Hammered Dulcimer: So you’ve learned tunes...now what?

by Tina Bergmann

There is a gulf between when you have learned basic skills and when you can really play music. To really play music means you don’t simply play tunes with accurate notes and rhythms, but you play what moves you and anyone fortunate enough to overhear you playing.

Hammered dulcimer players often have a bad reputation for playing in a flat manner—it’s either all loud or all soft, with no dynamic changes, and no feeling of life or movement. I frequently hear stories (and have personally experienced situations) where hammered dulcimers are not welcome within a jam session because people are convinced they know how it will sound–unmusical and too loud. Listen to any good musician and you will hear constant change–dynamic highs and lows, accents, and changes in the character of the music. You can’t help but tap your foot and sway your head. One moment it may seem playful and light and then the next it may shift into something more driving and rhythmic, even syncopated.

What I am suggesting is that you put dance into your music. Dance is that feeling of life, the power of change. Think of any situation where you have felt freedom of movement–anything from actually dancing to simply walking down the street on a gorgeous day, swinging your arms and feeling the power of your body. Power and joy are what you want to translate into music. Since all people have moments in which they feel at home in their body and their ability to move, it’s not a feeling you have to learn or manufacture. So, let’s discuss some of the elements that can help you put dance into your music.

First of all, let’s talk about the position of your body. I prefer to stand so I can move with my music. I shift my weight from one side to the other when I want to play on a different section of the dulcimer, from right side treble to left side, for example. I think it’s important to keep your body behind your hammers when possible. I let my body reflect the beat by either tapping a foot or moving my chin slightly up and down. Another important aspect is posture. Try this: Feet planted, knees slightly bent, spine long and tall, shoulders relaxed, and balance your head on top of your neck not leaning over your dulcimer. You will feel more free to use your body to express yourself in music if you do not have tense muscles from leaning over and holding up your body. Find the difference between when your bones are holding your body up and when your muscles are straining to pull everything back into alignment. Lastly, don’t forget to breathe! It’s amazing how much more relaxed you can be and how much better your brain functions when it has oxygen!

Now that you all have relaxed, free feeling bodies ., here are some exercises to practice to bring variation into your music. Listen to this sound clip of Dusty Miller (from my CD ‘All Roads Lead Home’ 2003) so you have an idea of what we’re going for. Along with melodic variations you’ll hear accents and lots of deemphasized notes, syncopation, dynamics and phrasing. First we’re going to look at some lead pattern exercises for 4/4 time. (Check out the February 2004 back issue of DulcimerSessions.com for Steve Schneider’s wonderful article on lead patterns.) Practicing these with the correct de-emphasis will help you feel how most notes in the measure are soft and only the strong beats (beats 1 and 3) are nice and full. Another way of saying this is that beats 1 and 3 have big upstrokes (the movement that takes your hammer away from your instrument so you can let it fall to strike the strings) and everything else in the measure has very tiny upstrokes. Notice that your lead hand plays all the numbered beats (1, 2, 3, 4) and the other hand plays the “ands.” After you’re familiar with these two patterns and can go between them easily and smoothly, apply them to a tune you already know. Just remember, to get the feeling of movement, of dance, most of your upstrokes will be very small.

Listen to Lead Pattern #1  |  Lead Pattern #2.

If you’re using left hand lead just reverse the hammering.

Some other important aspects of creating expressive music are dynamics and phrasing. Even a very simple tune can sound wonderfully musical if played with dynamics and a sense of phrasing. A phrase is a musical sentence, and just as when you’re speaking, it has a feeling of a beginning, middle and end as well as natural highs and lows. You would never choose to speak in a monotone, so why should your musical conversations be any different? You might also like to think of how you would sing the line you’re playing. How would it sound if you were bowing it?

The next exercise is from Randy Marchany and Wes Chappell. It’s called the walking exercise and the goals between your hands are these: Equal tone (is your tone clear or buzzy sounding?), rhythm, accuracy, articulation (does one hand play with an edgy sound while the other sounds round and nice?) and volume. First work to get both hands sounding equal in those five areas, and then work to create a smooth dynamic line going up and coming back. When you’ve gotten good at gradually getting louder (crescendo) on the way up and gradually getting softer (decrescendo) on the way down, flip-flop the two to experience the exercise in another way. When you’re good at that, vary the dynamics randomly, sometimes doing short crescendos (going from very soft to loud smoothly within 3 –4 notes) and decrescendos, and sometimes long ones, just as will happen when you’re using them in a tune.

Listen to The Walking Exercise.

Here is the format of the walking exercise: Up and back alternating hands, up and back with one hand, up and back alternating hands, and up and back with the other hand. This exercise can and should be looped many times so you have a chance to relax into what you’re doing and so you can hear yourself making progress. The benefit of creating momentum is that it carries you past old habits and into new techniques. If you play the exercise through once and stop you are shortcircuiting that process.

Along with critical listening, a tape recorder is a good tool for measuring improvement. Be gentle to yourself-it’s tempting to get bogged down in every missed note and poorly struck string, but in doing so you miss the benefit of hearing your work played back to you and simply start to feel bad about your playing. Choose one or two specific techniques to listen for and let the rest slide by. Listen again later when you’re ready to move on. It is an extremely rare moment that there is nothing good to hear on playback, so if you find yourself being overly negative, begin by listening for and listing all of the positive aspects you hear in your playing. The tape recorder is a pair of nonobjective ears, and with it you’ll be able to hear whether or not you’re achieving your goals.

If you practice these exercises, remembering that all of your dynamic changes need to be very exaggerated to be heard, you’re well on your way playing music that has life and energy. Enjoy!

Listen to “Dusty Miller.”

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About the Author

Tina Bergmann is a primarily self-taught musician of 27 years. She is a highly regarded teacher known for her warm and engaging teaching style. Teaching her first workshop at age 12, Tina went on to establish a thriving private studio in conjunction with performing and instructing at festivals and camps throughout the country. She currently performs solo and with her husband, Bryan Thomas, a consummate double bassist. Together they perform a variety of Celtic tunes, American rags and reels, a bit of Classical music and what they affectionately call their “old-time Spanish set”-- music from Mexican, Venezuelan, Cuban and Afro-Cuban traditions. As well as being a musician and teacher Tina is a swing dancing, gardening, newly fiddling mother of two young children--Isabel, age 5 and Theo, age 2.

Discography

Tina and Bryan’s newest CD releases are “All Roads Lead Home” (2003) and “These Winter Joys” (2000). They also have a recording of old-time and old country blues music with David Rice on the Bergmann Brothers CD, “Fine Artiste” (1997). Although Tina’s first two recordings, done at the ages of 12 and 14, are out of print, you can also find her on “Shady Grove” (1994), a recording of high-energy traditional string band music.

At www.AllRoadsLeadHome.com you can peruse and purchase the recordings as well as Tina’s book, A Collection of Tunes for the Hammered Dulcimer (with companion tape). Also available is additional bio information, quotes, and a calendar of performances and workshops.