The Friendly Dulcimer

The dulcimer is a friendly instrument, easy to play, easy to learn. If you have never played an instrument, try this one.

Your dulcimer has a long fretboard glued to a hollow soundbox. The strings stretch along the fretboard over the frets. The strings make the sound and the sound box makes it louder.

Why The Dulcimer Is The Easiest Stringed Instrument It sits flat in front of you, so you can see what you are doing.It has frets, so you don’t need to memorize finger positions.

The frets play the scale, with no extra half-steps to confuse you. There are only three strings. You play tunes using just one of them.

Most people hold the dulcimer on their lap. The tuners go to your left. The right hand has the job of strumming the strings. Your left pointer will move along the fretboard pressing down the melody string in different spaces between the frets.

MELODY STRING Find the string closest to you. It is the melody string. The melody string is where the tunes get played.

Playing Notes Using The Frets Playing Notes Using The Frets Frets are the metal bars that cross under the strings. Between the frets are spaces where a string can be pushed down. Use the pointer finger of your left hand on the melody string. Press down between the frets, not on the fret.

As you push down the string with your left hand pointer, use your right hand to pluck just the melody string. Now try strumming all three strings while moving on the melody string.

Dulcimer Class Vocabulary Dulcimer- a stringed instrument from the southern Appalachian mountains that is played on the lap.

Southern Appalachians- mountain areas of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, North and South Carolina.

STRINGS - steel and chrome wires that are stretched along the top of the musical instrument.

TUNERS: TUNERS: the white knobs at the top of the dulcimer that control the notes on the strings.

PICK: PICK: a triangle- shaped piece of plastic that is strummed across the strings to make music.

FRETS : : narrow bars of metal under the strings. When you press a string down next to a fret, it changes the note when you strum.

FRETBOARD : the wooden board on which the frets are placed.

SOUNDBOX : the hollow box under the fretboard that makes the sounds of the strings louder.

SOUND HOLES: the holes cut in the top of the soundbox to let the music sounds come out. They are usually heart- shaped on the dulcimer.

TABLATURE : TABLATURE : playing by number. This way of writing down music is based on the numbers of the frets on a dulcimer, or guitar, or other stringed instruments.

PARTS OF THE DULCIMER

Parts of the Dulcimer tuning pegs sound hole fretboard fret bridge strum hollow Sound Box bass middle Melody hole hole

Fingers of the Hand pinky ring middle pointer thumb

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