Robin - when and where I grew up, a "Church Key" was a can opener from the days before beer cans had pop tops. Probably was key of C; as in "C that church key? Pass it over so I can open this beer!"

In our gatherings of old-time musicians ( sometimes several hundred at a time), the keys most often played in are G,D,A, and C. There are a LOT of oldtime fiddle tunes in C !! Some jam sessions go on for several hours all in the key of C. The C tunes have a very carnival/circus/rag flavor to them. I notice many of them seem to be from Georgia (U.S. deep south, not Russia ).Brian avoids playing in C because of his old hand injury, he can't make the stretches very well in C on his fiddle. I'm kind of glad about that, because the C fiddle tunes vaguely remind me of scary clowns! lol!!


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Robin, I have no idea if your speculation is plausible, but I just want to applaud your last line: "you could drink, dance and drone with the devil in D . . . and then chime in church with the choir in C.!"That's a great line!D.T. Robin Clark said:


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Dusty T., Northern California
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As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
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This is a very interesting thread!I have no evidence for what I'm about to suggest, just drawing from your posts above.I wonder if both the keys of C and D were actually regularly used in "Olden Days" (which arn't really that old - my house is the same age as the earliest dated MD). Different regions would have had different primary uses for the instrument and therefore taken tunes from differing sources.Tunes in the key of C, the "church" key would have been more likely to be written down. Hymns would have been primarily composed on the pump organ/piano by musically literate folk and passed from community to community in written form. The first written books for MD would have come from musically literate folk, much of their material (hymns) would have been in the key of C and it would make sense to transpose folk songs for the MD into the same key for instruction.Mountain music was more likely to be learned by ear. If you were listening to your uncle play a tune on the fiddle then you are most likely to copy it in the same key. The key of D makes sense as a base. These tunes would be passed from community to community by ear in an aural tradition and would not have been written down until outsider schollars became interested.In some communities it is quite plausable that you could drink, dance and drone with the devil in D on a Saturday night and then chime in church with the choir in C on the Sunday morning!Robin

You are far less likely to break a string going from DAd to CGG than going CGG to DAd. Lowering the note lessens the tension on the string. Your melody string may end up mushy though if you have a string gauge designed for DAd. To tune down from D to C and A to G is to simply go down one note. To go from d to G is to go down 5 notes.I wouldn't hesitate to tune DAA to CGG and back again, but I would worry about tuning CGG to DAd as my strings are meant for a CGG tuning. To go up to the d is too high as the increased tension would more likely to break a string. If it didn't the string would probably be to tightly wound as to be unplayable anyway. Dana Harlan said:

Dana - yes changing tunings is "liable to break strings". Maybe. Question is - does it matter?* Breaking strings will not harm your instrument.* Breaking strings will probably not harm you (but "no pain, no gain" as they say ) if you are tuning a moving string not a static string.* Breaking strings will not cost thousands (or even hundreds) of dollars (I pay about $2.50 a set from www.juststrings.com )You're going to change strings anyway every couple months (aren't you?). We're talking a day or two difference in use, probably, if you change tunings often versus rarely.String breakage should NEVER be a consideration when it comes to "should I re-tune or not"...Fact is that strings are gonna break. Get used to it; or buy a drum

my favorite saying that I tell all my students... "What are those things on the dulcimer head called... TUNERS .... not FINE TUNERS "..so yes by all means try other tunings... you will find that some dulcimers sing better in different keys.. have fun.. and sure you will break strings.. but they are not that expensive..

There are actually three migrations (I won't say transformations, for many people, as Ken H attests, still alter tunings often and play a true diatonic instrument) that have led to DAd tuning become the most common.One was the increase in playing chords on the dulcimer. Fingering chords in Mixolydian tuning is apparently easier than doing so in Ionian. That would explain the prevalence of 1-5-8 tunings.As others have pointed out, the vast majority of fiddle tunes, which form the basis of old timey and bluegrass music, are in the keys of D, G, or A. That may indeed have been a factor in favoring tunings in D rather than C.And finally, the additional frets that modern players often put on their dulcimers (the 6+ but also the 1+ and those crazy chromatic things) make a single tuning more versatile than it was in the days of a true diatonic fretboard and noter/drone style playing.To answer Dana's question, yes, the more you change the tuning of your strings the more likely they are to break, but that should not dissuade you from experimenting with different tunings. Keep in mind, though, that when you switch from DAd to CGG you are not only switching from D to C but from Mixolydian to Ionian.Having said all this, I'll confess that I am now at the end of the my first year of dulcimer playing and I have played exclusively DAdd tuning. I play chord/melody style and simply felt the need to get to know the fingerboard in that tuning before moving on. As my comfort level has increased dramatically, I am (almost) ready to start experimenting a bit with "alternate" tunings. I think we each have to approach the instrument at our own pace.Cheers,D.T.


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Dusty T., Northern California
Site Moderator

As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
-- Dizzy Gillespie

Another thing to remember about the dulcimer in the olden days, which helps explain perhaps a bit about the change of key, is that the dulcimer as a solo instrument was frequently in an open tuning, not key specific. A person playing and singing to the dulcimer simply picked a tone that sounded and held well on the bass (not to tight or to mushy) and then tuned the other strings to that tone as in Ionian 1-5-5. It could have been a C or a C# or a sharped C# or any tone.When people began to play dulcimers together with other instruments then they had to be in a specific key, assuming whoever they were playing with wasn't tone deaf and could actually give them a true note to tune to. Using an open tuning for the dulcimer sort disappeared and as instruction books began to appear the key of C was frequently given to tune describe a note to tune to. Most of those books, that I've seen, will give directions on how to tune all of the most commonly used modes using the key of C as a base. A few gave directions for open tuning as well, but the idea simply of picking a "tone or note that sounds good to you" is sort of a vague way to teach the concept of tuning to people who perhaps have some musical background. Saying tune the bass string to the key of C is more concrete. One book I have gives the learner the choice between the C below Middle C and then Middle C on the middle and melody or using the Middle C for the bass and the octave C for the other strings. I guess that writer figured that the string gauges most dulcimer were strung with at the time would work either for one octave or other.Though the Cripple Creek Dulicmer by Bud and Donna Ford uses the key of G, it's a later publication than some of the ones I started with from the late 50's and early 60's. I don't know specifically when the change over to D came in to majority use. But Ken mentions the late 60's and early 70's which sounds right. Then the switch from DAA to DAd occurred.

No. Traditionally each MODE had a specific keynote. The shift was from Ionian Mode in the key of C to Ionian Mode in the key of D.Aeolian A traditional tuning AEGLocrian B typical tuning Bb F GIonian C traditional tuning CGGDorian D traditional tuning DAGPhrygian E typical dulcimer tuning E Bb GLydian F typical dulcimer tuning F E BbMixolydian G traditional tuning GDgThe story is that back in the late 60s to mid 70s at lot of key of D Irish fiddle tunes were popular performance pieces and that caused the shift to D from C. I don't buy it, but that's one story."Almost all"???? No way Jos!!! Many of us play in a variety of keys. I have one dulcimer exclusively for the key of G. My other dulcimer retunes between C and D regularly.

Personally, I'm still in C, but I think it had to do with playing with other instruments in jams and such. And with the standardization of the 6+ fret on most new instruments, if someone tunes DAd they have two modal patterns (Mix and Ionian) available with one tuning.
updated by @folkfan: 02/17/16 05:52:49AM