Accompaning the Voice with the Dulcimer

• If we observe the styles of Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell, the voice was the focus and the accompaniment provided rhythm and interesting nuances of harmony.  If the desire is to provide support for your singing, then dulcimer tab can be simplified to just show the chords. 
• This leaves lots of room for the individual playing style to come out.  If one observes many folk guitar players, this is exactly the strategy that they bring to playing the guitar along with the voice.
• “Oh Love, It is a Killing Thing” is a well-known tune from the Celtic tradition.  If you want to sing it, then all that you need is some softly strummed chords to accompany yourself.
• The following will assume that one is playing a dulcimer in the DAD tuning without a capo.  The tune is in the key of E minor.  The table is a tablature without all of the unessential formatting. 
• To get a fully tabbed manuscript then click here
• To get just the condensed size, click here
• The goal is to present a chord oriented tablature that is easy to carry (to jams), to send (by email) and to transmit (by smartphone).  Furthermore, the format is easy for anyone to produce and edit within MS- word using tables. 
• If you would like hear a rendition of the tune played by an ensemble including dulcimer, piano, concertina, and a choir of monks to get it into your head, then just click the play button.

• An obvious advantage of this tab format is that it can easily fit on a 3 by 5 note card.  Perhaps someday people will be sending tunes by postcard!  The tab also fits neatly within the small window of a cell phone. 
• Now for a little music theory.   The following tables show the chords that appear in the tune.  The various permutations of the notes are known as "inversions".

Here are lyrics for the tune.