NGFDA Virtual Dulcimer Festival

NGFDA Annual Online Dulcimer Festival
11/19/26-11/21/26
Classes & Live Concerts
with 40+ nationally-known teachers!

WEBSITE SCHEDULE IS AVAILABLE AS OF 8/20/26 https://www.ngfda.com/
REGISTRATION NOW OPEN!

DJ will be teaching 5 classes on mountain dulcimer, including baritone. She & Buffalo - The DulciMates - will be performing Thursday, 11/19..

Thursday, 11/19/26

Session #5, 11am Pacific Time, Intermediate Level
Baritone Blues Basics: You love the Blues? You love your Baritone Dulcimer? The Baritone was made for the blues. The growl, the resonance, the low tones we love! We'll work through the most intuitive ways to play blues progressions in 3 keys using both barre and 7th chords. Discover the form of 12-bar blues and the easiest ever pentatonic scale patterns. AEA tuning, 1+ fret required

Session #7, 1:30pm Pacific Time, Advanced Beginner Level
“Wayfaring Stranger,” an exercise in fingerpicking: No picks needed when you use your fingers to do the plucking! Exercises to gain facility with picking individual strings, a variety of picking patterns, and methods for streamlining the process are introduced. After a bit of practice the techniques are applied to this beautiful and familiar tune. Capo needed.

Saturday, 11/21/26

Session #4, 9:45am Pacific Time, Advanced Beginner Level
"Amazing Grace" Across the Strings: Moving from melody/drone style to cross-string technique, you'll work through this beloved tune, gaining facility on all 3 strings and playing what you want, when you want it. There will be flat-picking exercises, a box-scale, playing all, one, or 2 strings, and a three-quarter time strum to hold it altogether. DAD tuning

Session #6, 12:15 M Pacific Time, Advanced Level
"Lamento di tristano" - early music in minor tuning: A beautiful 14th Century Italian lament made famous on John Renbourn's 1970 recording, "The Lady and the Unicorn." This languid, minor tune involves flat-picking, hammers, pulls & slides for a lovely medieval moment in your repertoire. DAC tuning.

Session #8, 2:45pm Pacific Time, Intermediate Level
"Ashokan Farewell" Chord/Melody & Back-up: Known as the theme for Ken Burns' "Civil War", this popular waltz was written by Jay Ungar in 1984. Besides learning a chord melody arrangement, you'll discover how to overlay a three-quarter time strum – a skill that can serve for future waltz tunes. To top it all off, you'll get the back-up part to share with a partner.

https://www.ngfda.com/