Enjoy mountain dulcimer lessons and hammered dulcimer lessons at your own pace, in the comfort of your own home. With our online dulcimer lessons, you will soon play dulcimer music well enough to join in at jam sessions with confidence.
Choose the instrument you would like to learn.
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| Mountain Dulcimer | Chromatic Dulcimer |
Hammered Dulcimer | Dulci-Bro | Fiddle |
Click here to enjoy your first lesson at NO charge.
UPCOMING LIVE ONLINE CONCERT
Aubrey Atwater
October 16, 2018
8:00 EDT | 7:00 CDT | 6:00 MDT | 5:00 PDT
Click HERE to enjoy the concert.
CHICKEN REEL by Larry Conger for Mountain Dulcimer
"Chicken Reel" is a dance tune, composed and published in 1910 by Joseph M. (Michael) Daly (1883–1968). Joseph Mittenthal added lyrics three months later.
Along with "Turkey in the Straw," "Chicken Reel" is probably one of the best-known poultry-related folk tunes. It is frequently found in early animated cartoons, including the Looney Tunes, as a catchy tune used to represent farmyard activity, or a gathering of fowl. Originally composed as a novelty song, it has since passed into modern folk tradition.
Today, the tune is usually played without the words, and Larry's arrangement has a lot of hammer-ons and pull-offs. Enjoy Larry's rendition of the tune below.
BOIL THEM CABBAGE DOWN by Vi Wickam on fiddle
This is a new lesson for fiddle players by Vi Wickam. But the PDFs include tablature for mountain and hammered dulcimer players as well. "Boil Them Cabbage Down" (also known as "Bile 'Em Cabbage Down") is an American folk song. Some historians say that the origins of this song can be traced back to Africans who were brought from Niger to the southern states as slaves. To maximize profits, slave owners would typically feed their slaves in the cheapest manner possible, so the slaves often ate a simple meal of cabbage soup and hoecakes. Hoecakes were small cornmeal cakes that were baked over a fire on the blade of a hoe.
However, according to others, this tune can be traced to an English country dance called Smiling Polly, first printed in 1765. Although the exact origins of this song will probably always remain a mystery, it is deeply rooted in American folk history. This simple tune is often used in old-time music circles to introduce the fiddle and dulcimer to beginners.
This lesson is presented in two parts. Part 1 is for beginning students, and Part 2 is for the more advanced students with riffs, slides, and double shuffle bowing. Vi says that you shouldn't try to play the tune exactly the way he does, note for note. Just have fun with it, and make the arrangement your own. Below is Vi's arrangement.
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DULCIMER EVENTS PAGE
We have added a Dulcimer Events Page to our website (see the 6th tab from the left at the top). Our vision is to provide as complete a list of dulcimer events as possible - including not just festivals, but also workshops and concerts by dulcimer artists. You can sort this database and look over upcoming events according to the start date, type of event, name of event, location, city, and state. Just click on the column title to reorganize the information.
Please feel free to let us know about your upcoming event by using the Dulcimer Event Information Form. And always keep an eye on our Live Events Calendar, for upcoming concerts sponsored by Dulcimer Crossing.
It's fast and easy to get started - just TWO simple steps. First register and then sign up for the monthly payment plan. You can cancel at any time, but you probably won't. We keep a steady influx of new lessons coming in, and you won't want to miss a single one.
