levels

I responded to a question this morning that I'm sure will come up again.

Question:

> Hi Dan,
>
> I was wondering what level the classes are going to be. It
> doesn't say on the schedule. Does it just kind of depend on
> who signs up?


Answer:

Levels are a little harder to pin down for this festival. Generally people describe levels based on the difficulty of a particular song or arrangement. Our focus at the Chattanooga Dulcimer Festival is advancing our skills and techniques, rather than learning specific songs and arrangements.

While there aren't any classes that would be perfect for someone who doesn't know anything at all about mountain or hammer dulcimer, our instructors are going to take special care not to leave anyone behind in a class labeled '101'.

Dulcimer players usually just learn songs. We want them to learn to play the instrument with ease so that learning songs will be easier and more fun. When you have a storehouse full of different ways of looking at a song it becomes much easier to learn.

I hope this helps.

You'll also notice that we've tried to provide two instructors when possible so everyone gets individual attention.