The quiet, introspective Eve shows off the Thalia Zedek Band’s impressive musical range. Zedek made her name playing her singular brand of ear-splitting, dissonant lead guitar with Come, Uzi and Live Skull, outfits known for their fierce approach to performing and recording. Her music with the Thalia Zedek Band may not be as loud, but it has the same level of emotional intensity that’s always been her trademark. Zedek will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on her.
Zedek: Recently, a friend of mine was cleaning out his father’s house for him after his stepmother passed away. Virtually untouched and in a beautiful wooden box along with an owner’s manual and warranty from the man who made it was a beautiful walnut teardrop dulcimer. It was bought in 1977 and made by Ken Hamblin from Roanoke, Va., who had a company called Creative Woodcrafting Instruments. My friend is not a musician and didn’t have the space to keep it but recognized its beauty and asked me if he could bring it over. I shined it up and strung it with some light gauge banjo strings as Ken suggested. I fashioned a “noter” out of some discarded flooring that I found in the basement and tuned it with help from Ken’s Owner Manuel instructions. It plays like a dream, I tuned three of the four strings to the same note (the double “melody” string and the middle string) and the bottom string down a fifth. It worked like a charm! His instructions are hilarious and spot on. Example: “To change a Major Mode or G tuning to a Mixolydian Mode or D tuning simply raise the bass string by one note or in unison with the middle and melody strings when fretted at the 3rd fret. This usually causes that bass string to break.” I mean, what a freaking honest guy and an incredible craftsman to boot!
