Dulcimer Songbook: 70 popular songs for dulcimer in D-A-D tuning Paperback – June 11, 2017

I have been playing the dulcimer off and on for 40 years. I have always played DAA and strummed the two melody strings only. I learned from Jean Richie's book which is the standard of old time dulcimer technique. Over the years, DAD came along and became the new standard but I was resistant to it. "If you want to play chords, then buy a guitar" was my mantra. So I decided to join the dark side and learn some chords. This book is perfect. It shows you the melody string but also adds the chords if you want to play the tune in DAD with chords. 99% of the songs you probably know if you are interested in folk music. If you don't know these tunes, I suggest going to YT to find them if you have been living under a folk music rock. If these tunes are unfamiliar to you, perhaps you shouldn't even attempt folk music.Here are the 70 tunes in alphabetical order: Amazing Grace, America (my country. 'tis of the), America the Beautiful, Auld Lang, Aura Lee, Away in a Manger, Banks of Allen Water, Banks of Sacramento, Banks of the Ohio, Barbara Allen, Bound for the Rio Grande, Buffalo Gals, Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie, Camp-town Races, Can the Circle be unbroken?, Careless Love, Cindy. Clementine, Cotton-Eyed Joe, Danny Boy, Deck the Halls, Down by the Riverside. Down in the Valley, Finnegan's Wake, Give me that Old Time Religion, Good Night, Ladies, Go tell it on the Mountain, He's Got the Whole World in His Hands, Home on the Range, Home! Sweet Home!, House of the Rising Sun, I'm on My Way, I Once Loved a Lass, Jingle Bells, John Brown's Body (Glory Hallelujah) , Jolly Good Fellow, Kum ba Yah, Little Brown Jug, Michael Row the Boat Ashore, Morning has Broken, My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean, Nobody Knows the Trouble, Oh! Susana, Old Folks at Home, Old McDonald Had a Farm, On Top of Old Smokey, Over the River and Through the Woods, Poor Paddy Works on the Railway, Scarborough Fair, She'll be Coming around the Mountain, Shenandoah, Shortnin' Bread, Skibbereen, Skip to my Lou, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, The John B. Sails ( Sloop John B.) The Minstrel Boy, The Wabash Cannonball, The Water is Wide, The Wild Rover, Yellow Rose of Texas, Tom Dooley, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Up on the Housetop, Waltzing Matilda, Wayfaring Stranger, What Shall We do with the Drunken Sailor?, When the Saints Go Marching In, Whiskey in a Jar, Yankee Doodle.Hopefully, these are all probably songs that you sang as a kid, so If you know the tune, it will make learning so much easier if you already know it. I would say that if you can master all of these tunes with the DAD chords, You'll be well on your way to intermediate level.

Got to learn how to play my dulcimer

We really got to use our book in class Tuesday! Fun! Ease of TAB and Cords. For a novice and all levels. Very good!

I found the book to be informative and instructional for a beginner. Having some musical background with guitar, it is easy to understand. About 1/4 of the songs are contemporary enough to be enjoyable, about 1/4 are recognizable and about 1/4 are things your 1st grade music instructor would bore you to tears with. The rest are unrecognizable to me. Also there are some songs with incorrect lyrics. Too many of the songs are oversimplified by playing only the melody string, which is better done in DAA tuning for my money. Now the good part.... Get the book. It's a fun book and for the cheap price, it's well worth the money. Who knows, you may adore every song in the book.

basic and meant to be. a great place to start

Just received my book today. I LOVE IT! Have only been playing the Mountain Dulcimer for 10 days and was really getting frustrated because all the music in the online school I was trying to play, I'd never heard of and couldn't figure out the "tune"... these are well known and with the very first song I tried to play, even though I am VERY slow, you could tell what I was trying to play. Intermediate and Advanced students would probably be bored with it unless they were just goofing around and showing newbee's like myself how easy it is to play this instrument. Will still continue with the online classes but this will be my go to practice book while I am a beginner and looking forward to trying out an intermediate book by Thomas Ballnger when my skill set is ready.

I am learning to play the dulcimer. Great selection of songs that are just waiting for me to dive in.

Good number of songs for the value. A scant number of arrangement versions of songs in the back allow you to get used to working with backing chords. But nearly all tab focuses only on the melody line. And the supporting chords are just ok. Coming from playing guitar, I was hoping these songs would include parts for all strings. I’ve since purchased other dulcimer books formatted to show backing chords with the music.If this was spiral bound the cost would be higher, but I imagine some people would be willing to pay for that option; the inner margin is wide enough you could convert this to spiral yourself.My primary gripe is that some melody lines go way up the neck, this makes it difficult / impossible to try to use the supporting chord frames as written in the book, which are at the lower frets forcing you to transpose up chord forms on your own.