For Noter Drone Beginners - Playing from Music rather than TAB

I have wanted to put up a thread to discuss this issue for a while. I'm sure I'll return to it and amend how I'm presenting my argument, but here goes as a starter.

The premise: It may be benificial and ultimately easier for beginner noter drone players to work from sheet music rather than TAB - or at least to make that switch very, very early on.

I can understand the reason for TAB showing specific chord arrangements for chord melody playing a piece exactly the same as someone else - but I do wonder if for noter drone playing working from SMN is both more natural and also makes it less likely for beginners to become paper-bound players?

You know it is strange but I find the TAB harder to use for noter drone playing than simply using the standard music notation (known as SMN for short). I think that there is an additional mental process required to read the TAB numbers (linguistic) then transfer that to the dulcimer then hearing the sound. Working from SMN the linguistics are soon dropped (I don't name the notes as I read) and the pattern of notes becomes sound directly related to hand movements on the dulcimer. So basically I can glance at the pattern of dots on the paper and hear the music then play it. To use a metaphor: The SMN is a .mp3 that I can start and stop anywhere, speed up, slow down, phrase repeat and change key on. I can very quickly set the SMN aside and play without it as, like listening to a tune repeatedly, the tune is in my head. And I can pick up a piece of SMN from a tune I may have forgotton and it is like switching on a .mp3.

I have watched my wife learn to play fiddle over the last 3 years (there is no TAB for fiddle, just SMN). And it was obvious that she very quickly started to read music as the tune pattern rather than individual note names and durations. She would say things like "I can't get this bit right that goes daa-di-di-do" while pointing at the music and singing the tune she was trying to play. That's a very different mental process to that used when translating TAB numbers to frets.

There are 1000s of free tunes in sheet music form on the internet - it is the way tunes have been passed around for hundreds of years. So once you have a little skill in reading music a massive library is then open to you - including lots and lots of old Appalachian fiddle tunes and songs!!!!

You'll discover that you can transpose SMN on the fly to any dulcimer key (because you are see/hearing the tune) and you'll learn the conventions for key signatures that will show whatmode and drones to sellect. All that for the future however.

And - learning to read music will help you to learn to play by ear!!!

So if you are just starting out on your dulcimer journey, and you primarily want to play noter drone style (or using your fingers rather than a noter on the melody string) then I would suggest putting a little time into learning to read music right from the very start. If you know nothing about reading music then there are lots of websites with great basic information just type "Learning to read music" into google.

Have a go at working out Twinkle Twinkle above for yourself. Sing it as you are following the notes on the page before you pick up your dulcimer. Then have a go at it on your dulcimer in DAA.