Forum Activity for @strumelia

Patty!  What an adorable smiley puppy face!  

I love Spring... it inspires me to cook more and to prepare healthier food, for one thing.

We have fresh ruby red leaf lettuce growing in the garden now, so making fresh salads is a frequent thing.

Today I'm tying the young tomato plants to their stakes.. they're now tall enough to get damaged in a heavy storm.

Can't wait for corn season.  :D

We are very happily enjoying our new large screen porch we put in last Fall.  So nice to eat outside in the evening by candlelight ... crickets chirping... with not a single thought or care about mosquitos!

I've managed to lose a few pounds during the past 6 months by eating a little more fruits and vegetables, and a little less junk.

Tomorrow morning will zip over to our local fairgrounds for 45 minutes and go for a brisk 2 mile walk before the morning gets too warm.  I'm trying to do this once or maybe twice a week now, just for good measure.  I've learned if I try to do 'too much' I end up avoiding it altogether.  So it's better to keep my goals do-able.  :)

Just a reminder to everyone that we have a Site Questions Forum where you can find answers to many of the most common questions about how FOTMD works:

https://fotmd.com/forums/forum/site-questions-how-do-i

Not sure how to start a forum thread?  How to add a video?  How to change your avatar picture?  How to send a private message? ... take a look there and you will likely find an existing thread explaining just how to do that!  If you don't find the existing answer, then add your own new thread in that forum asking how to do a particular thing on FOTMD.

Our site questions forum is the EZ place to get answers on how to use our FOTMD site!   

Those dolphins are so gracefully designed, Dusty.

One of my favorite sound hole shapes is the quatrefoil ("four leaf").  Not sure why, I just like it and it has an old feel to it.
I had it used for sound holes on both my jouhikko and my "Elizabethan Garden" epinette des Vosges.

Richard you said it all.  

I fixed Sandi's link.  FWIW to everyone... if you put a link on its own line (hit 'enter' before pasting the link), it creates a working hotlink more reliably. 

Lois that's very kind of you to post.  FOTMD server/software costs are paid entirely from member donations, and all donations are much appreciated.       As for my time, well it's a labor of love for me, as well as our volunteer moderators.

Both Ron Zuckerman and Ken Longfield deserve our thanks for the work and dedication they put in as ED's Moderators/Admins when Bruce wasn't around (which was often, lol).  Well done, Ken and Ron!  

Ron's correct about the value of being able to search/find past content about specific subjects or people.

For example, if you want to find something you vaguely remember being posted on FOTMD concerning Tennessee music boxes, you can punch in:  TMB "Tennessee music box"
into the site search box and it pulls up this:

https://fotmd.com/search/results/all/1/25?search_string=TMB+%22Tennessee+music+box%22

Or do a search for:  fingerpicking fingerpicked

and you get this:

https://fotmd.com/search/results/all/1/25?search_string=fingerpicking+fingerpicked

Or if you search only within the Forums for: "Richard Farina"   you will get this:

https://fotmd.com/forums/forum?search_string=%22Richard+Farina%22

The amazing ED forums had 16 years' worth of discussions and valuable information on dulcimers, contributed by hundreds of passionate and thoughtful people.  

The EverythingDulcimer .com site has now shut down.  If you have bookmared the discussion forum, you'll no longer find anything there.

As he said he would do, Bruce very graciously made sure that folks can download for themselves all the site's TABS, Articles, Events, Club Listings, and Teacher/builder/performer Listing .  You can just click on the links he left for this and you'll be downloading a zip folder containing all the desired content. 
To read Bruce's message and get the links, go to the domain's main page here:

http://everythingdulcimer.com/

One word of advice I would add is that if you want to keep some of that content Bruce linked to, you should download it now... because he likely will not keep the page with the links and explanation there forever.

Bruce did not hand over the ED forums to someone else, and he explained his reasons there, which I think make a lot of sense.

As most of you know, the ED Facebook page will continue on, and is run by Ron Zuckerman, who is now also a member of FOTMD (welcome Ron!)

I know we are all very grateful to Bruce for having given us a wonderful place to connect, discuss, and learn about dulcimers for 16 years. That's a long time to run an interactive site.   

Do share with us your initial impressions on bamboo noters when you receive them, Sandi.

So great to have you posting here again, by the way!  

Glass noters I've tried out seem to give an odd metallic tone. Might be cool for certain effects though.

Every time I've settled on a favorite noter, a month or two later I discover that one of my other noters is actually my favorite.      I'm a fickle gal.

