Say NO to Boring

by Linda Ratcliff

Are you bored of being bored, because being bored is BORING?

Say NO To Boring
 

Have you ever been to a jam session and wondered how many times they're going to repeat the same tune?

Have you ever gone to the nursing home to share your music, and watched your audience nodding off to sleep - bored by your performance?

Just as "gorgeous" is the ultimate compliment for a woman, "boring" is the most dreaded description of a performance a musician can hear.

So let's say "NO" to boring, and spice up our playing with variations and ornamentations.

When playing a tune, try to think outside the box to create something that's all yours and totally fresh.  As a matter of fact, why don't you just throw away the box? Keep your audience (and yourself) on their toes. If you're playing through the tune three times, don't feed them the same arrangement each time.

Here's some suggestions on how to do this.

• Play the melody an octave higher.
• Play the melody an octave lower.
• Change up the rhythm.  Add syncopation.
• For one verse, change the melody to a minor key if it was written in a major key. Or turn the minor key melody into a major key melody.
• Add chords, instead of just playing the melody line alone.
• Add a drone. On the hammered dulcimer, this can be a high octave drone, a low octave drone, or a 5th drone.
• Play chords as arpeggios, especially where there is a half or whole note.
• Listen to fiddlers playing the tune on YouTube. Note how they go over-under-and around the melody line. See if you can duplicate that sound.
• If you know it, use it. Take a trick you learned for another tune and apply it to the song you're arranging.

Challenge yourself to turn a well-known song into something completely different that represents your own musical influences and tastes better. At Dulcimer Crossing, we offer two lessons for our hammered dulcimer players on how to arrange and embellish a tune.

• Twinkle, Twinkle
• Dorsett's 4-Hand Reel

Keep in mind, if you're playing with others ... play WITH the others. Don't use any variations you created that might clash with what the group is doing. Save those ideas for when you're playing solo.

And here's one final piece of advice. Arranging should be fun, so don't get bogged down with trying to make your arrangement too difficult. Stretch your abilities so you will grow technically, but also know your limits and play within them.