John Huron, Noteworthy Instruments

Builder of Mountain Dulcimers & More

by John Huron

John Huron is a man of many talents - an entertaining performer, an outstanding builder of traditional instruments with outstanding sound, inventor of new ones, and a patient teacher who has developed many students into instrument builders.

Noteworthy Instruments is truly an underground operation. That is, John Huron's commute to work at his instrument building shop consists of 12 downward steps from his kitchen into his basement. Taking up about a third of the basement below Huron's 1000 sq. ft. house in Bristol, TN, the shop is wall to wall, and ceiling, jigs, fixtures, power and hand tools and foremost, wood. The entrance door is covered with two posters and a small sign, each one representing a segment of John's life. One poster is an advertisement poster for Pointer Brand Overalls, John's unwavering wardrobe choice. The other poster is from an old time music festival and shows a grizzled old fiddle player with a cigarette hanging out of one corner of his mouth. Just the kind of individual John sought out to learn his craft and music from when he relocated to East Tennessee from his native Indiana. The sign reads "Office". It came from the bowels of the demolished hospital that nursed John back to health after his heart attack in 1988, at the age of 40.

A man at work in his "chosen field"

Within the confines of John's shop room can be found pieces of most any kind of Appalachian hardwood known to man. "I don't use non-native or imported wood on the traditional Appalachian instruments I build. There's just too much pretty local wood available, like figured (curly) maple and cherry, black walnut, quartersawn sycamore and the like to be using South American lumber. I figure indigenous instruments need to be made of indigenous woods. There are numerous species you never see anything made of like sassafras, butternut and locust, sweet gum and American chestnut (for all intents and purposes extinct) that all make wonderful instruments."

Due to space constraints, the floor area of the shop is pretty much wall to wall woodworking machines. There are two work benches, both about 6" deep in small tools and parts. John says with a sly grin, "That's another technique I learned from Bob Mize." A goodly assortment of 19th Century hand tools hang on the walls and jigs and fixtures are everywhere. The base of one wall is lined with bath towels. John explains, "I have to keep those diapers (towels) down there because when it rains real hard my shop is like a Robert Redford movie. A river runs through it."

Traditional mountain dulcimer by John Huron, Noteworthy Instruments


Fancy Noteworthy custom made dulcimers


Gourd dulcimer


Noteworthy banjos...


and limberjacks... and more!

"When I came to Bristol (also in 1988) I didn't know the first thing about old time music, but as I began researching Civil War period music to go along with my reenacting hobby, I discovered I was right in the middle of the mother lode." His naïve quest to build an authentic mid 19th century fretless banjo for a fellow reenactor led John to a book called Foxfire 3, then to a friend of Foxfire banjo builder Stanley Hicks named Ellis Wolfe who taught John to build the Hicks family pattern Fretless Mountain Banjo and then eventually to Robert Mize, legendary dulcimer builder, also in Foxfire 3.

"The first time I met Bob I was looking for wood to build my first banjo. It turned out he lived not far from me and the local wood shop sent me to his house because they were tired of messin' with me 'cause I was pretty ignorant about wood at the time. When I arrived at Bob's workshop I told him I was looking to buy a piece of cherry wood to build a banjo. It was then the interview started. He asked me about what woodworking tools I had ('basic saws and hammers') and what experience I had working wood ('making garage shelves'). My answers led him to quickly figure out that I was at instrument building "ground zero", so he says, ' I'm not going to sell you that cherry wood, but I am going to give you this eight quarter (2" thick) piece of sassafras. If you are successful at making that banjo, the sassafras will make you a fine instrument. If you are not successful, you will not have wasted anything of value.' I still play, and treasure that sassafras banjo. That day was the start of a new career, but most importantly a new and very special friendship."

Upon seeing the successful completion of the banjo, Mr. Mize took John "under his wing" showing him all the ins and outs of the dulcimer building trade including his assembly methods, sharing his years of craft show expertise and taking John on field trips, or what Mr. Mize called " goin' gobblin' around", to numerous local wood suppliers and sawmills.

"Early on when I started doing the craft show grind, I found in order to sell instruments it was a necessity to be able to demo them. I pretty much taught myself to play clawhammer (old time) banjo, mountain dulcimer, mouthbow and bones." These new found skills eventually came together in the form of an educational music program Huron calls, "An Appalachian Music Sampler". After a number of years of doing the "Sampler", John took a variety of the "Tunes, Tales, Stories, Songs, Hymns and Hogwash" from his program and combined them in a CD he called "A Pig in a Poke."

In addition to building traditional instruments and doing educational music programs for national parks, museums and schools, over the last ten years John has passed his knowledge on to hundreds of students by teaching week long instrument building classes at the John C. Campbell Folk School and more recently at Western Carolina University Mountain Dulcimer Week in Cullowhee, NC.

John Huron's dulcimer building course at
Western Carolina University Mountain Dulcimer Week,
Cullowhee, NC


Dulcimers built by John Huron's students at
Western Carolina University Mountain Dulcimer Week

It was at Cullowhee a couple of years back that John saw an original ca.1900 J. E. Thomas mountain dulcimer that belonged to mountain dulcimer historian Ralph Lee Smith. Taken with the innate beauty and simplicity of this 100+ year old mountain instrument, Huron wondered if 21st century players would have an interest in recreating a piece of dulcimer history. He approached Lois Hornbostel, who directs this event, with the idea to use the Thomas dulcimer as the pattern for the 2006 dulcimer building class at Cullowhee and Lois agreed the idea might have merit. A sign-up sheet and brief class explanation was put out in the WCUDW Dulcimer Marketplace last year to check the interest level and at the end of the week it had 12 names on it, so the Thomas dulcimer building class will be a go for 2006, first come, first serve, maximum of ten students. For more information on signing up for this visit the WCU Mountain Dulcimer Week website, http://edoutreach.wcu.edu/dulcimer

John Huron makes and sells a variety of beautifully authentic instruments with outstanding sound. He can be reached through his website, http://www.noteworthyjohn.com.