James Jones Instruments
I began my love affair with music and wood during my childhood. As the oldest in a family of four children, I played violin in the string quartet my musicologist father envisioned. The woodworking skills were honed by all the forts I built with my brothers from scrap lumber. Since 1978 I have been building eleven different folk instruments, mostly stringed which include hammered dulcimers, Appalachian dulcimers, bowed psalteries, zithers, monochords, slit drums, thumb pianos, mandolins, bouzoukis, harps, and the occasional guitar. I am most known for my innovations in the hammer dulcimer world and my willingness to customize instruments for individual tastes.
After a stint in the Army, followed by a few years playing professional basketball, I took my undergraduate degree in Biology back to school for an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art in Printmaking and Media Studies. I have studied woodworking techniques with Ian Kirby, and instrument making with Richard Schneider. I have exhibited widely at some of the finest music and craft festivals in the country. including Long’s Park, The Philadelphia Folk Festival, Old Songs, Central Penn Festival for the Arts and Clearwater.
Working alone in a wood shop I designed and built, I am always striving to build better quality instruments and am never content with the status quo. No assembly lines, just a lot of individual attention from start to finish creating instruments that I hope you will find appealing both visually and acoustically.
