You Can Teach Yourself Dulcimer

Rating:
Summary: Good book for new players
Review: After thumbing through "Larkin's Dulcimer Book" and "The Magic Dulcimer" and "You Can Teach Yourself Dulcimer," I selected the latter. This books' lessons, excercises and songs gradually add to the student's skills. The book's discussions of (a) fingering techniques is satisfying, and (b) chords and fingerpicking are strong introductions. In an absolute rating, I'd give this book 4 stars, but others have given the other two books 5 stars, and this deserves and equal or higher rating.

Rating:
Summary: Good book for new players
Review: After thumbing through "Larkin's Dulcimer Book" and "The Magic Dulcimer" and "You Can Teach Yourself Dulcimer," I selected the latter. This books' lessons, excercises and songs gradually add to the student's skills. The book's discussions of (a) fingering techniques is satisfying, and (b) chords and fingerpicking are strong introductions. In an absolute rating, I'd give this book 4 stars, but others have given the other two books 5 stars, and this deserves and equal or higher rating.

Rating:
Summary: I'm a beginner and this is the book!
Review: Last week, I bought a fretted dulcimer in Meadows of Dan, Virginia because it had a wormy chestnut top tooled from a local barn. It has a sweet voice and I was anxious to begin playing immediately. However, I didn't want to get started with any bad habits--so I looked over about 20 books on dulcimer playing and chose this for several reasons. 1. The author starts with simple songs and builds technique with them. For instance, there are four versions of Bile Them Cabbage Down at the beginning. The first explores single string melody, the second, single string harmony, the third and fourth have chordal fingerings. Most of the tunes in this book are in the public domain, but the arrangements are thoughtful and sound nice as well as build technique. 2. There are several tunes with tab and music for dulcimer duets. This is something I wanted to explore and glad I did. 3. The directions are very clear, plus there are insightful notes for fingering some of the measures. 4. A comapnion CD is available, which is great to listen to or play along with. 5. There are instructions for strumming and fingerpicking. It's been one week and I am already playing melody, harmony, and chords to three songs. By the time I've worked through this book, I expect to have solid technique for fingering and be able to play duets with another dulcimer player. I definitely would seek out a workshop with the author of this book! Thanks for such a great book Madeline! :) Mary Z. Cox