Now in its 21st year, this annual event offers beginning to advanced music workshops on playing both the mountain dulcimer and hammered dulcimer. Redwood Dulcimer Day offers a low-pressure, low stress environment where everyone can relax and have fun playing and learning about the dulcimer and just making music.

This year’s special guest artists are unable to attend, but teaching will be Jessica Comeau, Kevin Roth, Neal Hellman, Janet Herman, Peter Tommerup, Steve Eulberg, Laura Devine, Dusty Thorburn, and Ron Beardslee, Stephen Seifert and Peggy Broussard.

Steve is teaching 3 Hammered Dulcimer Workshops at this festival:
1. Modes on the Hammered Dulcimer (Beginner)

Once I discovered that there were (2) TWO basic patterns for playing the classical Greek modes on the hammered dulcimer, I was able to uncover a great many tunes that were just hiding in my instrument, waiting for me to find them! (Note: knowledge of music theory is NOT required for this class, but previous experience at listening and singing or humming songs and tunes is a must.) Students will come away with a firm foundation of how songs work and how they work on the dulcimer. PDF Handouts provided.

  1. Mountain Dulcimer Class: Mountain “Roots” Music (Intermediate & Up) Learn at least three simple and fun pieces of music from the early days of the mountain dulcimer’s Southern Appalachian Mountains history - a play party song, a ballad, and an old-time string band dance tune.

  2. Three Tunes Walk Into A Bar: A Celtic Exploration on Hammered Dulcimer (Intermediate)

Using different tune-types from Celtic Repertoire (A Reel, A Jig and a Hornpipe), we’ll explore their commonalities, distinctions, and some confusions, in order to develop and hone a skillset that can acquire and play these tunes in a shorter time. We’ll touch on typical ornamentation as well.

$60 for the Saturday workshops, $15 for the Friday concert, or $70 for both.