Forum Activity for @strumelia

I just found this nice video with some good bones history:

Here is a video I made demonstrating how I change back and forth between the four most common dulcimer modes (mixolydian, aeolian, ionian, and dorian) in the key of D, by changing the tuning on just the melody string. Sometimes seeing it done feels less complicaed than describing it.

Here's my blog post of it:

Retuning between the modes

and the video itself (r.i.p my kitty Pearl):

Sometimes when I'm learning something new that involves a lot of information and variations, it begins to feel too overwhelming yet I naturally want to understand it all right away, so I can make decisions about what path I want to follow or explore.  When I get that feeling of being overwhelmed by my lack of knowledge I tend to ask questions that get me answers I don't yet understand anyway.  That's because I want to know about points 9, 10, and 11 without really understanding points 3, 4 and 5 yet.   For myself, I do best when I then focus on the basics before diving into trying to understand lots of finer points all at once.  I find that my knowledge tends to build on itself like a tower of blocks, and it sticks in my head better that way too.  :)

Rob, as someone who usually prefers oldtime to jazzier or bluesier stuff, I really wondered whether I would like Dom's new trio, considering it had a 'real' drummer with a full drum set, and a bass fiddle player...sounded like a jazz trio to me.  But they actually played a wide variety of stuff including lots of 1920s-50s depression era songs I liked.  Even their modern stuff they did with lots home grown flair.  It was good!  Dom has tons of energy- the concert was 90 minutes with no break, and with much high energy dance, bones, harmonica, guitar, and some incredible raggy style plectrum banjo playing at warp speed by Dom that was amazing.  He really gives his all, and his two partners add to the fun.  They are all absolute sweethearts.  Rob I know they would enjoy playing with you, you are the real deal.      Their fiddle and bass player Brian found out I play limberjack and told me he always wanted to learn it but didnt know how to get one or get started.  I gave him a simple limberjack i had that was kind of an 'extra' I had, and I showed him the basics...he was so excited!   You can see him happily holding it in the photo I posted.  I bet he would have loved a little dulcimer lesson from you as well.   They are all three just like that- so open and excited about music and people.

Jan- that's a great link to some great music!   I bet you do still have some hidden 'special powers' though...one day you'll swoop into action and we'll all be saved and amazed! 

I find that even if i practice the bones for 30 minutes a day or for an hour every other day...  well there are some days when everything seems to be clicking pretty well (pun intended) and other days when nothing goes right and I stumble through it all badly.  Ugh!  I get much more consistent practice experiences when i practice other instruments.   I suspect this is just because the learning curve is big for me on this, and am hoping to get more consistent practice experiences as I continue.  I've never ever been one of those kids who tapped their pencils on their desks, so percussion is kind of a challenge.  I did manage to get a pretty good foot tapping thing going after 6 months of determined practice...so i know I can get results with lots of practice.  But percussion has never come naturally for me.  It's real work! 

I think the obvious name would be Ham-Bones.    lolol   

Sheryl, love your new avatar!

Hey Lois, 

if you find you want to keep one dulcimer tuned to the key of G in order to sing with better, you could put a set of strings on that dulcimer that is just one step heavier ...as in maybe a .011 or a .012 string instead of a .010 for example.  You would do this if the lower G tuning feels a bit slack.  A slightly heavier string will feel a bit tighter tensioned than a thinner string tuned to the same note.

A Big welcome to father and son! 

Jan gave you some great info on noters.

For some additional ideas about what types of noters one can buy or find and how to hold them , etc, you might enjoy a little video I made about notesrs...

Sheryl that's so cool-  be sure to keep us posted here as you progress.   Brian still has a set of four walnut bones he carved when he was in college, several decades ago!   He can play a little, but chooses not to (a true gentleman? lol).   That set is bigger than average, and is too big for my hands, so I can't really play his nice vintage set.  I now keep a round can, like a 'vase' of bones, on my desk.  

I like to think this hamster is playing tiny bones: 

Have fun Ken!!!

Jan, I've never tried spoons, but thye seem to be a whole different dynamic than bones, in terms of playing technique.  Though in the end, it's all a clacking/clicking rhythm result.  

You silly!   See the big drum on the right get going at 2:00.  

Thanks for the cool responses guys!

