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

• Ceolas houses the largest online collection of information on Celtic music, and has links to hundreds of related sites, at http://www.ceolas.org/ceolas.html
• Music by blind Irish harpist Turlough O'Carolan and many, many others is featured in an attractive and easily navigable site at http://www.contemplator.com/index.html
• Robert Burns. A comprehensive site, with texts of his poetry and songs as well as a Robert Burns encyclopedia, is at http://www.robertburns.org/. Also worth a visit, the "World of Burns" site maintained by the G&D (Glasgow and District) Burns Association at http://www.tamoshanter.free-online.co.uk/launchrb.htm.
• Thomas Moore. A chronology of the Irish poet's life, with links to other Web sites, is maintained by Mitsuharu Matsuoka, professor at Nagoya University in Japan at http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/index.html
  

Find out about Dulcimer Week 
at Western Carolina University

including pictures of the author of this webpage at

 http://edoutreach.wcu.edu/dulcimer
      

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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