These free arrangements of tunes or songs for mountain dulcimer all use tablature AND musical notation. If you haven’t seen dulcimer TAB before, it is laid out in three lines which represent the three dulcimer strings seen from above. The melody string (nearest to you) is therefore at the bottom, the bass (furthest) string at the top. The numbers on the strings are the fret numbers which you need to press down. If you’re not sure how these tunes should sound, you will find versions of most of them on YouTube.
The TABs are in pdf format for easy printing. If you do not have the free reader for these type of files, it can be downloaded here. To see or download a tune, just click on its title.
Easy Tunes
Old Joe Clark – An old time favourite in its simplest form (tuning DAD)
You are my Sunshine – Three different styles and levels of difficulty in one piece…try the first! (tuning DAD)
Scarborough Fair – Three different versions of this well-known traditional song…and yes, I know it’s the S**** and G******** adaptation. The first version is just the tune on the melody string (tuning DAC)
Amazing Grace – A good starter tune which moves slowly (tuning DAA)
Wildwood Flower – Classic, lovely tune which only uses the melody string for simplicity (tuning DAA)
Intermediate Tunes
The Tennessee Waltz – Another old time tune, with some quite tricky passages (tuning DAD)
Often used by Nonsuch Dulcimer Club members in the UK
Angelina Baker: Old time favourite which, for variety, can be played on bass or middle string, or up an octave (tuning DAD – easy)
Barlow Knife: Just the skeleton of the tune for beginners, but still a fun piece to play. Ideal to gradually develop your skills in improvisation, both rhythm and melody (tuning DAD – easy)
Beaucatcher Farewell – a modern piece by hammered dulcimer player Bob Zentz (tuning DGD – intermediate)
Blackest Crow: Haunting song which works well with a noter (tuning DAA – easy)
Bouffard’s Waltz: A deceptively simple tune from the master of traditional French hurdy-gurdy music, Patrick Bouffard. In D but easy patterns to move up to G if necessary (just add 3 to each fret number in the TAB) (tuning DAD – easy)
Buffalo Girls: Not too difficult to play straight, but can also be played with some tricksy syncopations (tuning DAD – easy to intermediate)
Cadair Idris: Supposedly written by a Welsh bard in the early 19th century and named after the imposing ‘Chair of Idris’ mountain in southern Snowdonia. Became very popular in England under the title ‘Sweet Jenny Jones’ (tuning DAD – intermediate)
Da Slockit Light: A tune written by fiddler Tom Anderson lamenting the gradual depopulation of his native Shetland Isles. Each time a crofter left or died, another light was ‘slockit’ – Gaelic for ‘extinguished’. The full chord-melody arrangement is difficult, but if you just play the tune – the bottom notes of all the chords – it’s not too challenging (tuning DAD – easy/intermediate/advanced)
East Parkside: A modern tune by Nigel Gatherer, arranged as a duet (tuning DAD – easy/intermediate)
Flop-Eared Mule: An American old time and bluegrass standard in two versions: one with all the notes and one with the important notes! (tuning DAD – intermediate or easy, depending which version you choose)
Golden Slippers: A well-known American standard (tuning DAD – easy/intermediate)
Going to Boston: Accessible version of a really good old tune (tuning DAD – easy)
Gray Cat on a Tennessee Farm: Simple tune framework but moves around more than some. One to play around with the rhythm (tuning DAD – easy)
Horses’ Brawl (Branle des Chevaux): A favourite of the Autumn Nonsuch events, when the band strikes up and all the dancers prance round the room as horses! From Arbeau, Orchesographie, 1689. Needs an 8+ fret for the third part…or play chords just for that section (tuning DGD – intermediate)
La Cinq-Cents: A catchy modern French Mazurka, to be played slightly dotted therefore (tuning DGD – easy/intermediate) Also available in D here.
