For any of you who have joined the “Lessons in Your Living Room” family of students after January 2008, here is a list of back lessons. We will be making these available to current subscribers only.
You can send us a check or money order for $17.50 per lesson (please contact us if you would prefer to use Pay Pal), and we’ll send the requested lesson to you ASAP.
January 2008
“Blackbird” - not the Beatles version, although that's nice too. This is a banjo tune with lyrics that was written by my good friend Jerry Rasmussen who wrote “The Screen Porch Door,” “Alfred,” and “May My Heart Find Rest in Thee,” all of which I have recorded on my CDs. I like his music a lot! Blackbird is really fun to play on the dulcimer and gives you practice with my favorite harmony shape.
February 2008
“I’ll Tell My Ma” - a lovely children’s song from Belfast. This lesson presents the tune in D and then in G for variation, and then back to D. *This tune comes with a warning. It’ll get stuck in your head and you’ll be humming it for days!
March 2008
“The Highland Park Waltz/Fling” - an original waltz which came to me one morning while I was the house guest of Janet and Walter Swartz in – you guessed it- Highland Park, IL. The lesson is presented as a waltz for the basic version and then as a jig for the more adventurous players.
April 2008
“Shall We Gather at the River” – a good old hymn which has been a favorite since I was a child. We sang it in my grandparent’s church and made the rafters ring… all twelve of us! (It was a very small town.)
May 2008
“Shenandoah”- that old American favorite brought to you just as the lazy river flows. The arrangement is a shimmering, fingerpicked version, which captures the constant movement as the scenery slowly glides by.
June 2008
“Spotted Pony” – a bouncy traditional American fiddle tune that’s equally fun to play as a fast-paced high-energy piece, or a slow and gentler tune. It’s a great piece to help you master American fiddle tune structure.
July 2008
“English Country Garden” – a well-known English folk song, which seemed like the perfect mid-summer song. I first played it as a child while taking piano lessons. I liked the tune, but didn’t come across the lyrics until a few years ago. Thought they were really cute, and so have decided to include them for the singers among you as a little memory challenge!
August 2008
“Carrickfergus” – a popular classic Irish song which has been recorded by many singers including Celtic Women (from PBS) and Charlotte Church, and is Joan Baez’s mother’s favorite song. It shares some of the imagery of “The Water is Wide,” and is a “wishing for home, and lost love” type of lament. Carrickfergus is a large town in county Antrim, Northern Ireland. The name means “Rock of Fergus.”
September 2008
“Shepherd’s Wife’s Waltz” – one of the prettiest waltzes I know. It gives new and intermediate players great practice on dotted quarter notes. The “right hand only” and back-up chords will give you the experience you need to become experts in waltz rhythm and strum patterns.
October 2008
“Scarborough Fair” – a song dating back to medieval times. Scarborough, on the coast of North Yorkshire, hosted a 45-day fair, which drew tradesmen from throughout England and the European continent. The song was originally a courtship riddle in which an elf tells a maiden he will marry her if she makes a shirt in an impossible way (ultimately, the elf is outwitted by the maiden). This selection resulted from requests for the song, and for a song requiring the use of a capo. If you don’t have a capo, your local music store may have one, and you will find many vendors by doing a Google search for dulcimer capos.
November 2008
“Going Home” – melody from the Largo (second) movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony. He composed this work, his most well known, during a visit to the United States from 1892 to 1895. It always brings back memories of the Mohican River near my Grandparent’s house in Brinkhaven, Ohio, where I spent my summers as a child.
December 2008
“Away in a Manger” – was first published in 1885 in a Lutheran Sunday School book. There are at least two major melodies for the song. One melody, “Cradle Song” is more popular in the UK. For our arrangement, I used the tune, which is more commonly heard in the United States. It was written by James R. Murray (1841-1905). The author of the first two verses is unknown.
Also, I took the opportunity to offer you a “mini” workshop, which I called, “Welcome to the Fretboard.” For extra fun, you may want to try it before you play the tune.
January 2009
“Arkansas Traveler” was a hit play in the mid 1850s in the Taverns of Salem, Ohio, where travelers would spend the night. In the play, a traveler finds a squatter at a cabin playing this tune. The squatter is trying to remember the end of the tune, which he learned in New Orleans. Although this tune is now a favorite in bluegrass and old time circles, I first heard it played and sung by Michael Cooney in the 1970’s. I had fun arranging this piece for you. It sounds great strumming all the stings, and also is fun to play with hammer-ons and pull-offs. You’ll notice that each arrangement has more notes to play and becomes more intricate.
February 2009
“Down By The Salley* Gardens” (Irish: Gort na Saileán) is a well-known poem by William Butler Yeats included in his book, The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, published in 1889. The verse was subsequently set to music by Herbert Hughes to the air “The Maids of the Mourne Shore” in 1909.
