Music Man Visits Sanibel

Vladimir Gorodkin introduces me to the tsimbaly

To hear the related 5-minute audio file that I uploaded today as my Morning Journal flash briefing for Alexa devices, please click on the play button:

From Belarus, with Love

A tremulous, tinkling, quivery, bright sound drew me toward a tent yesterday at the Sanibel-Captiva Rotary Club Arts & Crafts Festival.

There I found a man seated at a musical instrument, tapping its strings so quickly with two wooden hammers that all you could see was a blur. The sound was ancient and divine.

The man was Vladimir Gorodkin, and his instrument was a tsimbaly.

It’s in the hammered-dulcimer family, a relative of zithers and—more distantly—pianos, harpsichords, marimbas and xylophones. These instruments date back more than a thousand years.

Vladimir can talk and play those little beaters like a hummingbird at the same time.

He has been making music on the tsimbaly for more than 65 years. He grew up in Belarus and won numerous prizes in his youth. He recorded more than 120 solo compositions for tsimbaly and made numerous television appearances.

He has toured more than 20 countries. In 1997 he moved to Toronto. For the past 17 years he has played at fine arts festivals in Florida during the winter.

I spotted a favorite song of mine on one of his CD’s. For my iPhone video, he played it flawlessly, without music.

For the Morning Journal, he also played a Beatles song, which made me think of my sister Stephanie, who was born the same year as Vladimir and whose love of the Fab Four will never die.

In the video, you can see that he sometimes taps the strings with the hammer and other times plucks them with his fingers. The combination of the two sounds gives texture to his playing.

New songs on an ancient instrument.

Hearing those harmonies made my day.