Bio.

In 1996, Garrett Viggers picked up his first guitar and began singing and leading worship at church. A few years later, he heard the hammered dulcimer being played by Rich Mullins and was in awe of the melodic and percussive dance. He purchased his first D25 hammered dulcimer from Dusty Strings in 1997. Now, Garrett plays the Dusty Strings D650, which includes a damper pedal system, pick-ups and the Strymon TimeLine delay pedal. In 2006, Garrett heard the lap dulcimer being played by Butch Ross, stand-up style (like Garrett plays guitar). The sound waves created by the lap dulcimer quickly inspired Garrett to add this instrument to his collection. Garrett describes the lap dulcimer as "a western diatonic sitar sound."

Singing while playing the hammered dulcimer has been a unique musical expression that Garrett has been working at for the past ten years. Garrett has sought to connect the ancient sounds of the hammered dulcimer within the modern world of music, including arrangements with his Thin Places Band.

Over the past ten years, Garrett has recorded three albums, (Emmanuel - in 2007, Thin Places - in 2010, and A Thin Places Christmas LIVE CD+DVD - in 2011 to be released in 2012) and just finished co-producing and recording with Gabriel Wilson on Bethel Music's first instrumental album "Without Words." He has also collaborated with his hammer dulcimer on a number of studio and live projects with artists, including: Bob Kilpatrick, Randy Stonehill, Third Day, Brandon Heath, Jeremy Riddle, Brian and Jenn Johnson (Bethel Music), Jim Brickman, Orla Fallon (formerly of Celtic Women) and recently with Project 86.

Currently, Garrett lives in Redding, CA and has created a diverse expression of music in different venues and contexts, both in the city and in church worship. Starting from the heart of worship leading, Garrett has been able to move in to solo ambient modern hammer dulcimer gigs to small singer-songwriter duo gigs to epic Thin Places Band gigs and back to leading worship. Prior to moving to Redding, Garrett led worship at the YWAM Chico, CA base. Recently, Garrett graduated from St. Stephen's University with a Masters in Worship Studies and Spiritual Formation. He has one beautiful bride (Tara) and three children (Judah, Gabriel and Scarlett), with one cat (Snow Leopard), and one hamster (Hammy).