About Zachary
I grew up outside of Omaha, Nebraska and was homeschooled all the way through the 12th grade. After graduating, I was hired by the local public school system in their food service department. I began by mopping the floors at the end of day, and over the next five years I held a few different positions in the food service department, as a food service worker, an assistant cook, and a brief stint as an assistant manager.
We had an old cassette tape and a CD of hammered dulcimer music that we listened to a good number of times as I grew up, and one day, listening to Cecelia Webster’s Dulcimer Wizardry, I thought “That sounds fun, I’d like to learn to play one of those.” Or something along that line. At that point, I had never seen a hammered dulcimer, and I’d never heard one in person. I began researching different builders and found Jerry’s website. Looking at his instruments, my thought was, “Wow, those are really nice… and way out of my price range.” As I was researching, I found some plans on the Smithsonian’s website for a basic hammered dulcimer (which I later learned may have been the very same plans Jerry started with on his first hammered dulcimer). One of my uncles was encouraging me to build my own instrument instead of buying one, but with no experience in woodworking, I decided that sounded too intimidating. I ended up purchasing a Songbird Warbler through a local dealer in Omaha, and my hammered dulcimer journey began.
In my parents’ home, we never had much space for a workshop, but my interest in woodworking was growing and I desired to learn something of the skill. In the spring of 2013, I was seeking an opportunity to learn from someone that summer, and on a whim asked Jerry if he would be willing to let me come learn. He didn’t respond to my initial email, so after a few days I called him. As I remember it, he essentially said that he’d love to, but he was too busy just then. I hadn’t expected any affirmative response, since he wasn’t asking for help, so that was a lot more positive than I had anticipated. I ended up spending the summer in Oklahoma where my uncle (the same one referenced above) was living and preaching at the time, and had the opportunity to learn some basic woodworking from him and a couple of gentlemen there. With their help, I built some picture frames, and few pieces of furniture, and a couple pairs of dulcimer hammers.
Around January 2014, I contacted Jerry again to ask about learning from him that summer, not for any pay but just for the experience. After some discussion, he invited me to come out even before the school year ended, and offered to pay me something for my time since I was leaving my job to do it. It took a while to prepare and work things out, but on May 17th, 2014, I drove to North Carolina and began work two days later.
Jerry warned me that I wouldn’t be working on dulcimers any time soon, and he started me sanding bowed psalteries. If I had messed up one of those, it would have been a much smaller loss. I spent the summer sanding, lacquering, rubbing out, and stringing bowed psalteries, refining my technique and learning many new skills and tools. It was challenging, interesting work, even if it could be tedious.
At the end of the summer I had to decide if I was returning to Omaha to work at the school again. Jerry asked if I would rather do that or stay working for him. I chose the latter option. So in August of 2014, I was officially hired as Jerry’s apprentice, a term I chose because I liked it better than “intern”.
I learned steadily over the next four years, and in September of 2018, Jerry recognized me as having the skills and abilities of a Journeyman. He gave me permission to begin building a dulcimer of my own, beginning in December, which would be the 1000th dulcimer that Song of the Wood had made. It certainly wasn’t the 1000th completed, because I spent two years and five months in my off time intermittently working on the thing. I thought it would be worthwhile to make this a showpiece instrument, so I consulted with an artist friend and brother-in-Christ about designing inlay work that I could do. We decided on a design based on a particular variety of pansy (my mother’s favorite flower) that had a unique blue and white coloration. He drew a pencil sketch design, and then I had to figure out how to turn pencil-on-paper into colored inlays in wood. I determined to teach myself how to make crushed stone inlays, and having experimented with some regular carving tools, I quickly came to the conclusion that I needed the ability to do finer detail. That led me into a tangential project of making my own tiny carving tools out of solid carbide, which I shaped and sharpened freehand with a series of diamond lapping discs mounted on a drill press, and a set of diamond abrasive Dremel bits.
Having made chisels capable of the detail I needed, I hand carved the endrails and soundboard and filled the recesses with crushed Lapis Lazuli, Malachite, Green Turquoise, and Orpiment, and shaped solid pieces of Mother-of-Pearl for the white petals.
The corner scrolls and rosettes went through several iterations in the planning stages, trying to settle on how to make them and what to make them of. I knew I wanted to do 3-dimensional carved designs, and eventually decided that I wanted to do them out of stones as well. Foreseeing potential problems with using crushed stone inlays in this situation, I located a supplier of chunks of Lapis Lazuli and Malachite, and learned to slab stone. I then borrowed a diamond bladed bandsaw used for glass cutting, and cut out each of the leaves and petals before refining, carving, and polishing them with diamond abrasives and a pneumatic die-grinder.
I finally finished the extra detail work and was able to string my dulcimer and make it playable in May of 2020.
On the commendation of a good friend and brother-in-Christ, in February 2021, I reconnected with Catherine Bishop, whose family and mine have been acquainted for many years. We had our first date late that month, by video call since she lived in Philadelphia, PA at the time. With a number of long-distance lunch dates that lasted for several hours each, and after a few trips to see each other in person with friends or family, we soon decided that we each met the standards the other had set to be looking for in a spouse. I asked her to marry me in August 2021, and we were married in early November of that same year.
On our wedding day, Jerry officially recognized me as a Master Hammered Dulcimer Craftsman. I am deeply appreciative of all I have learned at Song of the Wood, and I consider this designation as another threshold. There is much more I can still learn on the other side of the door.
Early in 2022, Catherine and I learned that we were expecting twins. They surprised us and came five weeks early in October of 2022. My life has changed in many ways the past few years, and while it has not always been easy, sometimes far from it, those changes have been greatly for the better, and I look forward to what God has in store for our future.