Liberty Reel: An American dance tune (tuning DAD – intermediate)
L’Inconnu de Limoise: A catchy modern tune by Maxou Heintzen about an unknown piper, found buried alongside his pipes in Limoise. It’s a mazurka and intended for dancing, so…play with heavy legato if it’s written dotted, or heavy swing if not. Basically, it should sound like a bouncy waltz (tuning DGD – easy/intermediate)
Machynlleth: A traditional Welsh tune (DGD tuning – intermediate/advanced)
Mazurka van Antoinette: A tune composed by Herman Dewit, one of the leading lights of the Flemish folk revival movement (tuning DAD – easy)
New Anything: A lovely Playford tune (tuning DAD – intermediate)
Planxty Fanny Power (or Po’er): Written by the blind Irish harper Turlough O’Carolan around 1728, in praise of Miss Elizabeth Power, daughter and heiress of David Power, County Galway (tuning DAD capo 3 – intermediate/advanced)
Portsmouth: A classic English hornpipe, which is not difficult to play but moves up quite high on the fretboard (tuning DGD – easy/intermediate)
Redwing: Another American old time/bluegrass standard (tuning DAD – easy/intermediate)
Schottische a Virmoux: A lovely French session tune collected or possibly composed by Frederic Paris (tuning DAD and DGD – intermediate)
Shenandoah: A North American song with a much-disputed ancestry. Often listed as a shanty, but in its current form seems far too free-form for collective hauling…. (tuning DAD – easy/intermediate)
Spootiskerry: A modern reel by Shetland fiddler Ian Burns (tuning DGD – intermediate/advanced)
St. Catherine: A tune from Playford 1701, called ‘My Lord Cutt’s Delight’ in a late 17th century Northumbrian manuscript (tuning DAD – intermediate)
Swing and Turn Jubilee: A Ritchie family song in a version learnt from Sarah Kate Morgan, but with my own arrangement, playable at different levels. The numbers above the stave are notes to be played on the bass string – you can strum all the way across (tuning DAD – easy to intermediate depending on which part)
Tallis’ Canon: A three part version (or four if you want to split the third part chords) of this well-known tune. Can also be played as a round of course (tuning DGD – easy/intermediate)
Turkey in the Straw: Archetypical American old time tune. Just the melody line with chords (tuning DAD – easy)
Wals voor Polle: Popular tune in the European repertoire, composed by Wim Poesen for his bagpipe-playing friend Polle Ranson. This is a lovely duet version (DAD – intermediate)
Waterbound: Traditional Appalachian song which is easy to get into but also really fun to sing (tuning DAD – easy)
Watson’s Hornpipe: An English tune from the manuscript collection of fiddler George Watson from Norfolk, c.1880 (tuning DAD – intermediate/advanced)
Wayfaring Stranger: Well known American folk/gospel song, probably dating from the early 19th Century. Its interesting chord structure works particularly well in Em on the dulcimer, rather than the more common Dm (tuning DAD capo 1 – easy/intermediate)
Young Widow, The: A tune from Hendrickson’s “Early American Dance and Music: John Griffiths, Dancing Master 29 Country Dances, 1788” (tuning DGD – intermediate)
Christmas Music
A mix of British and American, well- and less well-known.
Bring Us In Good Ale – a very early song where the revellers plead for drink rather then food from their hosts (tuning DAC – easy).
Good King Wenceslas – the well-known carol in two versions (tuning DGD – easy and intermediate)
Jesus the Christ is born – a lovely modal tune from Tennessee which can be played as a duet (tuning DAC – easy to intermediate)
Lulle Lullay– also from Tennessee, this is a demonstration of why some modal tunes should be left to hover naturally between minor and major. Can be played in DAC or DAA using the same fret numbers on the melody string – which key do you think sounds best against the same D and A drones (tuning DAC or DAA – easy)?
Sussex Carol– one of my favourite British carols, sometimes called “On Christmas Night, all Christians Sing” after the first line (tuning DAD – easy to intermediate).
The Holly and the Ivy (Bromsash)– a curiosity perhaps, but a rather good one. This is a very local (to me) version of the popular carol collected as recently as the 1950s and it has a really good tune (tuning DAD or DAA – easy).
