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Greetings
from
Chincoteague Island!

Where dragonflies, mosquitoes and wild ponies out-number musicians
by a factor of 1.49,597,870,691 x 1011 to one!

Common Ground Students!!!!
Pick up your course handouts at these links:

Beginning Hammer Dulcimer
Play along audio files available again!

Demystifying the Modes

Composition:  Five Techniques in Five Days 

Happenings.........

Summer Concerts on Chincoteague:  May ends the Acoustic Music Series and begins the Music @ the Dock series on the Island.  Between Memorial Day and Labor Day there will be seven concerts.   Click Here to check out the line up of performers through 2012.  Okay, so you don't live here and can't make the concerts.  Book some vacation time.  See the beach, eat some good seafood and then come to a concert :)  Greg Shupe & Men with Issues - Saturday, August 28 7 p.m. and Cry Babies - Saturday, September 4 at 7 p.m.

September 1, 16 & 24: 7:30 p.m. Three Sheets perform at the Marine Sciences Consortium.   We are part of the evening program for the educational programs presented by MSC.

September 17:  It's the 3rd Friday of the Month.  Join Billie Dayton and me for the 7 - 9 p.m. session at Sundial Books on Main Street in Chincoteague.  Lots of singing and instrumentals.  Bring your voice and your axe!  It's lots of fun :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

October 2:  7 p.m.   Join me for a concert by 3 Sheets!  We'll perform two sets at the Bateman Center Auditorium on Assateague Island.  All tickets sales go to support the renovation of Assateague Light.  The structure was built in 1867.  The tab to make it safe for the next 150 years is a little more than $2 million.  Fund raising is going well and 3 Sheets is going to do what it can to help by making music.  Help us fill the auditorium and the coffers of the fund to renovate Assateague Light.  To see the Light's website click here.

October 9:  7 p.m.  7 - 9 p.m.  I'll be at Sundial Books doing a solo concert with dulcimer, guitar and whistle. New material for the new CD due out in the fall!!!  Click here for location and details.  It's 2nd Saturday on the Island.  LOTS of music and art.  Come by for a visit.  Fall is the best season on the Island!

October 7 & 13: 7:30 p.m. Three Sheets perform at the Marine Sciences Consortium.   We are part of the evening program for the educational programs presented by MSC. 

October 15:   It's the 3rd Friday of the Month.  Join Billie Dayton and me for the 7 - 9 p.m. session at Sundial Books on Main Street in Chincoteague.  Lots of singing and instrumentals.  Bring your voice and your axe!  It's lots of fun :)

November 2: 7:30 p.m. Three Sheets perform at the Marine Sciences Consortium.   We are part of the evening program for the educational programs presented by MSC. Our final show of the season.  Winter cometh.  Tourists vanisheth.

November 19:   It's the 3rd Friday of the Month.  Join Billie Dayton and me for the 7 - 9 p.m. session at Sundial Books on Main Street in Chincoteague.  Lots of singing and instrumentals.  Bring your voice and your axe!  It's lots of fun :)

Music Classes:  If you are on the Island and in need of dulcimer and music lessons, drop in for the free two hour sessions most Mondays at 10 a.m. Email to check the schedule.

2011 Summer Courses at Common Ground on the Hill:  Details for the summer 2011 Traditions Weeks and the Roots Music and Arts Festival at Common Ground on the Hill will be available early in 201 at:  www.commongroundonthehill.org   I'm working on booking the hammer dulcimer staff right now.  Announcements as soon as I can!!!

During Week 1 (July 3 - 8)
I'll teach beginners.   Got a friend who wants to learn to play the hammer dulcimer?  Send them to Common Ground.  FREE loaner instruments available for the week.  Returning faculty include: Cara Lindsey (#2 finalist at Winfield!) David Lindsey and Joe Healy.  More announcements coming.  Looks like the Demystifying the Modes course will run during BOTH weeks.  It was a hit this summer :)

Roots Music and Arts Festival ( July 9 - 10)
The entire Common Ground Faculty will perform. 

During Week 2 (July 11- 16)
I'll teach  Demystifying the Modes again and probably another course too. Two stars in the hammer dulcimer world will be teaching this week. Stand by for announcements.   It will be a GREAT summer at Common Ground.  Make your plans early!

Mel Bay's Dulcimer Sessions: Check out my new article for Mel Bay's ezine Dulcimer Sessions.  This one is about ensemble arranging.  The tune is The Lakes of Pontchartrain.  You can read about the history of the tune, review how an ensemble arrangement is created and hear a performance of the tune in ensemble form. Click here!

Dulcimer Radio:  Can't find enough dulcimer music?  No problem, tune into Dulcimer Radio on the Internet.  24x 7 hammer and mountain dulcimer music:  Dulcimer Radio

Sponsored by the North Harris County Dulcimer Society of Houston, Texas. What a GREAT thing for a dulcimer club to do!!!!

 

 

 

Spring Tide on the Tump
IS HERE!!!!!

Click here to order

Click here for audio samples of the new CD

  

HEADLINES . . . . . . .

Walt Michael & Bill performing in the
Chincoteague Unplugged Summer
Concert Series

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Check out my article on the Hammered Mbira in Mel Bay's ezine Dulcimer Sessions: http://www.dulcimersessions.com/apr09/troxler.html

Visit the website of the inventor of the Hammered Mbira, Don MacLane

This website supports courses and workshops:

♦  Workshops

♦  Beginning Hammer Dulcimer

♦  Celtic Airs, Ballads and Laments

♦  Arranging Acoustic Music

♦  How to Listen for Music

 Looking for fabulous hammers at a great price???  Who isn't?  Click here to view and purchase beautiful and functional hammers at very reasonable prices.

For updates on content and doings, subscribe to the newsletter.  This occassional and brief publication goes out no more frequently than once a month.

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  What's Inside?

Beginning Hammer Dulcimer
The information here is for beginning and intermediate players of the hammer dulicmer.

Arranging
Here you'll find information about arranging music.  The focus is traditional music.  The context is diatonic scales and chords.

How To Listen to Music
The information here supports a nine hour course focused on improving listening skills. While it is aimed at non-musicians, players can benefit too.  The material covers tradtional music as well as concert hall works.  Topics include rhythm, melody, harmony, form and musical criticism.

Articles
Short articles about music are located here.  Mostly aimed at the general audience, these pieces originally appeared in newspapers.  You'll find brief works about Celtic, bluegrass, barbershop, Broadway and military band music.  There is at least one article on arranging music too.

Recordings
This section lists recent CDs and recordings in progress from Longtayle Studios.  Hammer dulcimer,  Celtic, traditional ballad signing, of course. But a bit of Mozart, jazz and blues sneaked in too

Resources
Places to find the stuff you need.  How to buy a hammer dulcimer. Lead sheets. Resources on the web. Publications.  Builders. This is the place to begin networking.

Legal Stuff
Herein lies the unfriendly party-of-the-first-part fine print that defines too much of  America the disputateous.

About Me
In case you are interested, some highlights of past and present lives.  None of this was fabricated.  You can't invent such peculiar pith.

  Things to Come

The Arranging Course is not fully loaded.  

More Tunes will be loaded soon. 

A Composition Course is on the way.

How To Listen For Music has a Power Point presentation.  The music scores are not reading correctly unless the receiving computer has NoteWorthy Composer loaded.  Five or six entries of a small number of measures are the problem.  Working on an image fix for this.  The Power Point also includes some music clips when it is shown in a class room.  Those links do not work on the website because of copyright protection.  I'll add a play list for this course.

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