Forum Activity for @strumelia

I have never seen an established American dulcimer company that does not put together all their dulcimers by hand, with care. Any maker that sells multiple dulcimers is naturally going to make up some of the pieces in multiples ahead of time to save time- so for a standard size they build often, maybe they'll cut 6 fret boards instead of only one. Even a maker who produces only custom dulcimers, one at a time- well if they've sold dulcimers for a while, they likely have some parts already cut and hanging on the wall, ready to use on their new custom order.

I've never heard of an actual assembly line for dulcimers, or of machines that make dulcimers. This isn't China we're talking about. 
I believe that companies that sell lots of dulcimers will definitely have an organized method that saves time and is simply more efficient. Even small luthiers have ways they use to avoid wasting time and energy. Any outfit that offers their own standard model dulcimer would be losing potential customers if they didn't have a couple of them made and ready to ship.
This simply means it makes sense to put together their more popular dulcimers several at a time. 
And if a company produces a lower priced model of dulcimer based on less expensive materials such as plywood, or a standard model that they sell a lot of and therefore have some in stock ready to ship... well that still doesn't mean it was created on an assembly line, and it doesn't mean it was not hand made with care and attention. Just my two cents.

@lisavb , that sounds terrific!  What a lovely mellow tone, and you have a nice touch when playing.     I'm also impressed that you figured out on your own so quickly how to get a sound clip up in your post.

This is a common thing- once winter sets in, the bass string begins to have a buzz against one or more frets. The Winter Buzz. That's due to the shrinking/expanding of the instrument and the resulting lessening of tension on the strings. The bass string has a wider vibrating arc when played and it's also the fattest string, so it happens there most often.

The first and easiest thing to try and also the least invasive:  replace the bass string with one that is a step thicker.  If it's a .24 wound string, replace it with a .26 wound string, for example.  The tighter tension will pull the bass string tauter and prevent it from swinging around so much when played. 
Please, try this simple string change before you start sanding things and altering bridges!

Personally, I usually post a video to Youtube first, and then just put in the youtube link to either link the vid in a post here, or I add it to the fotmd video section if it's an actual tune.
If it's just a short demo video, you might try adding the file as an attachment to a post here. See the "add attachment" button below where you type when making a post?  See if that works for your sample clip.   :)

Your new dulcimer is lovely!  So glad it's a pleasure to play.

Terry, so lovely to read this.

Don, what a wonderful thing your son did for you!  He must love you a lot.

Dusty I love that - so simple yet so true! Like a true companion... 

I just found this wonderful article on how to enjoy your holidays this year if you are by yourself at home...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/23/us/how-to-spend-holidays-alone-wellness-trnd/index.html

Another year passed. I wish all FOTMD members a warm and healthy Thanksgiving.  We share our little online 'family' here with affection and gratitude.

Holly, get the regular TiteBond, not TiteBond II (which is waterproof and therefore very difficult to remove by heat or steam, in the event of needed future fixes on the dulcimer)

Susie I'm curious- the white circle right on the end of the scorpion's tail- is that a hole used for playing?

Very nicely done PVC case!

When i used to go to old-time music festivals and gatherings a lot, I'd often bring two dulcimers or two banjos:

One dulcimer I'd use for the keys of C and D (tuning up or down one step on all strings), and the other dulcimer I'd use for the keys of G and A (tuning up or down one step on all strings).

I'd often do the same with the two banjos.
Why?  Because going between the lowest key (G) and the highest key (D) sometimes means retuning a string by four whole steps up or down, and that's a real big jump which can result in more stressed and broken strings if you do it often. It 'can' be done, but is frustrating to do back and forth in the setting of jams or if folks change keys too often. The alternative was to use capos, which I try to avoid because I dislike the sound and feel.

Sometimes, to avoid bringing four instruments, I'd bring a dulcimer for C and D and a banjo tuned for G and A.

