Stephen Seifert

Mountain Dulcimer Player

Homepage of Mountain Dulcimer performer and teacher Stephen Seifert.

 10.00 - 13.00

10.00 - 13.00 experienced beginner AND lower intermediate handouts

experienced beginner AND lower intermediate workshop

A Foundation of Good Tunes and Useful Practices

- Strumming (accuracy, swing vs. straight, and variation)

- I'll show you how to make easy versions of just about any tune, and then I'll show you how to make them a little bit fancier. Nothing crazy.

- Play Melody in Three Places (melody string, up high on the melody string, and bass string)

- Backup Chords (shortcut chords for lower levels)

- Minimal Chord Melody (the easiest way to play chords and melody at the same time)

- PLUS Some of my favorite tunes and arrangements.

14.30 - 17.30

14.30 - 17.30 intermediate AND upper-level handouts

intermediate AND upper-level workshop

How to Build on Your Foundation - Play Interesting Music

- You don't have to know hundreds of tunes to make listenable and interesting music. You really just need to learn how to make a handful of your favorite melodies more fun to play and listen to. I'm going to show you a group of techniques that build on the foundational ideas presented in the previous workshop.

- Flat-picking and playing melodies across the strings. (easy and fancier)

- Finger-picking

- Next-Level Backup Chords

- Generating Harmonies EASILY

- MORE Chord-Melody Techniques

- Creating Intros, Endings, and Cool Licks

- Right and Left-Hand Exercises (for picking and fingering improvement)

- MORE How to Make Simple Things Fancier