Click here to see Alan's dulcimers ...
... this link will also take you to the dulcimer performance stand Alan designed and built (using 2 old guitar stands and some original parts).
Listen to Bing Futch Play Some Great Dulcimer!! Here's some truly wonderful Folk Music that is really worth checking out ... please give a listen to some of Bing's songs:
First Lessons Dulcimer by Joyce Ochs
This instruction book for beginning lap dulcimer in DAD tuning is unique in two ways. First, it instructs the beginning student in the increasingly popular DAD tuning. Secondly, the author, a classroom music teacher, has carefully and systematically layered the lessons to guide the student through familiar songs while teaching skills and musical concepts. This not only enables the student to enjoy the lap dulcimer but also enhances total music understanding and participation. The accompanying CD provides instructional dialogue and demonstrations of the techniques and songs included in the book. Additional hints and exercises are presented in an inviting and encouraging conversational text.
Barley Break : Elizabethan Songbook With Arrangements for the Appalachian Dulcimer by Lorraine L. Hammond, Mary Azarian (Illustrator)
Originally published in 1977 and now back in print, this new, expanded edition of Barley Break provides helpful playing instructions for 24 Elizabethan songs - each one accompanied with dulcimer tablature, standard notation, and lyrics. Includes favorites like Month of Maying ... Hey-Ho, Nobody Home ... and Greensleeves ... as well as less familiar musical treasures - all of which will be welcome additions to any repertoire. A classic that any musician will find invaluable.
Songs and Tunes of the Wilderness Road by Ralph Lee Smith, Madeline MacNeil
"I bought this book because it traces the history of the mountain dulcimer westward on the wilderness trail. Madeline MacNeil offers a map and directions and black and white photos to direct you on a modern pilgrimage of this trail, if you would like to experience the modern trail first hand. This is a trip I would like to take in the future. The history is straightforward and clear, and dulcimer tabulatures are given for tunes that came from different locations along the trail. Fascinating material to be used for entertainers, reenactors, storeytellers and dulcimer players. Audiences enjoy knowing brief histories and how tunes fit them. There are many early tunes in this instruction manual. The tab is clear and many early appalachian tunings are used." ~~Mary Z.Cox
Alan's favorite Dulcimer links :
Alan Darveaux Dulcimers
Butternut tops ... solid ebony fretboards ... gorgeous deer antler wonderfully shaped into the nut and bridge ... man, oh man!
BlueLionInstruments.com
Here are some beautiful dulcimers by Blue Lion Instruments ... my favorite is the Force d'Ossche' 6-String!
Criple Creek Dulcimers
Exciting, luthier crafted dulcimers at wonderful prices ... if you want to go over the top, check out the custom orders! Lots of other cool stuff here, too ... tapes and CDs ... Mountain dulcimer kits ... Hammered dulcimers and kits ... songbooks ... Irish harps ... accessories ... custom dulcimer noters ... bowed psalteries ... tuned Native American flutes - and you can order a free catalog, too!
Dulcimer Player's News
Devoted to both hammered and fretted dulcimer with tunes, tips for beginners, reviews, instrument care and repair, interviews, festival information, dulcimer history, and more.
Gila Mountain Dulcimers
Check out these wonderful designs! Dragon ... Equus ... Southwest ... Traditional - and other cool stuff, including a list of dulcimer clubs.
Jerry C. Rockwell Mountain Dulcimers
"In a very real sense, I am these instruments: I build each of them from beginning to end, use them on stage, in the recording studio, and in teaching. My name is inside each one ... and although I can no longer remember each person who bought one, it's good to keep in touch and see how the instrument is aging, where your music is going -- or if you need a repair."
John Stockard
When I saw John Stockard's dulcimers, I was like a deer caught in headlights ... for like 3 days! It don't get no better than this ...
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New Traditions Dulcimers
Dan Daniels is a friend of mine who builds some beautiful dulcimers -- check out his 6-string!
Owl Mountain Music
This site has lessons, products, and more ... this link takes to to their list of dulcimer builders.
Robert Force.com
If you want to know more about dulcimers, here's a favorite site of mine ... and a wonderful performer, innovator, and writer ... check it out!
Robert Force | Al d'Ossche': The Kindred Gathering
The first Kindred Gathering was long ago and far away on the Pacific Rim of turtle island. A community of artists, prompted by Robert Force and Albert d'Ossch?created a place for the gathering of kindred spirits of dulcimer lore to spend a few days together. People came from far and wide to share music and friendship.
Soundboard.net
I definitely want one of these! If you're looking for something truly different in an amplifier for your dulcimer, you have got to see this -- they are using a hardwood soundboard instead of a speaker! They claim that, sonically, it's the same as actually sitting in front of your own instrument and hearing yourself play. And, by the way, I really like that 7-Band Timbre Control ... like I said, this one's definitely on my Christmas List!
Steven K. Smith's Virtual Classroom
"Here you will find a series of articles about various aspects of mountain dulcimer playing in general. There will be relatively little in the way of sheet music for you to learn. Instead, I want to give you some additional tools to aid your playing, composing, or general enjoyment of the dulcimer."
Tabledit
TablEdit is a program for creating, editing, printing and listening to tablature and sheet music (standard notation) for guitar and other fretted, stringed instruments. TablEdit has developed support for harmonica, mountain dulcimer, diatonic accordion, drums, violin, tin whistle, recorder, autoharp, pedal steel guitar, and banjo (even taking into consideration the special aspect of the fifth string) ... and can open/import ASCII, MIDI, ABC, Bucket O' Tab, Tabestry and Wayne Cripps files, as well as files created by earlier versions of TablEdit. Files can be saved in TablEdit format or exported to ASCII, ABC or MIDI formats.
Kingdom Come
by Joyce Ochs
