Spiced with humor, Anne Dodson’s Field Guide to the Mountain Dulcimer, Book 1 is a beautifully structured and organized guide, taking the beginning student step-by-step through a well-planned sequence of lessons. Friendly and encouraging, Book 1 covers tips on buying and maintaining the instrument, left and right hand techniques, chords, and accompaniment. Exercises, lots of fun tunes to play, and downloadable audio files to support the written instruction all make Field Guide to the Mountain Dulcimer, Book I a lasting resource.

Differences between instruments
Tuning
Styles of playing, and what makes this book unique
Buying a dulcimer
Left-handed players
Care and Feeding of Your Dulcimer: how to keep your instrument healthy
Blank TAB for three-string and four-string instruments
Level I – The Basics
Introduction to Level I: a pep talk
The Basics: body position, fingering, first tunes
Recognizing Frets: finding your way around the fretboard
Basic Right Hand Techniques: strumming, picking and plucking
Playing on All Three Strings: becoming dimensional
Chords and How They Work on the Dulcimer:
positions, majors, minors, “undefined” chords and charts
Combining Chords with Basic Right Hand Techniques:
putting it all together
Basic Left Hand Techniques: pull-offs, hammer-ons and slides
Take a Break – Level I: some tunes for you to play

                Alabama Baby

                Alabama Girl

                All Through the Night

                Around the Table

                Asha’s Jig

                Clementine

                Cold Monday

                Deest and Cheest

                Far Away

                Frere Jacques

                Going  Home

                In the Air

                Jessie the Cat

                Jingle Bells

                June Bug

                Lament

                Leap Frog

                Mary Had a Little Lamb

                Matt’s Return

                Megunticook Rising

                October’s End

Oh Susannah

The Orchard

Sailing Home

Serendipity

Shady Grove

She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain

Simple Gifts

Snow in Spring

Trillium Way

Trip to Waterville, The