Jerry Rockwell's
Mountain Dulcimer Page
Dulcimer Building Demo
at Cleveland Metro Parks'
Cedar Valley Settlers Celebration & Music Festival
Sunday, September 19
This is the fifth year in a row I'll be doing some dulcimer building in the instrument makers' tent at the Cedar Valley Settlers Celebration and Music Festival, a wonderful event put on by the Cleveland Metro Parks. The event is at the Frostville Museum & Rocky River Nature Center (North Olmstead), with a nice array of performances scheduled throughout the day.
This year, for the first time, I'll actually be performing on the big outdoor stage from 11 - 11:30 AM (kind of a warm-up set). wksu always does an outstanding job of pulling together some of the finest acoustic-folk-roots music for this festival, and I've never been disappointed in their lineup.
concert schedule, and maps are available online:
http://www.clemetparks.com/events/cedar%20valley.asp
Sign up for my free email newsletter, where I'll have details on some new bare-bones models soon, as well as all sorts of mountain dulcimer playing tips:
Some Great Videos
Using My Dulcimers
From Stephen Seifert we have a great little lesson on playing in the D-A-A tuning on a North Carolina Hourglass (NCH) model. This particular dulcimer has the older, traditional pure diatonic fret pattern, without the 6+ fret. The VSL (nut-to-bridge string length) is 28"
On this video, Stephen is playing a 29.5" VSL Large Hourglass Prototype (LHX) with an extended body length, so the bridge is not right on top of the endblock, like it usually is. The woods here are all-walnut with a Western Red Cedar soundboard:
...and Guy Babusek does a fabulous job on this beautiful air with his Large Deep Teardrop (LDT) with a 29.5" VSL. The woods here are all walnut with a sitka spruce soundboard:
Handmade dulcimers, books, music, and online instruction brought to you from Athens County in rural Southeast Ohio.
We accept MasterCard and VISA online.
Mountain Dulcimers:
Book Catalog:
- Music Theory and Chord Reference
- Beginners Tunebook
- Dulcimer Solos Volume 2
- Blackbird & Beggarman
- Dulcimer Solos Volume 1
Articles:
- Arranging for dulcimer
- Chordal Explorations in DAD
- The Cabbage Waltz
- DulciTheory
- More DulciTheory
- Improvisation
- YAM Building Workshop
Highly Recommended:
These are just a few of my favorite mountain dulcimer players. This is not any kind of comprehensive list or ranking. There are many, many more fine players and teachers out there.
- Stephen Seifert
- Steven K. Smith
- Tull Glazener
- Molly McCormack
- Aaron O'Rourke
- Nina Zanetti
- Lois Hornbostel
- Butch Ross
- Bing Futch
- Doug Berch
Community:
For a central set of Mountain Dulcimer (and Hammered Dulcimer) resources and a friendly community, I highly recommend:
Another great community for mountain dulcimer players:
Blackbird & Beggarman Available on iTunes
Thanks to the wonderful folks at tunecore.com, my CD from 1994, entitled The Blackbird & the Beggarman is now available at iTunes.
Here is the link to the iTunes Music Store, where you can preview and download individual tunes, or the whole album:
Too dark to work... now available on iTunes
Here is the link to the iTunes store for my 2008 album of soothing, relaxing, meditative music:
Stephen Seifert
and Jerry Rockwell
on FolkAlley.com
In May of 2008, Stephen Seifert and I did a little tour of Ohio dulcimer clubs and folk groups.
Our very first event was this interview at WKSU in Kent with former host Jeff St. Clair.
The audio for the entire interview, including three sets of tunes, as well as video for each of the sets is now up on folkalley.com. FolkAlley has to be one of the finest folk listening experiences online or offline:
Seifert and Rockwell at Folk Alley
The Cabbage Waltz
2008 is roughly the 30th anniversary of the publication of my book entitled Chordal Explorations for 3-String Dulcimer, which I self-published in a small 5.5" X 8.5" edition while living in Northern Vermont. The main chord progression I used to illustrate the C, F, and G7 chords (in CGG or 155 tuning) was the infamous "Cabbage Chords" -- or the chorus chords to Bile Dem Cabbage Down.
Three decades later, it seems that almost everyone is playing in DAD or 158 tuning, and I've found myself playing almost exclusively in 4-equidistant DADD in recent years. As for the Cabbage Chords, for me they have really stood the test of time, and I've spun them into many different genres, grooves, and time-signatures...
...The Cabbage Waltz was written as a New Year greeting at the end of 2008, and includes links to PDFs and MP3 audio files.