Why aren there more mountain dulcimer classes?
The festival is primarily a hammered dulcimer festival. (Please read the explanation of the O.D.P.C. above.) But mountain dulcimers and other acoustic stringed instruments like guitars, fiddles, harps, autoharps, dobros, banjos, etc., as well as instruments like bodhrans and penny whistles, are welcome. Here are the guidelines I (as workshop chairman) use to allocate the approximately 200 class slots: Half of the classes should be hammered dulcimer classes. The remaining 100 classes slots are allocated to the non-hammered dulcimer classes according to the percent of players who play that instrument. There is an attempt to have at least one class for every instrument – if there’s a qualified instructor to teach it. We generally have instruction for about 17 different instruments. Therefore the most classes you can expect for any instrument (except hammered dulcimer) is about 8-10. Of those non-hammered dulcimer instruments, the ones that are the most popular with festival goers are prob
