Mountain Dulcimer Player Stephen Seifert

There's a lot of of great musicians who learn to play by reading hands like some folks read tablature or sheet music. The skills gained by learning and playing this way are envied and I believe falsely attributed to natural born talent. I very much wish all my students would spend time learning how to learn this way in addition to learning by other methods including by ear and instructional books. I've writing about this in the new Dulcimer Players News and I've prepared a free 30-minute video lesson (http://stephenseifert.com/watchthehands) to show everyone who's interested exactly what I'm talking about.

Now that you've had some time to live with this tune (see previous article), I'm giving you my transcription of it. It's not EXACTLY what Mr. Carson is playing but it's really close. To find the barebones version, ignore the second half of every eighth-note pair.

(Key of A or G? The audio file I downloaded was between the two but a hair closer to A, so I tuned up the recording and arranged for mountain dulcimer tuned...

Decide right now to get a little better at learning by ear. Here's a 1924 recording of Fiddlin' John Carson playing Tukey in the Straw I got over at Honking Duck.

Ever ask your grandma how to cook something? My Great Grandma Surber wouldn't let you write anything down. When I asked questions, she would usually just say, "Pay attention...