Dirt Simple Hammered Dulcimer

Indepth and practical instructional

I don’t know what book you all have used to get started, but I’ve tried 3 so far. The best by far has been Dirt Simple Hammered Dulcimer by Mark Alan Wade. It starts out with a great simple explanation of the notes on the HD and where they are on notation. Then, it starts you on several really easy tunes so you feel like you’re learning and progressing. Finally, you can download the songs so that way you can hear what it’s supposed to sound like. My last song sounded like a nightmare until I listened to the download and got the rhythm right. Now it sounds great! So, I’m really impressed with this book. Great for those of us who knew nothing about the HD before.

I've recently purchased a hammered dulcimer and starting to learn how to play. This book was highly recommended within the dulcimer community. After receiving it I was very happy with the step by step lessons to help me with the basics of learning to play a hammered dulcimer.

Nice and easy to use for beginners.

I am revising the review (below). I emailed the author, and he is sending me the link. Looking forward to using the book, which appears very good. Old review: I bought the Kindle version of this book, and there seems to be no access to the online audio! This is very bad, as the description by Amazon seems to indicate that online audio is available.

I have a 12/11 dulcimer and this is written for a larger one. I still tried to use it but couldn't understand. It's not for a beginner. FYI songs: Amazing Grace,Angeline the Baker,Arkansas Traveler,Boil den cabbage down, Bonapart crossing the Rhine,Boys of Bluehill, Chanter's Tune,Cincinnati Hornpipe,Cold frosty Morning,Come Thou Fount of every blessing,Cripple creek,Flop eared mule, Gallopede, Girl I left behind me,Golden slippers, Leather britches, Liberty reel etc Most unfamiliar to me. The best book is Beginning Hammered Dulcimer by Linda Lowe Thompson.

Just what I needed to get started on the hammered dulcimer.

This book has a wide variety of information on the hammered dulcimer and is a great book for beginners.

So far I am halfway through learning the pieces in this book, and as someone who’s got a reasonable amount of musical experience I’ve found the pace of development found in this book to be excellent, and the text succinct and to the point. Further I have found Mark’s approach of dominant hand lead a much more logical one than what I found elsewhere. If you’ve never played a musical instrument before, you might find Madeline MacNeil’s book better paced. But I would suggest incorporating Mark’s dominant lead approach as appropriate into Madeline’s material. Well, al least that’s what I’ve been doing so far. Otherwise a good buy.

Straight forward.

Very good ,simple easy to understand and follow instructions

I recently got a hammered dulcimer for my birthday after seeing and having a go on one at Christmas. After a demonstration from an experienced player I thought I'd really like to teach myself to play this instrument. I bought this book in the hope that I could also learn music alongside learning the instrument. However, after a few basics about the instrument, it just goes straight into playing tunes from sheet music. I would have expected simple exercises to help you feel confident moving around the instrument prior to playing full songs. I think there is some inference here that you can already read music. I've learned more playing by ear. The CD was a good idea, but it is literally just the music being played with no verbal instruction on there that would have been expected. Disappointing buy.