*"Salley" is an Anglicization of the Irish saileach, meaning willow.
Also, I’ve included another Mini-Workshop!!! I just couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to explain about harmony shapes. It has been my experience that new players love this technique because you get such a big, full, beautiful sound from your dulcimer without a lot of finger gymnastics. More experienced players may have an “aha” moment, as they realize where these harmony shapes come from. So enjoy this one. It’s one of my favorites! I wish I could be in “your” living room to watch you.
March 2009
“Ballet from Terpsichore” by Michael Praetorius (1571–1621), a German composer, organist, and writer about music. Terpsichore (pronounced terp-SI-kery), a compendium of over 300 dance tunes, is his most well known and is his only surviving secular work. Just like our present day fiddle tunes, the dance tunes were short, and musicians played variations throughout the dance to make it more interesting for the listeners, and themselves, no doubt. So, “Ballet from Terpsichore” is a lesson in variations with lots of practice for the right hand in accuracy.
April 2009
“Coleman’s March.” This is a fiddle tune, although it’s played slowly like a march. It’s a variant of the hanged-fiddler legend of "Mac Phearson’s Farewell." Joe Coleman, a shoemaker, was accused of stabbing his wife to death near the town of Slate Fork, Adair County, Kentucky, as recorded in the Burkesville Herald Almanac for 1899. Convicted on circumstantial evidence and the testimony of his sister-in-law who was living with them at the time, Coleman was tried in nearby Cumberland County and sentenced to death. While being driven to the place of execution in a two-wheeled ox cart, Coleman sat on his coffin and played a tune that has come down as "Coleman's March."
May 2009
“Wild Mountain Thyme,” also commonly known as "Will You Go Lassie Go,” was first recorded by Francis McPeake in 1957 for the series “As I Roved Out” on BBC. According to the song’s publisher, McPeake “learned it from his uncle, which gives it true Ulster credentials.” So it’s probably a traditional Irish song. Another source lists it as a variant of a Scottish song by Robert Tannahill, “The Braes of Balquidder.” Our goal is to make the dulcimer “sing” the song. That means a lot of sustain, dynamics (loud and soft), phrasing, and feeling!
June 2009
“Santa Lucia” is a traditional Neapolitan song, translated from Napolitano into Italian in 1849. The lyrics of “Santa Lucia” celebrate the picturesque waterfront district, Borgo Santa Lucia, in the Bay of Naples, with the invitation of a boatman to take a turn in his boat, to enjoy the cool of the evening.
July 2009
“Star of the County Down” is one of the most beautiful tunes I know. It is an old Irish ballad set near Banbridge in County Down, in Northern Ireland. The words are by Cathal Garvey, 1866-1927, from County Donegal. The song shares its melody with many other works, including the almost identical English tune “Kingsfold.” The folk tune was the basis for Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Five Variations of Dives and Lazarus. If you enjoy classical music and have not heard this recording, it is well worth searching out. Your local library may have a copy.
August 2009
“Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” is the opening song from the musical “Oklahoma,” written by composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist/librettist Oscar Hammerstein. It is sung by Curly McLain at the beginning of the first scene, and was the first a capella opening to a musical. It seemed like the perfect song for our August lesson.
September 2009
“Keep on the Sunny Side” was written in 1899 by Ada Blenkhorn, whose invalid nephew always asked to have his wheelchair pushed down the sunny side of the street. His constant wish inspired this popular gospel song. It later became the theme song of the singing Carter family from Virginia. According to Mother Maybelle Carter, of the original Carter family, A.P. Carter has a gold record of this song on his tombstone. Sunny Side has a relaxed “country” feel, and cheerful message.
October 2009
“Planxty Irwin” is one of the better-known works of the famous blind Irish harper and composer Turlough O’Carolan. Planxty means “a tune in honor of.” I hope Irwin appreciated his lovely tune.
November 2009
“Turkey in the Straw” was a popular minstrel song in the late 1820s and early 1830s. It’s still quite popular today among fiddlers and ice cream trucks, and seemed a perfect selection for the Thanksgiving month. The song was already in public domain by the start of sound films, and was frequently used in depictions of rural and farm life. Disney used it in his animated film Steamboat Willie. It’s a lively tune, but is playable at all skill levels.
December 2009
“I Wonder as I Wander” was collected by John Jacob Niles in Murphy NC in July 1933 from a young traveling evangelist Annie Morgan. According to Niles, he asked her to sing the song repeatedly until he had memorized it. It was published in his 1934 Songs of the Hill-Folk. Written in a minor key, the haunting and pensive tune, make it one of today's most popular carols.The key to this tune is simplicity. It captures the feeling of wonder on a crisp, clear Appalachian night with twinkling stars and the sharp outline of the mountains against the night sky.
