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mountain dulcimer

Chord Wizard Tool

by Steve Eulberg

Have you ever wondered how to find a particular chord you are looking for?  You might be familiar with a couple of fingerings for your favorite chords, but then there is that "weird" one that the music calls for and your musical chord theory is a bit rusty.

This one is for you!  Tom Strothers has created this interactive webpage as tools to help mountain dulcimer players.

Diatonic Chord Wizard This page has an interactive Fret Finder Tool, below which is a tool to find the notes on…

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Mountain Dulcimer Sighting!

by Steve Eulberg It is always exciting to uncover or bump into another dulcimer sighting, in the course of one's daily life (and/or internet searching!) In this video there is a visual and audio sighting of Frank Profitt playing and singing the ballad Barbara Allen from 8:46-11:09.

His part of the video footage is from the Alan Lomax Collection The Theme:  The Cultures of the Scots-Irish in the New world, the role that music plays on both sides of the Atlantic, during the passage across the s…

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Try to Make ANYthing that happens...

by Steve Eulberg

...into something of Value."

--Herbie Hancock

Jazz Pianist Herbie Hancock tells a story of something that happened when he played

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a "wrong" chord during Miles Davis' solo.

This video is from Herbie's MasterClass.

This is some GOOD advice for more than just jazz music.  It is for ALL music.

And for life.

(Thanks to Lois Hornbostel for sharing this on Facebook!)

 

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Learn More from Mistakes

by Linda Ratcliff

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. - John Powell






I Learn More from My Mistakes Than Successes. Do You?
 
I love to play through a tune perfectly, time after time, but lets get real - in my world, that simply doesn't happen.  I fail to play a tune perfectly more often than I succeed. But mistakes can be good. In every mistake, there is the potential for growth. They can help me, if I will just take time to do the work.  For example ...

Mistakes help me…

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Slipping Dulcimer?

by Linda Ratcliff

Either you let your life slip away without doing the things you want to do,  (like learning to play the dulcimer) or you just get up and do them. - Roger von Oech 



Slipping Dulcimer?
Do you feel like you're constantly chasing your dulcimer? I've heard and read comments from several people who can't seem to get the dulcimer to stay put on their laps when playing. As a matter of fact, I am sure most of us experienced this problem when we first began to learn to play.
I have sev…

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Learn Something New

by Linda Ratcliff

You will learn something new everyday if you pay attention. - Ray LeBlond



Learn Something New
 
Sometimes the process of learning a new tune is sabotaged before you even begin. You allow a spirit of doom to hang over your head, because you think the piece is too difficult. You might say ...
  • Part B seems complicated, and I'm looking for something easier to learn.
  • This piece is in an odd tuning (like D-G-d), and it's a nightmare to retune.
  • This tune has hammer-ons and hammer…

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Sam Edelston in Concert

by Linda Ratcliff

Start where you are.  Use what you have.  Do what you can. - Arthur Ashe



Upcoming Live Concert Sam Edelston July 9th 8:30 p.m. EDT | 7:30 CDT | 6:30 MDT | 5:30 PDT
Sam Edelston
DulcimerCrossing.com will be presenting a FREE concert for all Premium Members streaming live via Concert Window. Sam Edelston is an entertainer with many facets. In recent years, he has been pushing the creative boundaries of the mountain dulcimer. He also performs on guitar, banjo, and occasionally hammered dulcime…

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Fiddle-Tune-A-Day

by Steve Eulberg

In 2012, my buddy, Vi Wickam began a year-long project of recording a Fiddle Tune every day of the year.  An awesome goal...AND in a leap year!

I was privileged to play with him for several of these days.

Here is a gallery of those videos.

Vi has collected the audio of each of these tunes, and is in the process of transcribing them as well.

We have collected and recorded several of these on our FiddleWhamdiddle Recordings:

OSOTCoverOld School Old-Time (2012)  CD, Download and Book (hard copy a…

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Dulcified & Amplified

by Linda Ratcliff
Your success in learning to play the dulcimer is not something new. It merely amplifies what was already inside you. - Linda Ratcliff
Dulcified & Amplified
You’ve been playing your dulcimer for a while now, and you’ve learned how to play several tunes. Your friends have told you that you sound pretty good. So you decided to play at the local nursing home. Afterwards, you thought the mini concert went very well until the seniors gathered around. They thanked you for coming, bu…

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Winning at Winfield

by Steve Eulberg

Defining what “winning” means to you is the first step!

For some people the notion of combining “competition” and “dulcimer” is oxymoronic.  They just don’t go together! 

I see music competitions as an opportunity to prepare some music to share with appreciative listeners.  (Where else can you buy such an attentive audience for $.075 a head?—$15 entry fee/200 people) 

And, the process of preparing tunes for this kind of presentation is an intensive artistic endeavor!



SteveWinfield2000 Steve com…

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