I wanted to remind folks to check their everythingdulcimer.com private message INbox and Sent box etc, to save any important private messages  in your ED account that you might not want to lose.  Only 4 days left...     

(bump)

Robin, thanks so much!  Your descriptive word for this sound, "flatfoot" is perfect.. I can close my eyes and see someone dancing in old leather shoes on the wood floor...  

Hey Robin- didn't you used to have a video on here demonstrating your felt pick?  It was great...where'd it go?  

When putting simply the word "picks" in our site-wide search engine, it pulls up a veritable feast of pink adventures to enjoy exploring:

https://fotmd.com/search/results/all/1/25?search_string=picks   

I wrote a blog post a few years back describing my own fickle adventures with picks as well:

https://dulcimer-noter-drone.blogspot.com/2009/03/take-your-pick.html

Oh my.... sweetness OVERLOAD!  

Love the one little grey pinky toe.

@cself, thanks so much for posting the direct YT links to Dusty's vids-  Dusty's older link was from when this site, FOTMD, was on another platform years ago, and thus the link did not function anymore.  I've taken the initiative of editing Dusty's old post to reflect the new links you posted as well.  Dusty's videos are SO worth watching!   Thank you!  

I'd like to add a couple of points to this thread:

1) Any time cookies are cleared or removed in your Browser, you will be logged out of most sites, even if you have the 'remember me' box checked.  Once you log in again, a new cookie will be created for making logging in easier.  If you have your browser set to not accept any cookies, then you will be needing to log in every time you visit FOTMD.  Likewise, if you share your computer, the same thing will happen if other users clear browser cookies. Also, the cookie settings on your tablet or phone will be different than the ones on your desktop, so you can't expect the exact same behavior across your devices.

2) This site is set so that if you don't delete your cookies and have the login 'remember me' box checked, then that particular device will keep you logged in for a certain number of days, or perhaps as long as a couple of weeks.  But it's not set to keep you logged in 'forever' (which is a good thing) ...so there will naturally be times every week or two where you WILL need to log in again when you visit.  This is normal. I find that I myself must log in at least once a week, even though i visit several times a day.

The 'remember me' checkbox is convenient, but if cookies are cleared on your browser you will be logged out despite that.  And the 'remember me' setting is only for a certain number of days, not 'forever'.  If you have the remember me checkbox checked and you still have to log in every day, then the suspect cause is likely that your browser cookies are somehow being cleared or not being allowed.

Hope this helps!

As Bridge just hinted at with his 'gut feeling' comment, the problem here could be that you are expecting equal temperament sounds on an older dulcimer that may have been fretted in just temperament.  This would result in an instrument that not only sounds badly intonated when in DAd tuning, but even in DAA tuning when chording it across all strings.

Our member Robin Clark has written extensively over on the ED forums about equal vs. just tempered scales on older dulcimers.  I don't know how much you guys already know or don't know about this subject, but here are a few of Robin's posts on it over on ED (which will sadly shut down at the end of this month):

http://everythingdulcimer.com/discuss/search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&author_id=6698

There are also a lot of great discussions here on FOTMD concerning the equal vs. just temperament factor with older dulcimers:

https://fotmd.com/search/results/all/1/25?search_string=just+temperament

One thing I would say is that many folks wind up thinking their old dulcimer was improperly fretted and they proceed to pull out all the original frets and refret it in equal temperament. This is a disservice to irreplaceable older dulcimers and will immediately and severely devalue them forever (that's assuming they were not actually badly fretted by an inexperienced maker).  If one needs an equal tempered scale due to how one wants to play (intended repertoire, playing style, tunings), one would do far better to simply use a more modern equal-intonated dulcimer.  The old just-intonated dulcimer fret spacings sound sweeeeet when you play noter style in ionian tuning, as they were designed to be played.  

Again, I do NOT know if a just temperament is the cause for the frets being 'out of tune' in this instance, and I don't know anyone's expertise or knowledge level here.  But any time an old dulcimer is involved and thought to be badly fretted, the intended fret scale should be high up on the list of factors.  

I'm hoping Robin Clark will jump in here, since he has done a lot of research and experimentation on the subject.

I've moved this thread to our "Instruments- specific features, luthiers, etc" forum since it will be helpful to others seeking shorter scale/vsl McSpaddens in the future.  I also removed a few posts that were veering into different directions in a non-constructive way.  Thanks, and carry on!  

This is cool.

I did however, move this thread to the "Instruments- luthiers/instruments Forum because it's about a specific maker and the issues effecting the instrument's playability.  

