Here is a playlist on Spotify that I’ve been slowly building for a while. It has some great acoustic guitarists, like Vin Downes, Lance Allen, Michelle Qureshi, Tommy Berre, Al Petteway, and many more, but there are also some players of Hammered Dulcimer, Mountain Dulcimer, Chapman Stick, and Harp. Many of these tunes have strong Celtic influences, or are actually traditional Irish or Scots tunes. Enjoy!
Tag: relaxing
Introductory Dulcimer Playlist
At Spotify, I made a 14-tune introductory playlist for my catalog of electric and acoustic dulcimer music. This spans three full-length albums, with a shorter album, due 9/15, arriving shortly.
This is great music for relaxing, reading, studying, doing yoga, meditation, and even winding down into a deep sleep.
https://open.spotify.com/user/122820830/playlist/6m5omBqEX7RkVCGF1F5qHc?si=nn45tiyGTwCaCkisArEPOg
This Saturday – September 15 – Starlight Variations Arrives!
Less than a week now! It took about two years to complete this new album, and we are pretty jazzed-up about it. There are eight tracks of meditative electric and acoustic mountain dulcimer: seven of my own compositions, and one traditional tune – the Irish song/air Star of the County Down. I think I learned this in 1979, so I’ve been “at” this tune for some time 🙂
The album opens with a tune called “Light Always Comes” – essentially a re-jiggering of a multi-year composition project using one of my favorite chord progressions of all time. This version has a tiny dose of Baroque influence – mostly in the underlying structure and in how some of the parts are written — but overall it has a contemporary, relaxing new age vibe.
If you’d like to hear this new album before it is on all the streaming platforms, you can listen right here:
Starlight Variations
Listening to Jerry Rockwell’s new EP “Starlight Variations” is like opening a magic box. The gentle but sharp sound of the dulcimer, combined with heartfelt and unpretentious composition, makes this into something truly unique – even divine. If you are new to Jerry Rockwell’s music, “Starlight Variations” EP is a great place to start. – Read the whole BT Fasmer review
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Kentucky Music Week 2018!!!
June 24 – 29, 2018
Bardstown, KY
I’m really feeling blessed and excited for KMW this year!! I’ll be teaching four classes:
Play Modal Tunes and Songs While Tuned DAD – No retuning, no capo, just learning some E Dorian, A Mixolydian, and B Aeolian repertoire!
Easy Rounds and Jam-A-Rounds For Ensembles – Really, this is THE MOST fun you can have playing with a group of dulcimers!
Making Up Your Own Jams – Tired of Whiskey Before Breakfast, Old Joe Clarke, Soldier’s Joy??? – This class is your chance to get away from the fiddle tune repertoire and start to discover your very own dulcimer style, working off of very simple chord progressions and short melodic seeds.
Slow Airs From Ireland – Some of the more ethereal music from the Celtic lands – slower pieces that really take you on an inner journey. This is music that goes incredibly well on the dulcimer!!
Classes fill up pretty fast and this is coming right up, so if you want to get in any of these classes, don’t hesitate! For more information, here is a link to the Classes page on the KMW web site:
Some Relaxing Music
Here is a particularly hypnotic and trance inducing take on Star of the County Down, which is one of my favorite Irish tunes. I’ve mostly done this one in waltz time or 3/4, but this one is in 4/4 with more of a “two” feel:
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New Release!
After more than a year’s worth of daily work, I finally have a new recording available in digital download form:
Have a listen and let me know what you think!
Jerry
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