Bing Futch

Friday 8:45-10:00 Session 1N Chromatic Mountain Dulcimer Intermediate

              Chromatic Dulcimer 101 - More and more people are taking up the chromatic mountain dulcimer and for good reason! It allows you to freely explore the wide world of music without leaving out notes or "cheating" chords. It's also not as hard as you may think. We'll work out of DAD tuning and get right into playing with chord shapes, scales, and basic tricks to help familiarize yourself with the fretboard, take any piece of music and perform it! 

Friday 10:15-11:30 Session 2D Mountain Dulcimer Beginner Intermediate

             How to Create Complementary Strums for the Tunes You Play. - Every tune that we play has its own rhythmic fingerprint that gives it a unique musical identity. Learn how to recognize and match this rhythm to create strums that support, propel, and energize the song. I'll show you what to listen for, where songs need the most assistance, and how to make what you hear in your head comes out through your strum. We'll play through a variety of tunes to try out our tricks! 

Friday 1:00-2:15 Session 3D Mountain Dulcimer Beginner Intermediate

             A Simple Way to Play D, G, and A: Mountain Dulcimer Magic! - Bring your capo and learn a sweet trick what will get you to play hundreds of tunes easily in three different keys! Then, once we practice using familiar tunes, we discover the source of the magic using scales to figure out options for melody and harmony. 

Friday 2:30-3:45 Session 4F Mountain Dulcimer Advanced

              Embellishments: Powerful Tools for Your Musical Toolkit. - Once you learn to play a song on the mountain dulcimer, the next step is to play it with feeling and expression. Here, we learn to use several techniques called "embellishments" that add a little spiciness to our musical stew. We begin with simple slides and vibrato, giving the instrument and more "human" voice, then explore hammer-on's and pull-offs, bends and bass lines, and a quick look at creating intros and outros on the fly.  

Saturday 10:15-11:30 Session 7F Mountain Dulcimer Advanced

Mountain Dulcimer Delta Blues! - 2016 International Blues Challenge Finalist Bing Futch offers up this fun and fascinating class on playing authentic Mississippi Delta Blues on the mountain dulcimer. Three chords and heartbeat rhythms lead to us adding layer upon layer of new elements, all while strumming and playing the blues! Bing won the "Best Guitarist!" award in the solo-duo category at the International Blues Challenge while playing the mountain dulcimer!

Saturday 4:15-5:15 Session 10E Mountain Dulcimer Intermediate

              Create Arrangements Using Only a Melody - Whether you're writing a song or creating an arrangement of a tune, everything you need to know is right there in the melody itself. This workshop demonstrates how to take a melody and figure out essential info like ley signature, time signature, backing chords, and overall rhythmic feel. Learn how to read and create lead sheets, discover visual patterns to help guide the tune, and add a little extra spice to pull it all together!