NEW FRET TO NORWALK YOUTH: NO PLACE TO PRACTICE THE DULCIMER
By Arnold Adler
NORWALK—In fictitious River City, Iowa, professor Harold Hill convinced residents that the town needed a boys band to keep kids out of trouble after school in the musical The Music Man by Meredith Wilson. Hill was a con man.
In Norwalk, the Golden Strings, a youth ensemble of dulcimer players, needs a place to practice or it might have to disband. That is not a con.
“These are good kids,” says Lori Knight, an elementary school teacher at Morrison Elementary in Norwalk since 1997. “They won’t be running around getting into trouble, but they will be missing a chance to work together and learn skills which will help them throughout life.”
Paul Tovar, 12, a student at Lakeside Middle School and a member of the group for about two years, agrees.
“It’s been a lot of fun and I have met a lot of different people,” he said.
He thinks it is important to continue the group to “teach people things they don’t know about the dulcimer and to preserve our musical and cultural heritage.”
Knight learned to play the fretted or “mountain” dulcimer in 2002. It is a traditional stringed instrument popular in the Appalachian region and has existed for some 200 years. It is played flat on the lap or on a stand in front of the player.
Knight donated her time rehearsing the dulcimer group after school at Morrison starting in 2005. Morrison administrators supported the program as it fit in with a policy of the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District to use music as a way to enhance student learning, a policy that has proven to be successful.
But as the original students graduated and moved into middle schools such as Lakeside, Corvallis and Los Alisos, a new centralized rehearsal site was needed.
Knight and the Golden Strings next held their practice sessions in a rented room at the Norwalk Arts and Sports Complex. That arrangement eventually created a financial hardship and the group moved last fall to the community room of an apartment complex where one of the players lived.
However, the complex had to use the room for other purposes, so the Golden Strings group has been witout a place to practice since December.
Knight would like to reassemble the group and attract new players, but won’t unless she can obtain a practice site. She is hoping to find a room for weekly rehearsals at a local church or civic organization clubhouse in Norwalk.
Using her own funds, she has recently purchased sound equipment for outdoor performances. And she has available dulcimers to loan out, made by her father, Norman Knight, a resident of Arizona.
Knight, who does not charge for her services, has the time, the equipment and the potential members, but she needs a place for regular rehearsals.
The Southern California Dulcimer Heritage, of which Knight is a member, has joined in her efforts to find a location. The heritage is a nonprofit group made up of Los Angeles and Orange County residents seeking to preserve traditional music and teach it to a new generation.
“Years from now, these young people may or not play dulcimers,” said Knight, ”but the pride they feel in their accomplishments, the acceptance and respect of their peers, and the memory of the audiences who have risen to their feet to applaud them will stay with them for a lifetime.”
To help, phone (714) 534-2855.
