Below is a set of links
and references to Web pages and other resources on songs, music
history, folklore and related topics. The page is under construction.
Early American music
- The Mudcat Cafe maintains the Digital
Tradition database of folk songs, many of them with GIF files
in standard musical notation, along with other items of interest
to folk musicians at http://www.mudcat.org/threads.cfm. For a convenient copy of Digital Tradition,
go to http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/
- The Max Hunter Collection is a valuable
archive of Ozark Mountain folk songs recorded in Missouri, Arkansas
and nearby between 1956 and 1976, at http://www.smsu.edu/folksong/MaxHunter/. It contains variants of many common folk songs,
along with regional songs such as a ballad of the Civil War battle
of Pea Ridge, Ark.
- The Fiddler's Companion is an encyclopedia
of fiddle tunes from Celtic, British and American traditions,
created by Andrew Kuntz at http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc/
It tells you about keys, melodic structure,
variants in the U.S. and Great Britain, where a tune fits into
larger groupings like the Liza Jane or Clinch Mountain/Jack of
Diamonds families, recordings and whatever stories are available.
- Need to hear a fiddle tune to get its
melody in mind when you're learning to play it? Visit hetzlersfakebook.com, a collection of 483 old-time and Celtic tunes
in MIDI files. "This is a music education site, not a nostalgia
site," says Ed Hetzler, fiddle player and site webmaster.
It's a valauble one, too.
- A valuable site for music in the public
domain, including Stephen Foster's songs, hymns, blues, ragtime
and a variety of 19th-century sheet music, put together by Benjamin
Robert Tubb, guitarist, composer and MIDI consultant of Fort
Walton Beach, Fla., is at http://pdmusic.org/
- Several thousand hymns, of American
and European origin alike, are indexed and briefly profiled along
with biographies of their composers in the CyberHymnal. MIDI
files also are available. At http://www.cyberhymnal.org
- Shape-note hymns. The basic Web sites on this early American sacred
genre are the Fasola page at http://www.fasola.org/ and David Warren Steel's Sacvred Harp site
at http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/harp.html. I have other links on my faculty
page.
British roots
Dulcimer links
- Sweet Music Index. An very good starting point for beginners.
Sweet Music is a comprehensive site with well-written articles
on topics including how to buy a dulcimer, how to start playing
it and -- just about anything else you want to know! Check out
the Sweet Music Digest discussion list and links to members'
home pages.
- Prairie
Land Dulcimer Strings. We play folk,
gospel, Celtic, blues, waltzes and other "sweet music"
Thursday nights at Springfield's Atonement Lutheran Church, 2800
W. Jefferson Ave. No dues. Beginners are welcome. To see some
beautiful pictures of Ursula Hall, where we used to play, click
on this link to PLDS
jam sessions.
- Mike Anderson, Dulcimer
Guy. Dulcimer player, storyteller and
noseflute virtuoso of Jacksonville, who has a national reputation
-- and itinerary -- but has frequent workshop and concert gigs
in central Illinois. Available at Mike's Web site are his schedule
and merchandise including CDs and, yes, the noseflute.
- Artist and educator
Lois Hornbostel plays and writes books
about Celtic and Cajun music on the dulcimer, along with lots
of good fiddle tunes, and is director of the Westerrn Carolina
University workshops. Here's a link to her website.
- Dulcimer Sessions, a webzine that Lois edits in conjunction with
the Mel Bay musical instruction books publisher. Full of articles
on how to play the instrument, its history and the artistry that
goes into making modern dulcimers.
- Ralph
Lee Smith explains, in this article
for Dulcimer Sessions how put together the evidence that
the Appalachian dulcimer evolved from the scheitholt in
the Shenandoah Valley country of Virginia and along the Wilderness
Trail into Kentucky.
- Mountain
Dulcimer History. An article at the
Sweet Music site by Lucy M. Long, who wrote her doctoral dissertation
on dulcimers in North Carolina. She gives a brief, readable account
of how the instrument evolved and how it has been played over
the years.
- Mountain
Born: The Jean Ritchie Story. A biography
of Jean Ritchie, who took the dulcimer from the Appalachian highlands
to Greenwich Village and the world at large. Part of a 1996 production
by KET, The Kentucky Network.
- In Search
of the Wild Dulcimer. By Bob Force
and Al d'Ossché, this '70s-vintage book may be the best
ever written on how to play the dulcimer and, more important,
how to think like a musician as you play it.
- Kerry Anderson, Dulcimer
Shop. For as good an explanation of
chording in DAD (the dominant tuning these days) as you'll ever
find, visit -- and keep revisiting -- this site maintained by
a dulcimer maker and teacher of New Mexico.
- North
Georgia Foothills Dulcimer Association
tablature, mostly in DAD with an occasional tune (including Coleman's
March) in DAA, tabbed out by the NGDA's Terry Lewis.
- East
Texas Dulcimers. Maintained by Jerry
L. Wright of Crockett, Texas, this website is great fun because
it reflects a lot of enthusiasm for the dulcimer and has a wide
range of information, including one of the better brief accounts
of dulcimer history I've seen on its basic information page.
- Sprechen Zie Deutsch? Take a look at Zupfinstrumente
(plucked instruments) for a brief German-language
description of a Scheitholz, the most likely European
forerunner of the dulcimer. See also Plucked
Instruments, Swiss Folk Music for a
type of Scheitholz called a Hexenscheit, played
with a plectrum, or pick, and a "metal bar that is handled
like a bottleneck (particular guitar playing style)."
- Parlez vous francais? A website on the Épinette des Vosges,
a French version of the scheitholt once played in the north of
France and the Low Countries at http://www.nordnet.fr/leconcours/perso/epinette/
- Historique de l'Instrumente, put on the World Wide Web by Christophe Toussaint,
a French "épinettier" at http://epinette.free.fr/index1.htm. Don't overlook his page on playing method at
http://epinette.free.fr/methode.htm
- Ansgars Dulcimerseite, a website by a German dulcimer enthusiast at
http://www.dulcimerseite.de/d_vari.html
- A German-language history of the instrument's
development, written for an exhibit of the Musikinstrumenten-Museum
der Universität Leipzig, http://www.studia-instrumentorum.de/MUSEUM/zith_scheitholt.htm
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