Welcome to the October 2007 issue of Dulcimer Sessions®!
The Mel Bay family of dulcimer books contains outstanding resources for a wide variety of music styles. You'll see what I mean when you visit www.baysidepress.com then click on Dulcimer in the left margin. That takes you to the Main dulcimer page. Click on Hammered Dulcimer or Mountain Dulcimer and check out the "All" line for a delightful browse!
This issue contains the following articles and music for your enjoyment:
- "We Gather Together" from the Mel Bay book Shall We Gather, Hymns Arranged for Hammered Dulcimer by Madeline MacNeil. This hymn is often played at Thanksgiving time.
This month's guest authors are Bill Troxler, Jim Miller, and Rob Brereton, who have written the following articles:
- Re-Visioning Familiar Tunes on Hammered Dulcimer by Bill Troxler. Lots of creative steps here to take a familiar tune and make it sparkle with new life. You'll enjoy what Bill does with "The South Wind." Includes a sound file.
- Latin Rhythms for Mountain Dulcimer by Jim Miller, featuring tablature, notation and a video of him playing his arrangement of "Arkansas Samba." As an added bonus in this article we've included photos of his hilarious musical "inventions."
- Playing Chromatic Music on Mountain Dulcimer in 1-3-5 Tuning, by Rob Brereton, explains concisely how you can use the harmonious 1-3-5 (D-F#-A) tuning to play notes you may have thought were missing from the mountain dulcimer's diatonic fretboard and 3 strings. The article contains a fretboard survey, chord charts, and Rob's arrangement of "Hello Ma Baby." Rob pioneered this style in the 1990s with his playing of big-band era "standards" on mountain Dulcimer. Many of the people currently using this tuning learned from Rob's classes.
Many thanks to our October issue 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
Don't forget to view previous articles in Back Issues.
Enjoy! See you in our December 1, 2007 issue.
Lois Hornbostel, Editor
Dulcimer Sessions
loisdulc@verizon.net
Website: www.LoisHornbostel.com
View Lois Hornbostel's Biography
