Sunday, June 21, 2020

Homage to Omelettes

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People sometimes wonder why there seems to be so much more instructional material, TAB books, workshops, and festivals geared towards dul...
2 comments:
Monday, August 12, 2019

Black Jack Davey

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Black Jack Davey is from a Scottish ballad first noted in the 1700s, under title variants such as "Wraggle Taggle Gypsies O" ...
2 comments:
Thursday, July 2, 2015

Visit Friends of the Mountain Dulcimer site..!

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Love dulcimers?- then be sure to visit Friends of the Mountain Dulcimer fun social network, located at:  FOTMD.com . All who love the Ap...
2 comments:
Saturday, August 11, 2012

Trader Boatman

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Here is a neat fiddle/banjo old-time tune that I first learned to play on my banjo. It's a fairly simple tune but there's some...
4 comments:
Monday, July 23, 2012

Lazy Fingers ?

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I'm going to talk a bit about using the fingers of the left hand for fretting. Not every traditional player uses a noter- some tradi...
21 comments:
Saturday, March 10, 2012

Ghost of Gray Goose...Go Tell Aunt Rhody in Dorian mode on epinette.

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This is a little exercise in retuning to a different mode in order to have fun experimenting with the mood of a familiar tune. In the video ...
2 comments:
Monday, January 17, 2011

Down with the Tyrant Carrot, or... Don't Punch Yourself in the Nose

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  Over the years there has been something within myself that has been detrimental and negative to my playing music-  the persistent feeli...
20 comments:
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

What notes do I tune my strings to?....

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Are you totally lost as to how to tune your dulcimer strings to begin learning to play? Most players these days start learning in t...
15 comments:
Thursday, October 21, 2010

Limberjacks Part Two

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I've gotten several more interesting limberjacks since my "Limber Jack Part One" post of last year (2009). I recently got so...
5 comments:
Wednesday, October 6, 2010

What ever happened to singing?

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When I look at older dulcimer instruction books, or watch older recordings of dulcimer players such as Jean Ritchie or Richard Farina for e...
10 comments:
Sunday, September 19, 2010

4 Videos... Go Tell Aunt Rhodie Redux

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I sat down yesterday and wanted to do a simple video about playing perhaps the most classic beginner mountain dulcimer tune known to man- G...
5 comments:
Tuesday, September 14, 2010

A few of my posts about modes...

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In this blog I have tried to put together some workable plain language explanations of modes and modal tunings that are more easily understo...
1 comment:
Monday, August 30, 2010

Why is it taking so LONG for me to strum well?!

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When I was just beginning to play the banjo, a girlfriend and I attended a three day banjo workshop taught by Dwight Diller of West Virginia...
6 comments:
Wednesday, July 7, 2010

The Warfare Is Raging

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There is someone whose playing and singing I greatly admire, Ken Rice, aka "Flint Hill" of Pennsylvania. Ken is a member of Friend...
Sunday, March 21, 2010

the Music Police

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This is a difficult blog post for me to write. In fact, I have put it off ever since I began this blog over a year ago. It's a subject t...
20 comments:
Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Over The River, Charlie

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This past weekend I attended a small dulcimer festival near me, and there were several workshops I enjoyed. One song, taught by Carolynne La...
5 comments:
Saturday, February 27, 2010

"I have no musical talent at all."

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Whenever I mention to some stranger that I play a musical instrument, half the time I get the same response- they say "You're so lu...
7 comments:
Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Video: Muted strumming rhythm practice

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Many new players understandably concentrate so hard on not making wrong notes that they tend to overlook trying to improve their strumming r...
4 comments:
Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Video: Re-tuning between the four common modes

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I decided to make a brief video showing how one tunes back and forth between the four most common modes. Using the key of D for my example,...
Monday, February 1, 2010

Video: Tips for beginners: Home made straps

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Someone recently asked if I could elaborate on the funny looking straps they saw hanging from my dulcimer. So here are some ideas for making...
1 comment:
Friday, January 29, 2010

Video: Tips for beginners- Where to add the extra strums?

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Here is a little explanation to help you figure out where to add those extra 'ditty' strums in a tune. It's especially hard for ...
1 comment:
Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Video: Tips for beginners- Sugar Hill -part two

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You can find the TAB to this old-time song earlier in this blog, HERE . Beginner video #5. Starting to play the song Sugar Hill and incorpor...
4 comments:
Sunday, January 17, 2010

Video: Tips for beginners- Sugar Hill -part one

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You can find the TAB to this old-time song earlier in this blog, HERE . Beginner video #4. Starting to play the song Sugar Hill and incorpor...
1 comment:
Friday, January 8, 2010

Video: Tips for Beginners- more on strumming motions

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Here is a second video on basic strumming which goes over some of the motions you want for smooth strumming and some of the things to avoid:
3 comments:
Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Video: Tips for beginners- STRUMMING

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Here's a very quick video I recorded so beginners could practice a basic starting strum rhythm and strumming directions. I hope it'...
1 comment:
Thursday, December 31, 2009

Fun With Feathers- Part 2 !

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Oh Boy, more fun with feathers! First, do read my FIRST post about using feathers as picks and noters-- CLICK HERE FOR Fun With Feathers...
1 comment: