Michael King, a UK luthier, made the beautiful pentatonic kantele I'm playing in this song, which I wrote to express my love for my home in the western mountains of Maine.

I developed my own method of playing kantele because it was hard for me to pluck the strings in the "traditional" way. Some people who've seen me play like my style of plucking, and have adopted -- and adapted -- it to suit themselves.

My plucking style gives a clear attack. If you have smooth finger pads that slip off the strings, you will find this style of playing a lot easier. Click on the video to see and hear me play a shortened version of my song, Something Funny, using my thumb plucking style of playing.

I was honored in the fall of 2012, when the National Galleries of Scotland asked me if they could use my arrangement and recording of the traditional Finnish folk tune "Tottele" as the background to a reading of an extract from The Kalevala, which will be available on a touch screen for people to listen to in relation to a painting by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. A picture of the touch screen presentation is shown above. A link to the audio track can be found here. If you'd like to listen to the music itself, you can hear it here.