Playing Chords
Chords are made of 3 or 4 notes played together. For a simple song arrangement, one instrument can play chords while another instrument can play the melody. A skilled player, playing solo can play a mixture of chords and melody at the same time. When I started playing dulcimers I had an instruction book that started the lessons with DAA tuning and then moved to DAD tuning. You can play chords with either tuning, but she suggested that if you want to play a lot of chords use DAA. I have found it much easier to play cords with DAA tuning and I prefer the sound of them. DAD has become a more common tuning and good players can play chords very well.
This instruction will deal with DAA tuning. The format I use to show the chords will be like the picture below.
Notice that I show you the notes that make the chord. In this case D, F#, and A. The basic diagram shows all of the notes for all three strings up to fret 10. I have included 3 extra frets, 1+, 6+, and 8+. Your dulcimer may not have some of these frets. All of the note positions form a triangle. The first form of the chord has the “A” note on an open string so you just press the other two notes. For the other positions, I use two fingers and my thumb to form the notes. You should get comfortable playing the chord in two or three positions. The song will sound better if you play it in these different forms.
The picture below shows the most common chords for thekey of D:
The following is a google drive folder of chord charts and information. You can view and print this information.