Thank you gents!

My buddy Dulcimore Dan does a fine job.  I'm so proud of the feller, I just cain't STAND it!  

Sycamore is a beautiful wood when it's quarter-sawn.  My "Noah's Ark" dulcimore is made out of it.

Pallet Dulcimore by Dan Cox,   #13-20

For a couple of years I’ve had the wants for one of “Dulcimore Dan” Cox’s traditional instruments. I admire the lines of his “Betty” and “Ultra-lite.” He is someone who respects and works in the center of   tradition, but isn’t afraid to improve on things. For example, he installs a music wire staple where the strings run from the anchor pins over the edge of the end block. It is a simple, elegant, and appropriate solution to strings digging into the wood.

But I dithered. Hesitated. I couldn’t decide what I wanted. Which model?

Or which wood. While he uses various woods, he favors poplar. Poplar sounds fine, but I don’t care for the looks.  

And tuning pegs. I’ll come out and say it: I don’t like wooden pegs. I’ve converted two friction-pegged dulcimers to Pegheds. Dan also uses zither pins, like those on an autoharp. In my experience they hold better than violin-type pegs, but are just as tricky to adjust accurately. They also require a wrench and discourage retuning for different modes. (I understand that Dan and other traditional style makers will use Perfection or other “new-fangled” tuners, on request and for an extra charge, for us sissies.)

Anyway, on and on I dithered. Then Dan posted the photos above and I was smitten. This one has it all—good-looking wood, Dan’s clean lines, and guitar tuning heads. I contacted him and sent a check soon after.  

The bookmatched top and back pieces are figured sycamore, as are the sides. It looks a lot like fancy maple. The wood was cut from a pallet rescued from the trash.  

Along with the beautiful grain pattern, the wood carries evidence of its working class history—bookmatched nail holes, complete with rust stains! The holes in the top have little wooden reinforcement strips underneath, but those in the sides and back remain unblocked. Micro sound holes! They add quite a little character to the build.

The staple board (fretboard) and the core of the peg head are less-fancy old maple. The staple board doesn’t have a strum hollow, but the edges are angled and rounded in the strum area. The peg head does have a bit of fancy. Along the sides are “scales,” like the grips on a pocketknife, of the same figured sycamore.   The last inch and three-quarters of the peg head has a slight taper. Here Dan created a “faux” or “button” scroll with pairs of sycamore disks, stacked and glued to either side of the peg head.  

There are also three sycamore feet on the bottom.

The workmanship is very good, very clean.

The design is a variation of his “Betty” design. I don’t know the measurements of the Betty, but this one looks to be a little narrower. It has features borrowed from John Mawhee, the 19th century Missouri builder and player. The two most notable are the high tuning, Gdd, and the geared tuners.

Anyway, here are the specs:

32” overall length

Height, 2   3/4” tall, including the feet and bridge

26” VSL

Upper bout, 4   3/16” wide

Waist, 3” wide

Lower bout, 5   3/16” wide

Body, 1   1/4” deep outside, 1 1/8” inside

Staple board, 1   1/16” square, 14 staple frets.

Strings, 3 #8 music wire (.020”) tuned Gdd Ionian

3 Grover Sta-tite geared machine heads

3 steel string anchor pins

Nut and bridge, phenolic, a hard synthetic material

It arrived here in Japan well-packed with bubble wrap and local newspapers from 2017 in a heavy-duty wooden box. DULCIMORE.COM was stenciled across the lid and back, in case I wondered what was inside.

My experience so far:

First off, I love my new dulcimore. It is fun to play and a pleasure to look at. The high tuning has me working up tunes I wouldn’t otherwise have thought of playing. It is also an excellent noodling tool, great for improvisation. And the sound is special—bright, loud, clear, with what mandolin players call “bark,” a sharp attack when the strings are struck. It speaks with real authority. It has begun to “open up,” developing a bell-like sustain.

I did have to make some adjustments to the way I play. The combination of high action, heavy gauge strings, and high tuning make the action really stiff.   My wimpy willow chopstick noter just didn’t cut it. In fact, the string was doing the cutting. Into the noter. I have gone to a bigger, harder noter (a piece of 3/8” Delrin dowel) which works much better. I may go bigger yet. Dan told me up to 3/4” thick (!) would work.  

I also had to change the way I hold my noter. I use my index finger to press the noter down on my more modern dulcimers. But on this instrument my finger isn’t strong enough. I changed over to the more traditional style, thumb on top, directly over the melody string. It took a few days for the thumb to get strong enough to not complain after a few tunes. But it is working out fine.

I considered lowering the action, or going to a lighter string, but I hesitate for a couple reasons. First, I don’t want to change the sound. Lowering the nut and bridge would lessen the downward pressure of the strings and there wouldn’t be as much energy transferred to the body.  

The other reason is I don’t want to mess up the intonation.   This dulcimore really plays in tune. The frets were set for these strings, this tuning, and this string height. Changing the action or string gauge could have an effect on how well it plays in tune. In the future, I may putter with it. But for now, I’ll work on building up my thumb.

With the right hand, I strum and pick with my usual shell-colored celluloid semi-floppy straight-edged triangle pick with pointy tips, D’Andrea shape #355. While at night I like to brush with my thumb and occasionally fingerpick, this dulcimore really needs a pick to speak. Playing quietly with the pick isn’t difficult. But it isn’t as satisfying as being noisy. This one likes to play rough.

So far I have been playing in three tunings/modes: Ionian Gdd, Dorian Gdc, and reverse Mixolydian Add. The melody and middle strings are so tight I’m afraid to go any higher. So to play “Old Joe Clark” and “Over the Waterfall” and have the drones in tune,   I bring the low string up to A, reversing the octaves of the drones. Sounds fine. Instead of the key of G, it is now in D. I can live happily with that. I haven’t yet settled on an Aeolian tuning. I may not need one. Dorian mode meets my needs right now.

There is one other tuning issue I may need to address further. The Grover tuners are a little gritty and tend to bind when the strings get tight. Working a little light lubricant into the gears and bearing surfaces helped some. Right now things are OK. But I may put tuner bushings in the peg holes. They provide a smooth surface for the string posts to turn on. That should make things work more easily.

And that’s my report on the new toy. As I said above, I love it, even with the playing adjustments I had to make. They were pretty minor. Once I started writing, I got a little carried away. Well, OK, obsessed. But if someone is considering a traditional style “dulcimore,” I hope this helps reduce the dithers.  

Nippon Special!

That is one really nice dulcimore!

This one is now a Japanese resident. Thanks, Dan. She's beautiful.  I'm really pleased.