| | | Elk River Harmonicas
elkriverharmonicas.com | My harp playing
www.myspace.com/davidpaynesr | Parkersburg News and Sentinel
www.newsandsentinel.com | My outdoors columns and blog
blog.myspace.com/index.c ... | My old mandolin, playing Bill Monroe's Last Days on Earth
s49.photobucket.com/albu ... | Elk River Harmonicas
elkriverharmonicas.com | | | Seydel circular description
www.youtube.com/watch?v= ... | | | | | | |
| | | | | About: | Bold
| | | | | | Location: | Elkview, West Virginia, Appalachian Mountains, United States | | | | | | Professional Status: | Business owner | | | | | | Looking For: | Employment, business contacts | | | | | | Occupation: | Writer, harmonica salesman and customizer | | | | | | Skills: | I'm an award-winning journalist with a passion for music, nature and creating things. I've been in either journalism or public relations for 14 years, but within the last two years I've decided that I am going to make my living with the harmonica, an instrument I love. I love talking about them, making them and playing them.
I grew up on the banks of the Elk River in rural Kanawha County, West Virginia.
I started playing harmonica at the age of five, when I was home from school sick and my dad bought me a Hohner Pocket Pal (still have it) to keep my busy. I was playing seriously by the time I was 12. I played saxophone in the school band, hated the instrument, but fortunate for the experience since I learned to read music there.
I also can read German, with some refresher I could speak it again. I took German classes all through high school and college and studied in Austria and Germany. Would love nothing more than to go back there someday.
B.A. degrees in Writing and History, Golden Horseshoe Award, an award for investigative journalism from the West Virginia Press Association. | | | | | | Relationship Status: | Married | | | | | | Smoking: | Non-Smoker | | | | | | Hobbies & Interests: | For me, the harmonica is growing beyond a hobby, but it was my first hobby and one I've kept all my life.
I also enjoy nature photography, especially black and white. I used to shoot with a twin-lens Mamiya C-3, medium format, processed my own film in a makeshift home darkroom. I believe there is no better B&W film than Kodak Plus X.
If any hobby has gone as far back as the harmonica for me, it is history. I've always been fascinated by it. That's one reason I've thrown in with Seydel harmonicas, it not only the world's oldest harmonica company, it continues to make harmonicas much the same way it did in the late 1800s, when craftsmanship still meant something.
I come from a long line of mandolin players. My grandfather plays a Gibson F5 and is the best I've heard. My father plays one, as do I.
I also make longbows. I've worked mostly with black locust, my favorite bow is a 72-inch English-style longbow of black locust I made several years ago. It is very smooth-shooting. I used to shoot competitively, but have had little time for that in recent years. | | | | | |
| 7995 views since 9 March 2008 |
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