January 2010
“Cold Frosty Morning” is first mentioned as having been played in a 1931 account of a LaFollette, northeast Tennessee fiddle contest. In the 1960’s, Alan Jabbour from Glen Lyn, Virginia, collected the tune from fiddler Henry Reed (born ca. 1855, Peterson, West Virginia). Jabbour popularized it with his late 1960’s recording with the Hollow Rock String Band. You will have the choice of playing this “old-timey” minor key selection in DAC tuning, or DAD Capo-1.
February 2010
"Spanish is the Loving Tongue." Of all the cowboy love songs, which sang of sweethearts true or false, this touching literary ballad by the well-known western poet Charles Badger Clark, Jr., has enjoyed the most sustained popularity. Written under the title, "A Border Affair," originally published in his collection, Sun and Saddle Leather, Boston, 1915, it was later included in N. Howard Thorp’s, Songs of the Cowboys, Boston, 1921. There is a sentiment that appeals to us all in this bittersweet ballad of a rough-hewn cowpuncher who doesn't "look much like a lover" and the senorita who whispered, "Adios, mi corazon (heart).”
March 2010
"Home, Sweet Home" is a real American classic that has remained well known for over 150 years. Adapted from the 1823 opera Clari, Maid of Milan, the song's melody was composed by Englishman Sir Henry Bishop, with lyrics by American John Howard Payne. It was very popular with troops on both sides of the American Civil War. Home, Sweet Home was a particular favorite of President Abraham Lincoln and his wife, who requested it in an 1862 performance at the White House by opera singer Adelina Patti.
April 2010
“Morning Has Broken” has long been a favorite of mine. I first heard it on the Cat Stevens 1971 LP, Teaser and the Firecat. It is based on a traditional Gaelic tune, “Bunessan.” English poet and children’s author Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965) is credited with writing a poem to fit the lovely Gaelic tune for the second edition of Songs of Praise, published in 1931. The tune was also used for the 19th century Christmas Carol, “Christ in the Manger.” The Roman Catholic hymnal also uses the tune for the hymn, “This Day God Gives Me.”
May 2010
"Ruthie’s Dream" was written the day following the 5th Annual Mt. Dora Dulcimer and Autohop Festival. This was one of the first, if not the first dulcimer festival in Florida. Ruth Harnden, a snowbird, turned resident of Mt. Dora had run a festival in Leominster, MA for several years, and it was there that I first met Ruth.
In 2005, after being in Florida for several years, she decided to start a small festival in Mt. Dora. She contacted me, Maddie MacNeil, Anne Lough, Susan Boyer Haley, and Ray and Cheryl Belanger to see if we would come, and could make it fly. Well we did and it did. After five years, over two hundred participants gathered the second weekend in February to make music together, and celebrate the first five years of the Mt. Dora Dulcimer and Autohop Festival.
Yes, “autohop.” Remember that Ruth is from the Boston area. Well, they don’t say their R’s the way they do in Florida, so when she ordered the signs for the first festival (over the phone) the sign maker heard autohop. So began the tradition.
June 2010
"America the Beautiful." The lyrics to this beautiful song were written by Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929), an instructor at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, after an inspiring trip to the top of Pikes Peak, Colorado, in 1893. Her poem, America the Beautiful first appeared in print in The Congregationalist, a weekly journal, on July 4, 1895. Ms. Bates revised the lyrics in 1904 and again in 1913. In addition to those changes in the words, it is notable that the poem was not always sung to the tune that we know ("Materna," composed by Samuel A. Ward in 1882, nearly a decade before the poem was written). In fact, for two years after it was written it was sung to just about any popular or folk tune that would fit with the lyrics, with "Auld Lang Syne" being the most notable of those. The words were not published together with "Materna" until 1910.
July 2010
“Red Wing” is a popular song written in 1907 with music by Kerry Mills and lyrics by Thurland Chattaway. Mills adapted the music from Robert Schumann’s composition for piano “The Happy Farmer, Returning From Work” from his 1848 work Album for the Young, Opus 68. The song tells of a young Indian maid’s loss of her sweetheart who has died in battle. It is most memorable for its chorus, which you will find on the lyrics page. In 1940 Woody Guthrie was asked to write a union song from a woman’s point of view. He used the tune to write the song Union Maid. The song/tune has been recorded numerous times in many different styles, and is also popular in jam sessions. As a song, it would be played slower than if you play it as a fiddle tune. Either way it’s a catchy tune and fun to play.
August 2010
“Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes” is a popular English song set to the lyrics of Ben Johnson’s 1616 poem “Song to Celia.” It is thought that the poem was set to a preexisting tune, or it could have been an original composition by John Wall Callcott in 1790. Either way it is a classic. It has been a standard in student classical performances throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is said that this was the first song that Johnny Cash ever sang in public, at a high school commencement when he was a junior. I first learned it from my early days of piano lessons and had no idea what it meant, but it was a pretty tune and I liked to play it. I hope you’ll enjoy it too.