This past weekend there was a virtual dulcimer festival, QuaranTUNE (named after its COVID-era origins), that I joined and took a few of the classes. Since I'm still getting started on the instrument, I was primarily interested in introductory classes about chords and melodies. These are the sessions I took with some of my takeaways.
- Unlock the Hammered Dulcimer's Full Potential!, with Pam Bowman, focused on notable chords and how to play their shapes on the hammered dulcimer. She suggested a physical hand mnemonic for identifying notes of a chord. She also clarified how to find the relative minor when crossing the value. The time for repetition on chords was helpful, although I will need a refresher on minor chords.
- Hearing Chord Changes, with Jody Marshall, focused on examples of how chords may be added to melodies. She used a couple simple songs that had key changes to exemplify transitions between different chords. It helped me feel a little more confident about hearing the changes, but I'll need more practice for knowing which chord to switch to for a random melody.
- Melody, Melody, Blah, Blah, Blah, with Phyllis Woods Brown, focused on different strategies for embellishing melodies: arpeggio, harmony, droning, valley roll, triangle, root bass bridge chord, ascending run, descending run, and octave change. These will all be more valuable as I get more experienced on the instrument. She also gave examples about how she enjoys playing and embellishing by ear, rather than strictly following music, which is where I hope to reach at some point.
- From Page to Strings: Confident Music Reading, with Matthew Dickerson, focused on strategies for balancing reading music while looking at the instrument. Until now, I had been assuming that I should be building the muscle memory for string positions in order to read directly off the page and play at the same time. But, after this class, it seems more typical (and easier) to find a good pace for switching between music and instrument while reading ahead.
I found most of the classes helpful, and would likely join the event for some future classes. During the classes I was reminded that I need to improve my sight-reading of notes on music. So far in my lesson book I have been able to be lazy and rely on annotated note names below the measures, but none of the classes had the extra annotations.