Welcome to HickoryRecord.com. Skip directly to: our Keyword Search, Section Navigation, Content.

HickoryRecord.com - Hickory Daily Record

HomeNewsEntertainmentSportsLifestylesOpinionCommunityWeather Online Tools Jobs | Real Estate | Shopping | Classified

His own creation: Musician educates students on unique instrument

Robert C. Reed

Michael Fox plays the dulcijo at a recent Art Crawl. Last week, Fox taught students during the Western Carolina University Mountain Dulcimer Week.

Related Links

Fox's Dulcijo Web site

By Sarah Newell Williamson | Hickory Daily Record

Published: June 29, 2009

HICKORY - Michael Fox sits on the side of a bench, strumming something that resembles a banjo.

Except instead of five strings, it has three. And it is missing a few frets on the neck.

What Fox was playing was not a banjo. It wasn't a dulcimer, either. It was something of his own creation that he and friend Richard Shook built, called a dulcijo. It has a dulcimer's fingerboard put onto a banjo, is how Fox describes it.

"It's a pretty simple instrument," Fox said. "It's a diatonic scale, and allows you to go straight to the notes you most frequently play in a particular key."

He also explains why there are a few frets missing on the neck of the dulcijo.

"When you play songs, you find that you're often going to the same places on the instrument," Fox said. "We leave a few frets out, so there's less likelihood that you'll hit the wrong note."

When playing on the dulcijo, although you pick the notes like a banjo, you slide you finger up and down the fingerboard like a dulcimer.

Fox has played the dulcimer since 1970 and the banjo since 1974. About 15 years ago, he decided to build a hybrid of the two, creating the first dulcijo.

"The first one I built had a small drum and not a lot of sound. It was a diversion from the banjo," he said.

Fox has progressed since then, and now, has perfected the dulcijo. He said he doesn't play the banjo or the dulcimer much anymore, preferring to stick with his own creation.

"I like the simplicity of the dulcimer, and the banjo sound," he said. "I try to get the best of both."

Shook assists Fox with building them, and they sell dulcijos on a Web site. He said they sell about 40 a year to people all over the world. There's information on the Web site that also provide tutorials on playing, background information and tablature, although Fox said most dulcimer music can easily be adapted to play on the dulcijo.

The dulcijo can fall into the category of either dulcimer or banjo, though, Fox said. He has played it in competitions, and the judges have considered it a banjo. Last week, from June 21 to 26, he taught at Western Carolina University Mountain Dulcimer Week, teaching a special class for the second year in a row on the dulcijo.

"I take a bunch of them with me, because no one has any," Fox said, although he said at last year's event, several students bought instruments because they liked them so much.

He said the first day of the class was an eye-opening experience for the students.

"I left them out for the students to try, and had to leave the room for something," Fox said. "I came back in the room, and all the students were playing them on their lap, like a dulcimer. I had to educate them."

He said he stresses technique with the right hand with students, in a claw hammer technique.

"Once you get the technique down, you can pick up songs easily," he said.

For more information, go to his Web site at www.dulcijo.com.