Dulcimer Delights by Paul Furnas

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Historically, some composers have written very musical, systematically organized,  and accessible pieces designed to help music students become familiar and comfortable with the harmonic and melodic possibilities of the prevalent instruments of the day, particularly lute, guitar, recorder, flute, violin, viola da gamba, and keyboard. Unfortunately no such collection exists for the mountain dulcimer; a situation this book endeavors to correct.

The dulcimer’s conventional tuning of D-A-d accommodates five different musical keys,

and this book presents a well-crafted finger-picking piece in each of those five keys. Additionally, any given musical key has six different available chords:

• Three primary chords (what some musicians call the “one-four-five” chords), and

• Three secondary chords (which many musicians use much less frequently

due to a lack of familiarity with their effective use).

Each of the five pieces uses all three primary chords and all three secondary chords of

the featured musical key (with the exception of the one piece structured on a popular Renaissance bass line that accommodates only two of the three secondary chords).

The book is also designed to gradually introduce the player to the three basic chord shapes in D-A-d tuning:

• The first piece uses only Chord Shape #1, and is accessible to the complete beginner;

• The next two pieces use both Chord Shapes #1 and #2; and

• The final two pieces use all three chord shapes.

An effort is made to demonstrate the instrument’s unique qualities that enrich a given key, such as the A-major chord in WALLFLOWER WALTZ, which momentarily changes the e-minor key into the Dorian mode.

Many players perceive the treble string’s fret-6 to be a problem when playing in the otherwise very accessible key of D-major. This led so many players to install a 6½ “extra” fret that this “extra” fret has now become a standard feature on new dulcimers.

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UNFRETTERED WALTZ  was written to demonstrate that the 6½ fret is unnecessary for creating a harmonically rich piece in the D-A-d dulcimer’s home key of D-major and, ironically, the problematic fret-6 turns out to be (at least to the composer’s ear) the most beautiful note in the piece.

Extensive effort has gone into the careful crafting of these pieces

so that any one of them can offer a lifetime of playing enjoyment.

©  2017 Paul Furnas