I like Randy's suggestion- so the main rhythm leaders can better keep all together!

If it's this tune:

http://abcnotation.com/tunePage?a=nlfiddlers.org/ABCtunes/Reels/0011

then it's a very old fiddle tune (Scottish maybe?).  A tune , not a song .  Not sure if anyone's written words to it in more modern times, but I've only ever heard it played as a fiddle tune in oldtime festivals.

Hi JP,  Dusty Turtle has answered your questions.  (thanks Dusty!)

A couple additional details I'll add-  

I just created a new discussion outlining the simple steps to add an Audio file (your own Mp3 file, or soundcloud) to this site, see here:

https://fotmd.com/forums/forum/site-questions-how-do-i/32804/how-to-add-an-audio-mp3-or-soundcloud-clip-to-fotmd

A good way to learn your way around here is to click on the links along the top of the navigation bar on every page.  It shows the main areas.  They pertain to what 'everyone' posts.  Another good way is to click on the links you find on your own profile page... they pertain more to content that YOU post.

Do look through the Site Questions forum Dusty linked to.  It contains other threads that have been asked and answered, like: How do I post a Video?

And do look through the Site Rules Dusty linked to as well.  There it explains more answers to your questions, like: What kind of videos are allowed?  Reading the site rules will help you avoid posting something that moderators will remove. 

Lastly, because this thread is all about how to use this site, I'm now going to move it into the Site Questions Forum, so that others will benefit from it as well.   Thanks!  

Lois, I'm not privy to any inside info, but I really believe that Bruce will make sure that *IF* the ED forums shut down, that at least the static content such as articles and Tab will be relocated and available online somewhere "in perpetuity" as he put it.  Bruce has indicated that this is his intention, and we have no reason to doubt it.

Additionally, there seems to be a bunch of people making offers to take over running the ED forums.  We don't know if/how that might work out, but it's another possible outcome.  And it seems yet others are downloading the entire site onto home drives.
I feel we need to patiently wait and see what develops.

Susie, I'm sure the location of the tabs from ED will be well posted by many, no matter how the scenario plays out.  

Again...  Bruce Ford says he will keep ED's Tab files available online for everyone to use, and no need for everyone to download all the Tabs.

You da man Dusty, with yer superpower little jump drive!    

Ken, wasn't that when they were making floppies out of stone tablets?   

Hi Indy!

To post an ad to sell an instrument, first click on link to "Forums" along the top row of site links on any page here.  Then find the For Sale Forum at bottom of the list of forums .  Once there, click the big "+" button to create your new thread.  Be sure to read our guidelines for posting sale ads there.  We do ask that you make a site donation of $5-   if your ad results in a sale for you.   :) 

Hey I remember when 4 GB was considered HUGE... :D
ED is mostly a PHP forum, and text does not typically take up that much in terms of server size. Because of our multimedia content, FOTMD currently uses 23 GB of our 48 GB dedicated server.  If I wanted to put fomtd on a smaller/cheaper 24 GB server, we wouldn't have room for any new members or content, and I'd have to remove a bunch of content and members to allow for normal growth.

I find my idea of my favorite pick changes from year to year.  I have a whole box of favorite picks I've collected over time, and they are not all that similar... It's funny how our own playing preferences can change and evolve!

Don't forget, Bruce did write the following:

"We have some great resources like our tablature, articles and other items not directly associated with a user account that needs a place to live. I’m going to look for options of how best to make these resources available in perpetuity."

Bruce may well be making plans to house the Tabs and articles someplace online himself.

The FOTMD moderators and I are going to be keeping the discussion about ED closing focused in one thread, so people won't get confused by multiple ongoing threads about the same subject.

Please follow Dusty's link below to the active discussion where anyone can post about it.  I'll lock this thread now. 

Thanks for understanding!

Kusani, I was just as surprised as everyone else to find out about this today.  Right now, everybody (myself included) likely needs some time to wrap their heads around it all.  In any case, it's not really my place to insert myself into.

In the meantime, as others have suggested, people should take the time to download whatever Articles they are interested in on ED, and probably also a good idea to just take an hour or three to go through the TAB collection there and download your favorites.  Saving your favorite articles and TABs will go a long way towards feeling a little more grounded.  Lois' reminder is also good, in that most pages on ED will be still somewhat accessible through the internet archive.

Here is where you can get more info:

http://everythingdulcimer.com/discuss/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=34074

and here:

http://everythingdulcimer.com/ed_end_of_life.pdf

I moved this thread to our forum on specific luthiers' instruments, questions, and instrument issues.