roger Nicholson, by Amy Fonoroff, Vol. 8 No. 2 (1982)
- The Flower Carol, by Lorraine Lee Hammond, Vol. 9 No. 2 (1983)
- Lorraine Lee – Playing and Teaching the Fretted Dulcimer, by Mary Erhard, Vol. 12 No. 2 (1986)
- “Dulcimer Players Notebook” and “Fretted Dulcimer” columns, by Lorraine Lee Hammond, including “The Hundred Pipers,” Vol. 12 No. 4 (1986); “Winter Round,” Vol. 13 No. 1 (1987); “Bonny Bonny Broome,” Vol. 15 No. 3 (1989); “Creating Tablature,” Vol. 16 No. 1 (1990); “Searching for Lambs,” Vol. 19 No. 1 (1993); Locrian Mode, Vol. 19 No. 2 (1993); “The Blue Bells of Scotland,” Vol. 20 No. 2 (1994); and many more