April 17-20, 2023
Menucha's Mountain Dulcimer Festival is a 4-day workshop for players of the lap dulcimer. Participants arrive on Monday afternoon, get settled in and the music-making begins. Tuesday and Wednesday bring morning and afternoon classes taught by the 3 faculty instructors, followed by evening gatherings where the faculty perform. We weave in some 'open-mic' time as well as some time to just sit and talk or play with new and long-time friends. Thursday after breakfast we sing and play a bit together before beginning the journey home.
Menucha is 102 acres in the beautiful and amazing Columbia River Gorge. We are about 30 minutes east of Portland, Oregon. We welcome participants to stay in our housing at Menucha and enjoy the community and fellowship of other dulcimer players. Scroll down the page to see some pictures from festivals past.
We'll be announcing the faculty soon, so stay tuned!
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Dulcimer Player Descriptions
For our festival, we are employing the following descriptors for workshops:
BEGINNER
You should be familiar with:
• Tuning your dulcimer
• Reading and playing from tablature
• Basic right and left hand techniques for strumming and fretting
• Strumming basic rhythms
• Playing notes on the melody string
• Simple two finger chords
INTERMEDIATE
You should be comfortable with all of the above plus:
• Fingering more complex three finger chords
• Basic fingerpicking technique
• Basic flatpicking technique
• Playing more intricate rhythm patterns
• More complex timing, use of dotted quarter and eighth notes, etc.
• Use of embellishments (hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides)
ADVANCED
You should be comfortable with all of the above plus:
• Playing in different keys
• Using alternate tunings such as DGD, DAC, etc.
• Adding melodic variations to simple melodies
• Playing 5 or more tunes from memory
• Performance skills and musicality
• Basic chord theory and its application