Ken Kolodner

This recording is a double CD of separate tracks of instructions for arranging and playing three waltzes and one march in three four time. This recording once again presents a wide variety of ideas but is more geared to the intermediate/advanced player than is the Volume I CD. One of the tunes (Jerry Holland’s My Cape Breton Home) is quite appropriate for an advanced beginner level and several of the tunes could be played by advanced beginners in a simpler form. However, the ideas presented for all the tunes on this CD go well beyond an advanced beginner level. Next in complexity is The Clock Waltz (Quebec) which is a good example of creating an arrangement from a variety of relatively simple ideas (accent shifts, bounced triplets, flams, fills, dissonance). The hardest tunes on the CD are Waltz of the My Dreams (Quebec) which makes extensive use of chord substitutions, accent shifts and other ideas; and The March of the King of Laois (Ireland) which demonstrates bassline ideas, dissonances, some improvisation and much more. This CD in general is probably more suited to intermediate and advanced players than is the Volume I counterpart.

All ideas and techniques are applicable to many tunes. Written music with chords for each basic tune is included. (To see examples of the sort of arranging that I present on these CDs, feel free to download a sample from this website by going to the "Tune Arrangements" and "Dulcimer arrangements" pages.) Tracks include descriptions of:

• The basic tune
• A description of hammering and phrasing
• Chord progression and substitutions
• Use of the relative minor and 7th chords (major, minor, dominant & diminished 7th )
• Use of secondary dominants and the circle of fifths
• Shifting octaves
• Basslines
• Dissonance
• Chromatics
• Accent shifts and syncopations
• Flams, two and three note chords
• Use of fills, drone notes and melodic runs
• Tremolos
• Hammered and bounced triplets
• Ideas for improvisation and many variations
• Dynamics and phrasing
• Includes fully embellished versions
• Many other arranging ideas

Ideas and techniques are applicable to many different pieces of music.