What
is a Hammered Dulcimer?
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I have been playing with various local bands for almost 15 years. Some of the band names we have used include Whiskey Before Breakfast, Gael Force, Crazy Quilt, and Off to California. With these bands, I have performed at the California State Fair, various bars and weddings, and opened at the Palms Playhouse for Taj Mahal, Rambling Jack Elliott, and Fairport Convention. In April 1987, I played with the late Sacramento Symphony on a ballet piece entitled "Incident at Blackbriar", written by the author William Sleator. In December, 1996 I had the chance to perform two pieces by Malcolm Dalglish for dulcimer and the Sacramento Children's Choir. The pieces we did were "Winter's Lullaby", and "Kalanta of the New Year(St. Basil's Hymn)". (The sheet music for these pieces, and others by Dalglish, can be obtained by clicking here)
Although these tunes are playable on any instrument, I play them on the Hammered Dulcimer. Over the last several years I have been trying to expand my repetoire past the usual Irish/American Hammered Dulcimer repetoire. But of course, this also means no one knows your tunes. I have managed to memorize the Prelude, Allemande, and the Courante of the Bach Cello Suite no. 1 in G. With the extended range of my James Jones 2/17/19/8 dulcimer, it can be played as written, as long as you don't mind reading the bass clef.
I used ABC2Win, by Jim Vint, to transcribe all of these tunes. I used Hijack Pro to capture the screen image from ABC2Win.
If you can read ABC notation, here are quite a few Swedish tunes Dorothy Hawkinson and I have work out: sorry, I have not had time to turn them into graphics here.
French Music from the French Creek Ensemble -- ABC's for the tunes in the French Creek CD.
David Kettlewell --
He wrote a terrific
book, available through Andy's
Front Hall, on dulcimer playing in the United Kingdom.
Theresa and
Ed Gebauer
Pantaleon
Hebenstreit
Cimbalom
World Congress
Sara and
Maynard Johnson -- This site has authentic retouched photos
of dulcimers in Napolean's time and reproductions of DaVinci's
mechanical dulcimers.
Richard Darsie
-- Richard's web site is huge and well organized.
Cliff Moses
-- There is a very good article on ornaments on the dulcimer,
and a number of Irish tunes available as well.
Gillian Alcock
-- Hammered Dulcimer in Australia.
The "Official" Hammered Dulcimer Page
Acoustics of the Hammered Dulcimer Summary
Australian Traditional Dance Music
The Ukelin Home Page -- Not a hammered dulcimer, but everyone has them and nobody knows what they are.
