Thanks for your comments, Tom.

Thanks, Kimberly. Glad you enjoyed it.

The only way my playing could be fancy is if I wore a tuxedo while playing.

Thanks for your comments, Jan. You can play along with me anytime.

I really enjoy your playing style. Intricate without being overly fancy; makes me want to sing or play along--or at least tap my foot!

Thanks so much, Joan. I am not sure about the "command" issue, but I have learned to play within my abilties, and perhaps that's what you mean.

Thanks, Cheryl. The Jazz album is really special. The material is a combination of old ragtime stuff, early jazzsuch as Bix Beiderbeck tunesfrom the 20s, and other oddballs like the Joseph Spence hymns from the Bahamas. But what makes the album really stand out are the arrangements by Joseph Byrd. Ry plays a variety of string instruments and is accompanied by really cool horn arrangements. The best of them involve the horns doing cool bass lines with Ry playing strings up high. I've never heard any music like it. The album defies categorization and is totally unique, I think.

Dusty,

Really great!! Haven't heard Ry Cooder in a long time...love that slide guitar. I don't know the album Jazz...will have to check it out.

Tanya.....Dusty makes everything look easy. :) :) :) He can't help it. hee hee!

Thanks, everyone, for listening and offering encouragement. Actually, I sat down to work on some bass lines to add to this arrangement but got sidetracked on another Joseph Spence hymn also from that same Ry Cooder album. I'll post a sloppy first arrangement soon. I'm doing that one fingerpicking.

Tanya, yes, I am playing chords. Technically anytime you play three or more notes at the same time you are playing a chord. On the dulcimer, we even refer to two-note chords, though technically they don't deserve the term chords. But if you just strum your dulcimer tuned DAA or DAd without using your left hand, you are playing a two-note chord. I should admit that I've played guitar for most of my life (took a guitar "class" in "summer school" after third grade) so my ear is pretty good at telling what basic chords fit a melody and when those chords change. For basic melodies on the dulcimer, it doesn't take long to learn what chord might fit when the melody is a certain note. One reason we encourage beginners to play Bile them Cabbage Down is that it has the main three chords and you can see visually which chord goes with which melody note. Using that information will help you play 3/4 of all the songs you know.

Thanks for posting Dusty, I had forgotten it! Made me dig out my old Cooder vinyl's !

JohnH

Very nice Dusty. This tune was unknown to me until now. I look forward to your more intricate version also. :)

Thanks, John and Karen. I know when Sam Charters "discovered" Joseph Spence that became the sound he was looking for in the Bahamas, so it is likely that other musicians and other music came out around the same time that sounded similar. I used to have a Joseph Spence album, but it was in a non-digital format and is sitting in some box in my garage with other analog remnants of another era. I can hear in my head the Dead singing "I bid you Goodnight" but I can't remember the rest of the tune. It might be time to break out the old bootlegs and see if I can find a cassette player somewhere.

The Joseph Spence recordings are all available through Smithsonian/Folkways, and if you download from them you get a pdf of the liner notes (better deal than iTunes, huh?). Check it out here .

I'm not so sure about my left hand technique, Karen, but thanks for the compliments. Once I finish a few tasks at work I hope to spend a day or two working on some bass runs and more interesting chording for this song, so hopefully I will indeed post "more" soon.

Don't know the tune, but you played it very well. That was some great left hand technique. Sounded great! More please!

Good one Dusty.

The Incredible String Band and Grateful Dead both did another Bahamian hymn called 'Lay Down My Dear Sister' (I bid you goodnight). Mike Heron says he got it from Joseph Spence, but JS says he got it from MH, go figure. Maybe he just picked it up in the Bahamas.

Forgotten how it goes now exactly, I shall have to dig it out again.

john p

Thanks, Robin. I like this bouncy hymn, too.

Dusty,

When I was a kid, I heard hymns that, in structure, sound much like this. (So glad I heard old hymns!) Nicely played, my friend.

John, Wayne, and Dave, thanks for your encouragement. I'm glad I could share with you a new tune. I encourage you to listen to the Joseph Spence version, the Ry Cooder version, and the various fingerpicking guitar versions found on YouTube. I arranged this based on my memory of the Ry Cooder album, so I am sure it is not identical to anything else.

Dave, I'll try to record another version with my right hand in the picture. Sorry it was cropped out of this one.

Thank you !

I now have another target to aim at!

So many good players & so many styles!

I would love to have seen your right hand then it would have been marginally easier to steal.

Please do not upload the improved version for a while you have given me enough work to do and I confuse easily!

Don' know it, but I like it now! Thanks for sharing a new tune!

Thanks, Carrie. Glad you enjoyed it.

Thanks, Jim. Definitely a catchy tune. It's been rolling around in my head for years.