One minor point-  I'd like to mention that beginners often think that DAd is a completely different animal than CGc. Or that DAA is a completely different animal than CGG. They balk at having to 'learn a different tuning' and all that entails. They don't realize that it's really the same tuning but simply one whole step up or down, and it will play in the keys of C or D. That means they can use all the same fingerings and frets in the key of C as they are already familiar with in the key of D. They can follow the same Tab numbers, and don't have to learn new stuff. They'll just be playing in the key of D or C.  Same is true for the (1-5-8) tuning pair of DAd and CGc. If you are comfortable playing in DAd you already know how to play tunes in CGc... Likewise for the 'pair' of (1-5-5) tunings DAA and CGG.

Scott, many are the times when I have been enchanted by some tune only to realize later that it was way more complex than I thought. It's then simply a choice whether I tackle it or choose something a little more straightforward. 

Belinda, am responding to your issue over in that site help thread.  :)

I was glad that I got a new sewing machine for myself about 2 yrs ago. I've made maybe three dozen pleated masks for my husband and me, and sent some to our three children & their spouses. I use two layers of high thread count quilting cotton with a third layer inside of a non-woven filter material.

Thanks Richard. Our hope is that we can all do our part to tamp down the spread of this virus. Certainly enough people have died that we should all take it seriously and be responsible.

Be aware that there are variations in the tune(s), and also in the key i assume. You may find versions written out in other keys.

Just toilet paper again. 

Some people also call that tune "The Squirrel Hunters" or "Squirrel Hunter".  The tunes might be identical or just very similar, depending on whose version you are listening to. There is a lot of sheet music online for the squirrel version of "Hail...". There might only be small differences to work out between Squirrel.. and Hail.., if you need a start for a dulcimer version..

One small positive thing at my house- have been improving my cooking skills (which were pretty good to begin with).  Last night i stir fried some baby bok choy with some mushrooms and pan-seared raddichio wedges, served it over brown rice with tamari sauce. And it was good. 

Just me and my husband this year for thanksgiving. We're going to have a nice little roast chicken, with cranb sauce, stuffing, baked sweet potatoes, and ice cream for dessert...  at our now festively lit kitchen table. Since it's just two of us, we'll have the same identical meal the next day too with the plentiful leftovers.

Sounds to me like Mr. & Mrs. Claus are two very smart Christmas cookies. 

Belinda, what a tree!  I read in the news just today that Dr. Fauci says Santa is practically immune from Covid, so you must be relieved! 

https://people.com/human-interest/santa-claus-has-innate-immunity-from-covid-19-fauci-reveals/

Here is how my 'cozy lights' over the kitchen table came out- we had our first dinner under a mini canopy of stars! 

Well there's much similarity to the 'cozy' traditions found in colder winter Scandinavian/Northern countries. They know how to really enjoy the comforts that can be had during the dark winter, such as candles, hot cocoa, wooly socks and knit sweaters, warm food and hearty soups, lap throws, saunas, snowshoeing, baking, etc. They are experts in warding off the winter doldrums!

We all have just a few short months of winter to get through before Spring and perhaps an end to this horrible time of virus suffering and social quarantining.

Doesn't it look as though we may have some working vaccines after two or three more months? That is unbelievable and surely something to look forward to!
Just knowing that helps us face the next few dark cold dreary months.
Yes, our holiday season is going to be a bit different this year and maybe it will be hard to stay uplifted. Nowadays it's totally dark at 4pm.

I noticed the other night one of my neighbors... a lady who lives alone, had put up a whole bunch of twinkling colored Xmas lights in her window and on her front porch. It's still a week before Thanksgiving(!), but it struck me as so pretty and cozy. It inspired me to put up a few strands of twinkling lights myself!

I decided i would string some lights over our humble kitchen table nook where my husband and I eat all our meals. I have it in place now, and i can't wait til tonight to see how festive it looks when the sun goes down!  Maybe i'll post a picture here.
I did a little online looking and discovered that apparently there's a whole trend going on right now of people putting up holiday decorations early in order to feel cheerful and comforted despite the ongoing pandemic and the cold weather and short days setting in.
We won't be having a tree this year, and no family coming. But our little kitchen nook will be cheery for sure! 

