Welcome to the latest issue of Dulcimer Sessions®!
It's Holiday Season, and we have some beautiful musical gifts for you to play. All these articles offer sound files of the music.
- 1. Jon Kay's article, Playing Your Mountain dulcimer in E minor , provides some outstanding arrangements of "I Wonder as I Wander," the jig "The Black Nag," and his original piece, "Walking in Snow." He shows how you can play in E minor without re-tuning or using a capo.
- Janita Baker offers an arrangement of "Greensleeves" ('What Child Is This' melody), a sampling from from her Mel Bay book, Fingerpicking Dulcimer . The techniques she describes provide an excellent introduction to playing four equidistant strings on the mountain dulcimer.
All the above pieces provide sound files, musical notation and chords that can be used to play them on hammered dulcimer.
- For more techniques on the hammered dulcimer, Anne Lough's article on the Irish Christmas tune, "Leading of the Star" offers both the basic music plus an ornamented version.
- Bud and Donna Ford's arrangement of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" is from their Mel Bay book A Dulcimer Christmas. It's arranged in E minor using EBD Aeolian tuning (E on bass string, B on middle string, and D on first string). It can also be played in D minor (DAC Aeolian tuning). So notes and chord names would be a whole step lower.
- Rounding off this collection is Linda Thomas' hammered dulcimer arrangement of "I Saw Three Ships" from her Mel Bay book, An Old English Chrismas for Hammered Dulcimer.
We hope this music enriches your Holiday Season!
Many thanks to our December authors. I invite hammered and mountain dulcimer players to submit articles to me for possible inclusion in a future DulcimerSessions.com. We also welcome requests for new subjects from visitors to this website.
For more great music for mountain and hammered dulcimers from Mel Bay, make sure to visit:
www.baysidepress.com
Downloadable dulcimer sheet music is also available from Mel Bay at: downloads.melbay.com
Don't forget to view previous articles in Back Issues.
Lois Hornbostel, Editor
Dulcimer Sessions
loisdulc@verizon.net
Website: www.LoisHornbostel.com
View Lois Hornbostel's Biography
