"Fight Song" on acoustic & electric dulcimer

One of the most popular songs of the past year was Rachel Platten's "Fight Song," which describes her struggle to make it in the music industry.

The lyrics describe her sacrifices and her efforts to be one person having a big impact, but it wasn't practical for me to include a vocal track here. Instead, I've used the dulcimers to convey that.

After an electric intro, the main song begins at 0:21. The instrumental break at 2:43 comes from Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition." It's the theme from "The Great Gate of Kiev," which to me portrays someone escaping from a scary situation (the previous "picture" in the suite), and reaching security and success, and is ultimately a celebration. And since that's what Rachel Platten was striving for, I include it to take Rachel Platten's song to the next step.

For the video, I've got two dulcimers on stands, with a pair of pedal boards on the floor. My Ron Ewing acoustic plays the first half of the song. My Rod Matheson electric plays the introduction and the second half of the song; its signal is divided into 4 separate channels, which are fully detailed in the notes on the YouTube page. Both dulcimers are tuned DAD. The song starts in the key of G, and modulates up to A. In G, it uses the 1+ fret.

Enjoy!

Sam