Lisa, I had a friend years ago who bought a new all cherry hourglass McSpadden. It was wonderful sounding, smooth to play, and SO pretty!  You are going to love yours.

Personally I'm a big fan of the look of instruments that have bodies of all one wood/color. My Galax dulcimer is all cherry and has a nice rich but crisp tone.

One note-  when it arrives you may be surprised that the new cherry wood looks fairly light in color. Just know that it will get darker and richer in color over the months. Take some photos, because in two years it will look different! Both looks are gorgeous . If you want to speed up the darkening process a little, you can leave it exposed to normal room light instead of having it locked up in its dark case. The exposure to light is what slowly darkens it. This happened with my maple instruments as well.

ENJOY your new beauty, we are all excited for you! 

Maybe you mean bending a note, not a slide. But in any case, on a dulcimer you're not going to have action so high off the frets that you can get much of a sharp note by just pressing down harder with a noter on a slide. Most people will sharpen a fretted note by pulling it towards them or pushing it away from them with the fretting hand while fretting it, using the fretting finger or a noter stick. That's a side-to-side stretching of the string to sharpen the note, not a pushing down to the fretboard. I think maybe you are thinking about instruments where the strings are bridged or fretted way high up so that you can push the string down on either side of the bridge to sharpen a note without contacting any fret or fretboard?

It can create a slightly louder volume if an instrument is too quiet.

Pull-offs are easier.

Helps reduce fret buzzes that can happen with very low action. Additionally, you can put on heavy strings without risking buzzes. Eliminates 'mystery' buzzes that appear out of nowhere during the dry winter indoors.

You can strum more aggressively without strings slapping against the finger board, if you like playing vigorously.

Right hand fingerpicking can be easier depending on the fretboard, bridge, and 'strum hollow' design.

Less bumping into the fretboard with either flat picks or finger picks and the resultant thunking noise or pick clack noise.

Reduces pick scratches on the fretboard when you play further away from the bridge to get a mellower tone. True for either flat picks or fingerpicks.

Noter players tend to like higher action... maybe for some combination of the above or maybe they just like the feel. They can get away with higher action if not using bare fingers or making chords.

-----------

All this said, overly high action is both uncomfortable and causes its own problems.

Not sure why you say a slide would be easier with high action...?

As I wrote, tune the open strings to be in tune.

A couple of basic concepts here are:
1) the mere act of tuning = stretching the string to various tensions, causing the note to go higher or lower. If an open string is out of tune, you turn the pegs and tune it to be in tune. Just because a nut notch is higher or lower than the one next to it won't doom an open string to be out of tune by nature.

2) as to fretted strings: if a bridge/nut is very tall and makes the string action too high off the frets, then fretting the string can push down the string enough of a distance to cause a slight bend in the string and pull it a fretted note a little sharp. A 32nd of an inch slot height difference is not likely to do this enough to be able to hear it, especially while playing tunes.

Notches have two jobs: to keep the strings securely spaced from each other from side to side, and to hold the strings at a good height above the frets (action) so that playing will be comfortable for the way you play and so there won't be buzzing if the action is too low. Most folks like as low an action as possible without buzzing (especially beginners with hurting fingers), but there are good reasons why other folks might want slightly higher action. Too high an action causes problems too. Most people agree that dulcimer string notches should be of uniform action height, since there's no reason to purposely make them different heights.

The tiny amount of difference between notches in your photo of notches is probably not going to cause discernable out of tune-ness when playing. If a notch is a tiny bit too low though, it might cause fret buzzing, depending on the action height.

3) Assuming a reasonable action height for all strings, if the frets are in the right places, your fretted notes will sound generally in tune if the open string is in tune. 

Overall, it's common that people wind up buying used dulcimers that have had prior owners file nut and bridge slots to various heights and widths over time. Maybe they put on heavier strings at some point and widened the slots. Two of those U slots in your picture look way too wide for that string shown. Over time or with changing playing preferences, people can change their mind about action height they prefer, or string spacings. It's not uncommon for nuts and bridges to accumulate notch adjustments over time until the best option is to put in a new nut and/or bridge and start fresh, since nuts are cheap and it's usually a simple procedure. A good guitar luthier should have no trouble doing it right, and the job shouldn't cost a fortune.

