Sedona Sandstone: A Song History

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"Sedona Sandstone" is the last of the twelve pieces in Ellen Pratt's Ensemble Arrangements For The Mountain Dulcimer, Volume 8, which Pratt publishes herself and DulcimerDownloads sells as a licensed download; the listing scores it for six dulcimers, all in DAD tuning, the most parts given to any piece in the book.[1] According to the table of contents reproduced on the listing, it is in 3/4 time and fills pages 73 to 79.[1] Three other titles on that contents page carry a short parenthetical credit, but "Sedona Sandstone" carries none.[1] Pratt's own store page says the book mixes original and traditional material for players of every level, with some parts for baritone dulcimer, and it gives no credits for individual pieces.[2] The sources consulted here do not say who wrote it, when, or what prompted the title.[1][2][3]

Photograph looking down a deep canyon between sheer rock walls

Timothy H. O'Sullivan, Head of Cañyon de Chelle, Looking Down, albumen silver print, 1873. Not Sedona; shown for its rock walls. It has no connection to the tune.

Pratt's playing mixes traditional and contemporary styles, and her DulcimerDownloads biography says she began writing her own music in 2004.[3] After she joined a dulcimer orchestra in northeastern Connecticut she turned to composing and arranging for ensembles, and her biography lists ten volumes of ensemble tablature and one compilation volume for the First National Dulcimer Orchestra.[3]

As for the place in the name, rather than the tune: a geology feature in EARTH magazine identifies the Schnebly Hill Formation as the rock that makes up most of Sedona's red rocks and spires, laid down as river sediment near the edge of the supercontinent Pangea.[4] The U.S. Geological Survey's lexicon of geologic names dates the formation to the Permian and lists sandstone, siltstone and mudstone among its rocks.[5]

Our book that contains the song "Sedona Sandstone"

Sources

  1. Ellen Pratt: "Ellen Pratt, Ensemble Arrangements For The Mountain Dulcimer, Volume 8".
  2. Ellen S. Pratt: "Ensemble Arrangements for Mountain Dulcimer Volume 8".
  3. DulcimerDownloads: "Ellen Pratt".
  4. EARTH Magazine (American Geosciences Institute): "Travels in Geology: Sedona: A journey to the edge of a supercontinent".
  5. U.S. Geological Survey, National Geologic Map Database: "Geolex: Schnebly Hill publications".
  6. Image: Timothy H. O'Sullivan, Head of Cañyon de Chelle, Looking Down, albumen silver print, 1873. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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