The Sweet Music List is a very important resource for mountain dulcimer players: many fine teachers and performers contribute their thoughts, insights, and music on a regular basis. If you want to subscribe to this list, send email to: majordomo@clearspring.com
In the body of your message, type:
subscribe dulcimer-list
Or if you want to get the "digest" form of the list, which has all the messages grouped into one email--there's usually one a day--then you should type:
subscribe dulcimer-list-digest
The Sweet Music Index is an incredible resource for mountain dulcimer players. Here you'll find History, Instruction, Dulcimer Building Information, and much more.
Bear Meadow Appalachian Dulcimers is a superb website maintained by Dwain Wilder, who builds some of the finest mountain dulcimers available anywhere.
Steven K. Smith's Mountain Dulcimer Page contains a virtual dulcimer classroom, info about Steve's recordings and tunebooks, even some poetry and Esperanto resources! Steve resides in Newark, Ohio; he's taught many players around central Ohio, and has brought his love of Elizabethan music, English country dance tunes, the blues, and improvisation to the mountain dulcimer.
Dulcimer Players News is the magazine for dulcimer enthusiasts of both mountain and hammered persuasions. Columns, interviews, instruction, tunes, tablature, festivals, contacts, they're all in the print version. Now editor Madeline MacNeil (a stellar ambi-dulcimist herself--and don't miss the link to her label, Roots & Branches Music) has put the monthly table of contents online and created the most current dulcimer clubs and events listing on the web.
The Nonsuch Dulcimer Club is a very useful website from England. Check out the great instruction on embellishing melodic lines.
Jean Ritchie, probably the most important and influential dulcimer player of all time, has two great sites to visit: The Jean Ritchie Home Page
The Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange
I include these links because the Web is a wonderful place to further your music learning: you'll find on-line Ear-Training sites, comprehensive Theory and Composition courses, and an incredible wealth of instruction for specific instruments.
If you want to really explore the outer limits of what's possible on the dulcimer, learning more about music theory as it relates to the keyboard or the guitar will enrich your musicianship in a very dynamic way. If you're on one of those "plateaus", or just need a jump-start for your music; try some of these websites:
Now, here are some excellent FREE online theory lessons:
http://www.musictheory.halifax.ns.ca/
http://neilhawes.com/sstheory/theory.htm
And here is an interactive online course that is very reasonably priced:
This is a great site for exploring jazz improvisation:
Harmony Central is a tremendous resource if you need help with synth or MIDI stuff. I use it to keep track of the latest offerings from Yamaha, Roland, Korg, Alesis, and all the rest.
I'm now running Mac OS X 10.1.2, so I find myself heading to some OS X specific sites, but I STILL find myself heading to these three sites once a day:
If any of these links don't work, or get out-dated, would you kindly let me know so I can change the URL, or remove the link? Thanks!
Back Home to Jerry Rockwell's Mountain Dulcimer Page
this page was last updated: 1/06/02