Tuition

 

Hammered Dulcimer tuition with Geoff Smith (MMus) - world-leading virtuoso & innovator in composition, technique & performance on the Hammered Dulcimer


  • Hammered dulcimer lessons with Geoff Smith are available for beginners to advanced and in all styles of music. Lessons are provided in person or online via Google Meet.
  • Geoff Smith currently has two spaces available:
  • For a free introductory dulcimer lesson please contact Geoff at: dulcimer.co.uk@gmail.com
  • Geoff Smith (Mmus) is the only fully qualified professional hammered dulcimer composer, performer and teacher in the UK. Smith is the only dulcimer teacher who teaches in all styles of music and he is the only UK hammered dulcimer player to have taught at the world renowned China Conservatory in Beijing.
  • Lessons focus on each person's individual requirements and musical preferences: whether traditional folk, classical, popular & contemporary song, jazz, improvisation or composition. Lessons also focus on developing rhythmic, expressive & dynamic techniques through the use of a comprehensive range of percussion rudiments.
  • Lessons are conscientiously tailored to what you would personally like to achieve.


A rich archive of repertoire is sourced for lessons; and notation pdfs and audio files are provided and tailored for each individual. During your free informative, friendly and welcoming introductory lesson via Google Meet Geoff will discuss with you your hopes and aims as a dulcimer player, and consequently a tuition plan will be developed and mutually agreed. And if necessary advice can also be provided in relation to the technical set up for your online lessons.


Examples of tuition repertoire:


Folk: Planxty Irwin by Turlough O'Carolan (traditional Irish) The Foggy Dew (Irish), Searching for Lambs (English), Nonsuch (English), Willie O Winsbury (Scottish),

Glasgow City Police Pipers (Scottish)

Musical Theatre: West Side Story (Leonard Bernstein)

Folk / Jazz: Light Flight (Pentangle)

Jazz: Take Five (Dave Brubeck)

Classical: Ravel, Stravinsky, Manuel de Falla, Lully, Conti, Minues Para Psalterio (1786), Solostücke aus der Handschrift Barcelona (1764)

Film soundtracks: various soundtracks by Ennio Morricone, Halloween (John Carpenter), The Wicker Man (Paul Giovanni), The Godfather (Nino Rota)  

Television themes: Belle & Sebastian (French TV series)

Soul: I Hear a Symphony (Holland–Dozier–Holland)

Contemporary song: Hurt by Johnny Cash (Trent Reznor)

Chinese: Jasmine Flower (traditional Chinese)

Klezmer: Varshaver Freylekhs

Greek: Lesvos Palios Karsilamas


Advice can also be provided with regard to buying a hammered dulcimer as well as hammers and all related accessories.


Further details

  • Smith is the only musician in the world to have explored, in both composition and performance, a comprehensive spectrum of percussion and drum rudiments on the hammered dulcimer.

  • Smith is the only UK hammered dulcimer player to have taught at the world renowned China Conservatory in Beijing. The lessons at the China Conservatory focused on teaching advanced dulcimer techniques and composition to Yangqin students. The Yangqin is the Chinese hammered dulcimer.

  • Intrinsic to facilitating Smith’s innovative performance techniques has been the use of a new ergonomic design of hammers as well as the concomitant method of gripping the hammers i.e. the way in which the hammers are actually held in each hand and manoeuvred within each hand during performance.

  • Smith has presented seminars about his inventions, the Fluid Piano and the Fluid Dulcimer at music conservatories and universities in China, South Korea, USA, UK, Turkey, Poland, Czech republic and Belgium: https://www.dulcimer.co.uk/the-fluid-piano