By Brynna Williamson
“Do you love music—the honey-sweet sounds of lazy strings humming harmonious chords to the night, but you have three stubby fingers and a left toe on each hand? Then the dulcimer or ukulele could be for you! In a time when so much popular music is created with computers and electronics, join me on a refreshing journey to learn more about the rich analog sounds of the descendants of zithers and other stringed instruments belonging to the musical tapestry of the American landscape.”
This near-poetry was written by Debbie Porter, a musician, dulcimer player, and teacher who lives just outside Winnsboro in Wood County, Texas.
The Background
When you walk into Porter’s house, you’ll probably get the gist of what she does. Well, sort of, anyway. From all of the instruments hanging carefully on the walls, you will understand that she’s a musician. But without spending some time with Porter, you might not know that this talented woman has an utter passion for music. She plays the banjo, dulcimer, guitar, ukulele, and even banjimer—a rare instrument that’s a cross between a banjo and a dulcimer—with great skill. And get this: She even yodels!
Porter has a long history with music. In fact, her grandmother, a cotton picker in the early 1900s, taught Porter many of the songs that she still knows today. “She sang all the songs—and she sang the whole time, working like a dog during the Depression and all that era,” Porter said. “And she taught me all those songs when I was little.”
However, it wasn’t until Porter went to college that she started really getting into the music industry. When she moved to the Winnsboro area in the 1980s, though, Porter said she discovered an instrument that would change her life: The mountain dulcimer, which she says is “the only instrument that’s truly indigenous to America.” This instrument, which is made up of “strings stretched across a box from end to end and having no neck as do guitars and violins, evolved in the Appalachia area” and is known for its cool, soothing, airy sound.
“The Appalachian dulcimer was forged in the melting pot of the wagon roads and river routes of the frontier,” reads a quote on Porter’s website. “The Scots and Irish settlers could hear the drone of the pipes in this sturdy and easily constructed zither, and the English found it to be an appropriate accompaniment to their ballads and laments.”
“(The sound of the dulcimer is) the sound of the ground we walk on,” agrees a quote on the website. To Porter, the dulcimer really is the sound of the ground she walks on, the sound that life makes. To her, everything seems to come back to music. “Music is an incredibly important part of my life,” she sums up.
Today, Porter has retired not only from a successful career as a grant writer, but she is also an accomplished musician who has recorded 10 CDs, published a book, and still teaches the art of her craft.
Dulcimers for David
The accomplishment that Porter is perhaps most proud of is the creation and success of her nonprofit, “Dulcimers for David.”
This Wood County-adjacent nonprofit was formed in memory and honor of David Schnaufer, who passed away from cancer. He was not only a friend of Porter’s but was “the top dulcimer player in the country,” according to her and many other musicians.
But when Schnaufer passed away in 2007, leaving his talent (which Vanderbilt University calls “legendary,”) behind, Porter was heartbroken, and she decided to do something to keep up his legacy. “What he really wanted was for young people (to get involved). He wanted to keep the dulcimer alive in music culture,” said Porter.
So, she worked to make that happen.
Porter and several other musicians collaborated to make unreleased cuts of David’s music into a finished CD, which was then released. With the money garnered from its sale, Porter went out and bought dulcimers to give away to children. From there, the cycle just kept going.
It’s been 18 years since the foundation of Dulcimers for David, and Porter is still getting donations of instruments, working on albums to sell, and buying more dulcimers with the money to give away to kids in need.
Today, Dulcimers for David impacts hundreds of kids all around the world. In fact, Porter says that something incredibly beautiful and memorable for her happened when these free instruments were brought to a place across the globe.
“I got 12 American Appalachian dulcimers to Syrian refugee camps,” she said. “And there was a Red Cross volunteer there who knew how to play; and so, she convinced the parents in the refugee camp to let the kids come be with her and do music a little bit during the day. And that gave the little children a break from this horrendous situation—living out of sacks on their backs—and it gave the mothers and the parents a little bit of a break, too. It was quite a wonderful thing to hear these little kids playing this American instrument.”
“It’s been a beautiful thing. It’s a great joy to me—just a great joy—to be able to turn around and give a kid a dulcimer,” she said.
Music as Her Joy
Remember how John Lennon had a thought for when “I find myself in times of trouble?” Porter has her own answer for those moments.
“I feel music is a saving grace for me. When times are difficult, I can play music and lift myself,” she said. “(Music) can lift you out of the doldrums, it can help you through the blues, it can help you through grief. And that’s why I want kids to have an outlet.”
Porter means that with everything in her. Whether she’s teaching someone how to play her beloved instruments, sending them across America or across the globe, or just playing music herself, her passion for it lights her up. To contact Porter, purchase music, or see photos of her experiences, visit her website. You can also contact her at debbieportermusic@gmail.com. Any child who wants a dulcimer can either write to Debbie or email her; however, Debbie asks that only kids who really want to play ask for an instrument, rather than parents who want their kids to play.