Timothy's Blog

Timothy's blog on dulcimers, music, nature and life!
JUL
29

Practicing then taking a joy break

Practice makes perfect!  Well, at least, practicing something over and over for a long time will make it possible for you to play it better.  Of course!  And the more familiar you are with a piece from much practicing, the more likely you will have a marvelous command of its structure and expressive details when the time comes to perform or record.

But sometimes you find yourself banging against a wall.  If you’re playing hammered dulcimer (or any instrument) for enjoyment, learning a tune or arrangement can sometimes become a terrific burden, and you may be tempted to forget the whole music thing and just go play a video game or watch a reality TV show or something….

...
Continue reading
4406 Hits
SEP
13

Keep your instrument out!

Keep your instrument out!

If you have a musical instrument, don’t pack it away --- it ought to be out!

If you don’t play it, it still should be there to see, like hanging on the wall or such.  What an addition to your house’s décor!

...
Continue reading
5308 Hits
JUN
08

The great value of 'Repeat One'

The great value of 'Repeat One'

One of the great advantages of digital recordings --- CDs, .mp3s, etc. --- is that you can set up playback for shuffle/random, for repeating an album or playlist, or for repeating one track.

That last one, repeating a single track, is wonderful for getting your fill of a favorite piece without having to hit the ‘return’ button each time (or in the case of magnetic tapes of all kinds, setting zero and rewinding to it); but I also find tremendous value in the ‘repeat one’ feature of any playback system: for learning something new!

...
Continue reading
4891 Hits
MAY
05

Isolating a musical passage for practice

Isolating a musical passage for practice

If you’ve practiced music for a performance or audition or jurying, you’ve probably run across a passage that’s especially hard to get just right; in Classical music in particular there are lots of downright ‘virtuoso’ spots that need to have every note in place, or else they’re just wrong….

So it’s commonly known that you need to isolate a tough passage and play it over and over till it’s ready to be joined with the easier phrases.

...
Continue reading
6499 Hits
AUG
30

Midwinter Etude for hammered dulcimer

Visually on the hammered dulcimer the "shape" of a three-note chord (a triad) is often a triangle, with the "vertices" the places where the hammers strike.

Around 1990, as a relatively new player, I wanted to practice playing triangles in a repeating right-left-right-left pattern, so one evening I started near the top of the dulcimer and played the E minor chord then moved down to the next position (G major) and continued downward in this way till an even number of measures seemed to call for a change. I inserted a few other figures as part of this for interest (moving up a note for a moment, etc.), but the pattern was basically straightforward as a triangle study.

...
Continue reading
17772 Hits

Please Note: This site uses cookies and similar technologies.

Browser settings can be adjusted to control cookies. Failure to make adjustments constitutes your agreement to their usage. Learn more

I understand

Information about Cookies

A cookie is a small piece of data (usually a text file) that a website asks your browser to store on your computer or mobile device. It enables the website to remember your actions and preferences (such as login, language, font size and other display preferences) over a period of time, so you don’t have to keep re-entering them whenever you come back to the site or browse from one page to another. Most browsers support cookies, but users can set their browsers to decline them and can delete them whenever they like. Cookies can be used to collect and store user data while connected to provide you with requested services. More information about cookies can be found at http://www.aboutcookies.org.

In addition to cookies that remember your preferences mentioned above, cookies are used for the purpose of purchasing items off this website, and for login and user profile details should you provide them by creating an account or signing up for the blog posts or newsletter.

Third party cookies are also used on this site. Specifically, Google Analytics is used on this site -- a popular web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. Google Analytics uses cookies to help us analyze how users use this site. It counts the number of visitors and tells us things about their behavior overall – such as the typical length of stay on the site or the average number of pages a user views.

The information generated by the cookie about your use of our website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of our website, compiling reports on website activity and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage.

Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google undertakes not to associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.

If you have Adobe Flash installed on your computer (most computers do) and utilize audio or video players, Google Analytics will try to store some additional data on your computer. This data is known as a Local Shared Object or Flash cookie. This helps us to analyze the popularity of our media files.

Finally, this website makes use of Google Maps. Google Maps is used to provide locations for Timothy Seaman's performances. In clicking on a performance location, you can allow or deny Google Maps knowledge of your location for purposes of getting directions from your location to the event site.

You can control and/or delete cookies as you wish – for details, see aboutcookies.org. You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed. If you do this, however, you may have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site and some services and functionalities may not work.

Your failure to control and/or delete cookies for this site constitutes your acceptance of cookies as outlined above.