Fred Techau and his wife Dorothy presenting the Overture to Wilhelm Tell.
One fine morning as I was strolling the LeMars fairgrounds, I stumbled upon a dulcimer workshop at the Village Square. Dorothy and her sister Marilyn were initiating another player into a whole other way of tuning. There was one extra dulcimer. So what should they do? They placed that instrument on my knees and handed me and extra sheet of notes. Play. OK. The dulcimer has four strings on its keyboard (left had) to make chords with. The right hand plucks the rhythm with a plectrum. After you know three chords, you can play to accompaniment to most country songs. Playing the lead is a different story.
The mountain dulcimer is a soft-spoken instrument. It harmonizes well with many acoustic sets and is an important sound element in traditional country music and the Appalachian folk life. The frets are arranged in the diatonic scale. It can be tuned in the Mixolydian or Ionian mode. Now, Dorothy didn’t let me worry about that too much, but instructed me to move my set of fingers in tandem three notches up the board. There! Anyone can learn this in ten minutes. I spent the most relaxing half hour that morning tuning into the dulcimers. How nice it is to play music!
Applause to the artists for inspiring music and also to AnnElise for such interesting writeups.