This book was written as a basic guide and source book for all dulcimer players, from the absolute novice to the most advanced picker. With its 53 songs in various modes and tunings, The Complete Dulcimer Handbook is meant to be used as a songbook, a lesson plan book, and a step-by-step guide from beginner to intermediate or advanced level. The author's basic premise is that, given this instrument's relatively brief pedagogical history, There are no right or wrong ways to play the mountain dulcimer, only harder or easier means of reaching the same ends. The stereo CD features the authors outstanding performance of 17 tunes from the book.

This book was written as a basic guide and source book for all dulcimer players, from the absolute novice to the most advanced picker. with its 53 songs in various modes and tunings, the Complete Dulcimer Handbook is meant to be used as a songbook, a lesson plan book, and a step-by-step guide from beginner to intermediate or advanced level. the author's basic premise is that, given this instrument's relatively brief pedagogical history, There are no right or wrong ways to play the mountain dulcimer, only harder or easier means of reaching the same ends. the stereo CD features the author's outstanding performance of 17 tunes from the book.

Bing Futch's "Method For Beginning Mountain Dulcimer" is the most comprehensive how-to-learn-the-dulcimer book available. You'll learn the basics, sure, and start playing songs right away. Even better, though, is the depth of content that Bing provides for you in this one incomparable volume - technique, repertoire, theory, history, and FUN! Once you've worked your way through this book, you'll be a competent dulcimer player that can enjoy playing with any group. You'll have a great time honing your skills with Bing, and you'll end up with a wealth of technical skills, music fundamentals, and dulcimer repertoire!

This book is designed to help fretted dulcimer players at all levels grow in their technical abilities by developing strength, precision, control and flexibility in both the right and left hands. Acquiring a solid technical foundation provides a base upon which to build strong musicianship, enabling one to play more satisfying music regardless of style. Explore flatpicking, fingerpicking, slurs, chords, strumming, left hand precision and placement, right hand strength and control, volume, tone, articulation, and more using both dulcimer tablature and standard music notation. In this book, Mike has used ideas drawn from classical guitar study plus years of teaching dulcimer to develop exercises that will inspire and challenge players at all levels. the tunes and exercises are in the common dulcimer tuning of D-A-D, with a few exceptions. Some exercises are included for the four-string and five-string dulcimers, and a 6+ fret is required. the accompanying CD demonstrates key exercises and most of the tunes in the book.

Perhaps no instrument better represents the music of Appalachia than the fretted dulcimer. The instrument was no longer confined to back porches and local music halls when Jean Ritchie so melodically thrust herself and her dulcimer into the national limelight during the folk revival of the 1950s. But where did the dulcimer, known to exist in no other folk culture in the world, come from? In The Story of the Dulcimer, Ralph Lee Smith traces the dulcimer's beginnings back to European immigration to America in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania and Appalachia, they brought with them scheitholts, a type of northern European fretted zither. As German immigrants intermingled with English and Scotch-Irish immigrants, the scheitholt, which was customarily played to a slower tempo in German cultural music, began to be musically integrated into the faster tempos of English and Scotch-Irish ballads and folk songs. As Appalachia absorbed an increasing flow of English and Scotch-Irish immigrants and the musical traditions they brought with them, the scheitholt steadily evolved into an instrument that reflected this folk music amalgamation, and the modern dulcimer was born. In this second edition, Smith brings the dulcimer's history into the twenty-first century with a new preface and updates to the original edition. Copiously illustrated with images of both antique scheitholts and contemporary dulcimers, The Story of the Dulcimer is a testament to the enduring musical heritage of Appalachia and solves one of the region's musical mysteries.

The mountain dulcimer has a long and interesting history in the southern Appalachian mountains, and it's an instrument that so many of us enjoy playing. The book begins with the basics of tuning, strumming and finding notes on the dulcimer. The songs and tunes include favorites of dulcimer players, such as Boil That Cabbage Down, Old Joe Clark, Waterbound, Amazing Grace, Aura Lee and Are You Sleeping. The tracks in the accompanying online audio include count-ins and are played at easy-to-follow moderate tempos. Includes access to online audio.