In This Issue

• Untangled Tunings - Most mountain dulcimer players stick to one tuning. Ask them to try another, like DAC or DGD, and you’ll get weeping and gnashing of teeth. In this article, Stephen Seifert takes a look at the world of alternate mountain dulcimer tunings, and offers help for those mystified by the world outside of DAD and DAA.
• Remembering Roger - Lorraine Lee Hammond looks back on the important and influentual dulcimer work of Roger Nicholson.
• A Dialogue Between a Fiddle and Hakkebord - In a rather peculiar book, published in Amsterdam in 1734, there is a dialog between a fiddle and a hammered dulcimer (called hakkebord in Dutch).They're both hanging in a junk store and are having a conversation about what their previous lives were like. The dialog gives us a snapshot of the role and appreciation of the hammered dulcimer, and of music in general, in the eighteenth century Germanic world. This article was translated by Paul Oorts.
• Blackberry Winter - The last and only known work written for mountain dulcimer and orchestra was Blackberry Winter. In this article, Brian Horner proposes a new concerto by Blackberry Winter co-composer Conni Ellisor, and tells how you can help make it happen.
• Louis Simard, The Blind - Carol Burril tells the story of Louis Simard, 1851-1918, who traveled southeast Quebec playing violin, accordion, flute, ocarina, and his hand-made hammer dulcimer in a handcart that he pulled himself. 
• Pattern Recognition - Nicholas Blanton explains how recognizing and documenting patterns can save instrument builders lots of time, and lead to better consistency.
• Learn A Strathspey - Steve Eulberg teaches and hammered and mountain dulcimer version of Braes of Tulliemet.
• Bowed Dulcimer - Ken Bloom continues to refine and champion the cause of bowed dulcimer. In this article he offers advice on completing the tonal puzzle.
• Exercises for Hand Interdependence - by Stephen Humphries.  Stephen gives tips and exercises you can use right now to strengthen coordination for hammered dulcimer players. 
• Music for Health - Dr. Martha Summa-Chadwick has done pioneering work using music to help patients with autism. In this article, she describes in scholarly detail her methods and findings.
• Finding Music on YouTube - David Droge offers a little help finding great YouTube videos to make you a better player
• Origins of Tab - If you want to start an empassioned conversation, find a mountain dulcimer teacher who's been at the craft for 30 years or more and ask them if the proliferation of tablature hurts, or helps, dulcimer players. My ear gets bent regularly about many topics we should cover in DPN, but this subject is at the top of the list. The contention: Learning tunes by ear used to be the way almost everyone learned to play. Take a look into most classes at festivals these days and you'll see a room full of people staring at paper. I'll leave the debate regarding the merits of this to you, but this article hints at the beginnings of TAB. The particular style of TAB suggested below did not end up being the standard, but the article gives us a glimpse at the reasons why, and how, dulcimer tablature developed.
• Reviews, lots of sheet music, festival listings, Ralph Lee Smith, and an update on Dan Duggan and more!