Blog

mountain dulcimer

Nylon-String Mountain Dulcimer!

by Steve Eulberg


I am so excited to introduce you to this brand-new instrument. I have been waiting for it for over a year and it is finally here!


Robert Stephens of South Carolina (StephensLutherie.com) has been working with Aaron O'Rourke (of Chattanooga, TN) to develop a new fingerstyle dulcimer that can also work when strung with nylon strings.



Below is my happy introduction of this beauty to you!



Several lessons featuring this instrument for the F…

Read more…

Good King Wenceslas

by Steve Eulberg


Just in time for the year-end holidays, Deborah Hamouris provides us with a delightful arrangement and lesson on this lesser-known tune.


Deborah is half of the duo Dulcimates with her spouse Buffalo. They have been playing tunes like this for the Great Dickens Faire in San Francisco for many years. She has prepared an accessible and fun lesson. See the introduction below.



Arranged for two dulcimers, this is also one of the titles in her brand new boo…

Read more…

New Fiddle Lesson!

by Steve Eulberg


DulcimerCrossing is excited to announce the release of a new fiddle lesson by our own guru, Vi Wickam.


Spotted Pony is a fun Old-Time Missouri fiddle tune. Vi introduces this tune below.



We also have lessons for this tune for Mountain Dulcimers (Erin Mae) and (Butch Ross), and (Erin Mae & Steve Eulberg on standard and baritone dulcimers) and Hammered Dulcimer, too.


Remember, Members have ALL the access to ALL the lessons ALL the time!

Read more…

Is the Mixolydian Mode a Major Mode?

by Steve Eulberg



Dan Evans, English-dulcimer.com, recently explored this question from his own experience, and posed the question to (3) other professional musicians/scholars of his acquaintance and shared their responses and his conclusions in his blog.



Dan is both a fingerstyle guitarist and a fingerstyle mountain dulcimer player.



Dan plays a standard mountain dulcimer with no 6+ fret.


As you can see here, this is an important question because his instruments do not have a 6+ fret. The o…

Read more…

Funeral March of a Marionette-New DAC Lesson

DulcimerCrossing is excited to announce a brand-new fingertyle lesson for advanced players in the DAC tuning on a standard mountain dulcimer.



"We are excited to be offering this lesson in DAC tuning, which helps people expand both their skills and their repertoire," Eulberg said from his studio. "In addition, this arrangement requires some specific skills that put it in the advance category."


Charles Gounod (1817-1893)


This tune was composed by the French com…

Read more…

New Class for Premium Members in 2020

Christmas is coming, and you're probably thinking about what to buy your children for Christmas. What about a mountain dulcimer? If you've already gotten everyone a dulcimer, what about a 6 month membership to Dulcimer Crossing? It's time to start thinking about these things, since it's almost that time of year again!



Or you might gift yourself with a membership. 



Dulcimer Crossing will be offering something new for our Premium Members in 2020.



We'll begin with a 4-week special course taugh…

Read more…

HYFRYDOL, new Mountain Dulcimer Lesson by Karen Mueller

by Steve Eulberg


Across many Christian worship traditions, tunes from Welsh composers are favorites. The Ash Grove comes to mind, but from my survey, when researching and writing my book Dulcimer-Friendly Worship, Vol 1: the season of Advent, the tune that won the popularity contest of being the setting for so many hymns in so many ecumenical traditions is HYRFRYDOL by Rowland Prichard.


We are excited that our instructor, Karen Mueller, has provided us with both a strummed AND a …

Read more…

Expanding Noter Style

Linda Ratcliff & Steve Eulberg


If you want to play your Appalachian mountain dulcimer in the old traditional style, you will use a noter on the melody string(s), leaving the other 2 strings open to create a drone sound. We have developed several lessons that use a "noter," so we decided to add a new separate category for these at Dulcimer Crossing: Traditional Noter Style.



If you have never used a noter, you should start with our introduction to the Traditional Noter Style here. …

Read more…

New Teacher, New Lessons!

by Steve Eulberg

We are pleased to welcome Karen Mueller to the faculty of DulcimerCrossing. Enshrined in the International Autoharp Hall of Fame, she is also an awarded and well-respected performer and teacher of the mountain dulcimer.

Watch the video she made to introduce herself to our students.

Karen's first lesson is Johnny Don't Get Drunk.

Remember, subscribers to DulcimerCrossing.com get access to ALL of the lessons in this series, as well as EVERY OTHER LESSON SERIES, 24/7!

Read more…

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…

Read more…

Categories