The Joy of Sharing Dulcimer
General mountain dulcimer or music discussions
Bvmaestro:
Although the conversation happened a couple of years ago, I found the idea of replacing recorders with dulcimers interesting. I am finding that kids are aging with less fine motor skills. More students struggle even with the most simple recorder fingerings. I am looking at using dulcimers during my primary grades music instruction. As early as kindergarten, students will learn to count the frets (which correlates with the simple counting curriculum) while making music using the noter style. As they progress, they can learn to use fingering on the melody string to increase finger dexterity, and eventually chords. This would probably last through the second grade. At this point, then I can branch out to ukulele, recorders, guitars, etc. I will never replace recorder or ukulele, but the dulcimer will definitely prepare students for such making them invaluable in school music. Best part, kids will make music quickly and fall in love with it faster. I think I got the plan.
I find the idea of associating counting with musical notes to be fascinating for a developing mind, since they have different number bases (demical system being base 10, dulcimer base 7, 12 tone, well...12)
It's my opinion that 'music' is just a series of numbers or 'frequencies' that can be combined into equations or 'melodies/progressions' that our mind finds engaging. I've always been fascinated with research on how early exposure to music affects both math and language skills.
To me, it is very interesting that many mathematicians have suggested over time that a base 7 number system is more useful than a base 10 for some purposes, but we rely on base 10 simply because that is how many fingers we have. Well if a dulcimer is base 7 (with 7 notes to an octave) and they learn base 10 with counting, this might encourage children to have a more naturally elastic view of maths!
, I didn't even think of that, but it does sound Very Plausible from a purely logical standpoint.
I've gotten to be an old lady and will keep everybody in line. 
