Jerry Rockwell's
Mountain Dulcimer Page
Kentucky Music Week!
June 17 - 22
I'm really psyched about teaching at this year's Kentucky Music Week. It's hard to believe how many fine dulcimer teachers will be there this year: I can't wait!!
Kentucky Music Week is a week's worth of workshops, jams, concerts and many other activities in beautiful Bardstown, Kentucky.
http://www.kentuckymusicweek.com/
Listen to my dulcimer sounds at SoundCloud
Light Into Darkness: Solo Study with Ground Bass
This is a piece which I continue to work on. It has the chord progression of D-A-Bm-G, which are the same four chords that the Axis of Awesome uses to play an incredibly long string of pop songs.
The version here is a solo study for DAD dulcimer, built on a ground bass. The bass ascends stepwise from the root of each chord, and ties the whole thing together. If you have someone to play with, have them constantly play the ground bass, while you try all the other parts over it.
Here is the pdf:
Light Into Darkness: Solo Study with Ground Bass
Here is an long, sleepy-time mp3 of Light Into Darkness. This version is very free compared to the the solo study with the ground bass. It also may help you sleep if you have problems with insomnia.
Sign up for my free email newsletter, where I'll have details on some new bare-bones models soon, as well as all sorts of mountain dulcimer playing tips:
Handmade dulcimers, books, music, and online instruction brought to you from Athens County in rural Southeast Ohio.
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Mountain Dulcimers:
Book Catalog:
- Music Theory and Chord Reference
- Beginners Tunebook
- Dulcimer Solos Volume 2
- Blackbird & Beggarman
- Dulcimer Solos Volume 1
Articles:
- Arranging for dulcimer
- Chordal Explorations in DAD
- The Cabbage Waltz
- DulciTheory
- More DulciTheory
- Improvisation
- YAM Building Workshop
Highly Recommended:
These are just a few of my favorite mountain dulcimer players. This is not any kind of comprehensive list or ranking. There are many, many more fine players and teachers out there.
- Stephen Seifert
- Steven K. Smith
- Tull Glazener
- Molly McCormack
- Aaron O'Rourke
- Nina Zanetti
- Lois Hornbostel
- Butch Ross
- Bing Futch
- Doug Berch
Community:
For a central set of Mountain Dulcimer (and Hammered Dulcimer) resources and a friendly community, I highly recommend:
Another great community for mountain dulcimer players:
Video:
Blackbird & Beggarman Available on iTunes
Thanks to the wonderful folks at tunecore.com, my CD from 1994, entitled The Blackbird & the Beggarman is now available at iTunes.
Here is the link to the iTunes Music Store, where you can preview and download individual tunes, or the whole album:
Too dark to work... now available on iTunes
Here is the link to the iTunes store for my 2008 album of soothing, relaxing, meditative music:
Stephen Seifert
and Jerry Rockwell
on FolkAlley.com
In May of 2008, Stephen Seifert and I did a little tour of Ohio dulcimer clubs and folk groups.
Our very first event was this interview at WKSU in Kent with former host Jeff St. Clair.
The audio for the entire interview, including three sets of tunes, as well as video for each of the sets is now up on folkalley.com. FolkAlley has to be one of the finest folk listening experiences online or offline:
Seifert and Rockwell at Folk Alley
The Cabbage Waltz
2008 is roughly the 30th anniversary of the publication of my book entitled Chordal Explorations for 3-String Dulcimer, which I self-published in a small 5.5" X 8.5" edition while living in Northern Vermont. The main chord progression I used to illustrate the C, F, and G7 chords (in CGG or 155 tuning) was the infamous "Cabbage Chords" -- or the chorus chords to Bile Dem Cabbage Down.
Three decades later, it seems that almost everyone is playing in DAD or 158 tuning, and I've found myself playing almost exclusively in 4-equidistant DADD in recent years. As for the Cabbage Chords, for me they have really stood the test of time, and I've spun them into many different genres, grooves, and time-signatures...
...The Cabbage Waltz was written as a New Year greeting at the end of 2008, and includes links to PDFs and MP3 audio files.