You tune it so it's not sharp. You tune all your open strings to be in tune.

If it were me I'd get someone else to make a whole new nut. None of those 3 slots looks well made at all, though it's hard to tell anything for sure from the photo. Bad slots make for bad sounding notes, buzzes, and wolf tones.

KenL has it right though- have you determined that you want a pair of melody strings, or 4 equidistant strings? or.. the slots to switch between those two choices later if you want? Decide that first.
Also, remember the bridge will need to at least approximate a similar slot arrangement that echoes the nut.

I love hearing how everyone's doing and what your current interests/projects are.

Terry, a special hug to you- It's so good to see your post. I'm so glad to hear you are slowly recovering, that's sounds like a terrible ordeal.
Simply playing soothing notes for five minutes can be a true balm for our souls. 

John, I bet your son has no idea that his interest in learning classical guitar is lifting up and inspiring YOU as well. 

Dusty, one of the things i love most about Renaissance and medieval era music is how so many of the tunes go back and forth in using a sharp and a natural. It always tickles my senses when the note occurs one way and then the other. I find most often the sharp comes later on, after the natural in the first part.

Funny little story concerning the trash can icon button-

As Admin, I naturally have many more buttons available to me than the average member here. a couple years ago I went to delete a discussion from the Forums and I wasn't paying attention. I clicked the trash can icon and POOF! the entire forum for the whole site was gone. Ten years' worth of discussions, by thousands of members.   I thought I'd about die!
Luckily, there was a site backup that was only an hour old, and I was able to restore things to that point in time.
Immediately after all was well again, I adjusted the site code so that the trash can icon that would delete the entire Forum was not even visible to me anymore. Step awaaaaaay from the trash can! LOLOL 

Sending positive karma your way, Ken Longfield!

Jill, the only icon you might want to hesitate about clicking on is the trash can one. Trash cans will delete something!  Aside from that, it's great to learn by clicking on buttons and icons to find out what they do here on fotmd. Usually you can just hit 'back' or 'cancel' if you get to somewhere you don't want to be after clicking somewhere.   

Thanks Dusty.

Jill, here's an existing thread addressing the same question:

https://fotmd.com/forums/forum/site-questions-how-do-i/33226/how-do-i-ditch-this-chat-pop-up

I've cleaned up my modest vegetable garden for the winter (it's fenced in, about 20'x40', with three long 3 foot wide beds). Most of the plants had died already from exhaustion or from our first several mild frosts.
But a little section of young lettuces and a few dozen radish plants still survived and were growing.
I know from the forecast that some hard freezes in the 20s are coming this next week, so today I'll go out and cut a couple last bags' worth of leaf lettuce and pull a few last radishes. That'll last us for another couple of weeks eating.
At that point I'll switch to buying lettuce and doing my usual kitchen growing of alfalfa sprouts in jars. We love having a supply of fresh sprouts during the winter, and it's not so hard to keep up doing.

I do enjoy taking a total vacation from garden chores each winter!

I so  enjoyed this article and video of an elderly Italian man serenading his hospitalized wife outside her window, with her favorite songs played on accordion...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/11/europe/italian-hospital-serenade-scli-intl/index.html

Tim Grothen. Jim is helping out during the transition.

It's a miracle you even were able to tune your middle string up to a high A4 without it breaking. What gauge string is it??  I'm wondering if you are sure about what octave it's currently tuned to... maybe it is currently in A3. That's a real easy mistake to make.

Yes the middle string is usually a lower tone than the melody strings, --or the same tone, as in DAA tuning. 

Sorry, i corrected my typo.  The bass is D3, the middle A is A3, and the high melody d is D4.

Thus, a dulcimer tuning of DAA is (D3 A3 A3) on the piano. The common tuning DAd is (D3 A3 D4) on the piano. To play lonesome Aeolian mode tunes you might try tuning to DAc (D3 A3 C4).

Here's a decent chart.