Bing Futch

Friday 8:45-10:00 Session 1E Mountain Dulcimer Advanced

              Embellishments: Powerful tools for your Musical Toolkit.  Embellishments add spiciness to our musical stew. We begin with slide and vibrato, then explore hammer-ons and pull-offs, bends and bass lines, plus a quick look at intros and outros on the fly.

Friday 10:15-11:30 Session 2B Mountain Dulcimer Novice

              Begin With the Basics. We will start with strumming, picking, playing melody against the drone and how to read tab. You’ll learn a few tunes, get to know your instrument better as we cover putting on strings, practice and learning the fretboard.

Friday 2:30-3:45 Session 4C Mountain Dulcimer Intermediate

              11 Types of Chords with Helpful Tips on How to Use Them. Using major, minor, and dominant seventh chords is like painting with primary colors. We will explore a wide variety of chord types to expand your musical palette. You will learn basic chord-building and popular progressions, practice adding and altering notes. 

Friday 4:15-5:30 Session 5C Mountain Dulcimer Intermediate

              A Simple Way to Play D, G, A: Mountain Dulcimer Magic! Bring your capo and learn a sweet trick that will get you hundreds of tunes in 3 different keys! Using “Hangman’s Reel” we discover the source of the magic using scales to figure out options for melody and harmony.

Saturday 10:15-11:30 Session 7C Mountain Dulcimer Intermediate

              Create Arrangements Using Only a Melody. This workshop demonstrates how to take a melody and figure out essential info like key signature, time signature, backing chords and rhythmic feel. Learn how to read and create lead sheets, discover visual patterns to help guide the tune and add a little spice to pull it all together.

Saturday 1:00-2:15 Session 8E Mountain Dulcimer Advanced

              Tune Writing Masterclass. This workshop is for anyone who has ever wanted to write their own instrumental tune. From idea to first attempts through editing and notating the music, Bing will go through the entire process as he composes a brand-new tune in class. Everyone will leave with the beginnings of a tune!

Saturday 2:30-3:45 Session 9E Mountain Dulcimer Advanced

              Seven Modes for Seven Dulcimers. Discover the history of this modal instrument, why we tune to DAD and DAA. Hear and play some familiar tunes, learn to use a capo for playing in seven different keys without re-tuning. CAPO and re-tuning required. You’ll be more confident in the jams and know more about your instrument.