February 17th is Ash Wednesday and I have been looking over Lenten hymns. One that  I particularly like is "When Jesus Left His Father's Throne" by James Montgomery.  It is in the Aeolian mode and is set to an  Old English melody. You can find it in  The Dulcimer Hymn Book" by  Bud and Donna Ford.  I plan to do this as a video on  FOTMD closer to Palm Sunday:"  I particularly like the verse in   "When Jesus Left His Father's Throne":

"When Jesus into Zion rode  The children sang around;  For joy they plucked the palms and strowed Their garments on the ground..."

Here's my story, John. I normally don't care to play music that I can't sing to or don't have lyrics for (that's why I have a hard time with fiddle tunes, more's the pity). I found with my first standard dulcimer, that I couldn't tune it low enough to match my voice, so I asked my luthier friend to build me a larger, stronger baritone dulcimer. At that time, in my formative playing, I didn't know there was a "baritone" dulcimer but I gave him some specs which he, at first, reluctantly followed and he built me a beautiful sounding (in my mind) instrument. It is a six string, I use guitar strings, the bass strings are .42, the middle strings are .26 and the melody strings are either .12 or .14, whatever I have on hand. For songs tabbed in DAD, I tune my strings to GDG and for songs tabbed in DAA, I tune my strings to GCG and it works for me and my voice. I apologize for all the Alberta windage, but I don't do reader's digest condensed. Thanks for wondering.

Good choice, Gordon.  I wonder how you tuned your dulcimer to accompany with voice?

Thanks for starting this thread, John. A favorite Lenten Hymn of mine and one which can also be heard on FOTMD Video is "Lord Who Throughout These Forty Days". The words to this Hymn were written in 1873 by Claudia F Hernaman. The music used for this Hymn is St. Flavian and was published in 1563. I found it quite easy to tab this for simple finger-noter drone style for voice accompniament.

I'll start off this thread by mentioning one of my favorites:  "What Wondrous Love Is This?" or shortened to "Wondrous Love" Hymnary.Org says the author is Anonymous. It appeared in "Southern Harmony" and is in 221 hymnals. I found tabs for it in "The Dulcimer Hymnal" by Bud & Donna Ford, and in "White Spirituals and Folk Hymns" by Anne Lough.  Recordings of it can be heard on FOTMD Videos.  Search for "What Wondrous Love is This?"  by myself, John W. McKinstry, or "Wondrous Love" by Brian G.   I am sure that there may be other tabs to this and other recordings too but this is a start.

 

Do you have some favorite Lenten Hymns and further could you share where we might find the Mt. Dulcimer music for them or hear recordings of such hymns?