Reviews for Dictionary of Strum Picking Patterns

The average rating for Dictionary of Strum Picking Patterns based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-04-01 00:00:00 Erich Lohde The version I bought had both a CD and a DVD included with the book, and a different cover (but same ISBN, so I assume the contents are the same). As someone totally new to playing the dulcimer (which I made myself), I found this to be a pretty good introduction. It starts off easy, but challenging enough, and then progresses through different types of tunings and playing techniques. The songs range from nursery rhyme songs to folk songs from North America and Western Europe ... that is, where the dulcimer (or instruments similar to it) have been in use for a long time. Each song is actually a practice session, with notes and hints. Each song is played on the CD, which makes it a handy reference to hear how it is supposed to be played. The DVD is pretty good, too. At first I found Ms. Mcneil's lecturing style a bit slow and methodical, but as I started playing along and getting flustered, her calming voice helped me to settle down. This is not an expensive book to get, and is well worth the money.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-03-25 00:00:00 Brandon Messmer The capstone songs in this book are "Tempestad" (a rumba) and an unnamed bulería (a palo/genre of flamenco). The rumba took me almost a year to master, the buleria I am still working on. The book is short on instruction, which is okay, because one can't really pick up this style of play without live instruction. CD comes with the book.