Inside you will find:

• A music theory section as a simple guide to explain certain principles of music theory and to demonstrate how some of these theories apply to the diatonic Hammer Dulcimer. This section would help players on any level with specific questions that derive from theory.

• A “Snapshots” section that provides diagram after diagram of great insights to the Hammer Dulcimer from none other than Russell himself. Picture ways to play chords and arpeggios in ways you probably have never seen before. Visualize chromatics, scales, octaves, duplicated notes and much, much more in simple logical patterns.

• A chord chart section that provides a thorough listing of chords from A to G of the musical alphabet. Here, we have provided you chord charts, mapped from top to bottom of the hammer dulcimer, for each note of the musical alphabet.

• A common chords section that charts common chords formatted around their related key in order to give you easy access to the chords you will need while playing a song (great for jamming or playing by ear).

• A chord list section that offers an exhaustive list of 75 possible chords for each key of the chromatic scale. That’s 900 listed chords and their formulas!

We have taken years of experience, not only from Russell’s performing, recording, and building, but also from years of listening to what our friends and customers have been looking for in a hammer dulcimer book and wrapped it up in a nice little, but thick, package. It is our hope that this book is one that you will carry with you and use to its fullest potential. One of our main goals is to share how easy it really is to bless, not only yourself, but also many others with beautiful music that you can create in ways you never imagined possible on the hammer dulcimer – until now!