Brian went out today for an hour, and because my bones practice is a bit irritating to hear, I did my practice while I was alone in the house.  Rattling away all carefree-like.... I then heard a voice calling up to my window...saying  YooooHoooooo!-I hear them Bones rattling!!!
I was rather mortified to realize that my nieghbor who brought us some maple syrup  had not been able to get a response to his door knocking and so he walked round the house and was listening to my bones practice through my second story window...       D'oh!!!  lol

He said it sounded fine but I was kind of embarrassed, since I am definitely not sounding good yet.   ;)

I'm practicing regularly now at home to get better at playing the rhythm bones.  Been trying to learn off and on for several years, but kept running into a wall.   Finally I had a great 2 hour lesson from Dom Flemons last month and am now making slow progress.  Boy, it's way harder than I thought it would be!  But hey, I'm working hard at it and each week I seem a tiny bit better.

If I can get better, it sure will be a good added skill to have at big campout gatherings and of course at 1800s music gatherings with Civil War era repertoire.

Anyone else here play the bones?

This simple 'fix' applies as well to this issue: http://fotmd.com/forums/forum/new-site-questions-how-do-i/14547/top-links-not-showing-well-on-mobile

-it's just a matter of flipping yiour device vertical or horizontal, or maybe resizing the content by 'pinching'/expanding.

Mobile devices can be a bit picky. 

Though this thread is "Pets and Dulcimers "....don't forget about our ever-popular "Show Us Your Pets!" thread:  http://fotmd.com/forums/forum/off-topic-discussions/11944/show-us-your-pets       

Personally, I find I have more 'pick noise' (I see it as 'pick percussion') when my pick is longer and/or more flexible/thin.
I myself have found that a short stiff thicker rounded-cornered guitar pick tends to gives the least pick noise.  But that also happens to be the hardest to hold onto if you are doing vigorous strumming and strong flatpicking.  In those cases, try a dab of GorillaSnot product on your fingertips-  it lasts through a jam but rubs off easily when you're done.  Just like violin rosin, it's made from tree rosin but in a paste-like medium, in a little jar.  Smells like xmas trees. 

Linda, it won't let you change your password because all the answer boxes in your profile questions are blank.  Answers are required, including checking male/female box.  This helps me detect spammers and keep our site spam free.  The answers don't even have to be correct, but please put in some info.  I'm not sure how you joined to begin with without filling in profile answers at all-  or maybe you removed the answers after joining?

In any case, please fill in answers for all those blank boxes, check female, put in your new passwork twice, and then hit SAVE at bottom.  That will work.  If you leave any box blank it will not let you change your password.  This is for your own protection as well.

I am extremely happy to announce that we have now added THREE brand new additions to the FOTMD Moderator team!! 

As FOTMD continues to grow and evolve, I am so grateful for the generous guidance and assistance of the site Moderators, and now there are FIVE site moderators who help out every day to keep FOTMD on an even keel.

Please see the initial post in this thread to meet and our BRAND NEW Moderators!

Thanks and big hugs to Bob, Jan, and Sam ! 

Yes that was the old URL for this site, Friends of the Mountain Dulcimer.  We used to be hosted on ning, but now we are free of ning and own our site completely, and it's new URL is  fotmd.com

Yes please do update your defunct bookmarks wherever possible, as the old site has been deleted.  Thank you!

The above issue is now CORRECTED in the email notification links!  

A psaltery bow yes, would be ideal!   It's more more nimble and light than even a short violin bow.  The bow hair should be laid out in a small round 'rope' shape rather than a violin bow flat wide 'tape' shape...which I found gets caught on the zither pins too often when jumping quickly between the pins, as in bowed psatery playing.

In a pinch, for a rustic 'disposable' bow-   you can even take an arched bent green branch between 1/4"-3/8" thick, cut deep notches at both ends, and set a hank of bow hair in it.  Tie a knot at one end of the hair hank and lay it into one notch.  Comb the hair straight without handling it in the middle (no finger grease!)...pull it to a good tension and lay it in the other notch by tying another knot at that end.  Once you have it nicely set and tensioned to your liking, you can put a dot of glue on each knot to keep it in place well.  Rosin it up very well to start with, then lightly thereafter.

You can buy black stallion horsehair hanks already measured and knotted at one end on Ebay, not that expensive.  You can use a whole hank for a rustic bow, or half a hank if you want a thinner hair 'rope'.   Some folks make a slight twist in the hair 'rope' when setting the hair in.  I found that works well when making twisted horsehair strings, and personally I like non-twisted hair for bows.

I've found that such rustic 'bent stick/hank of hair' bows work surprisingly well and are kind of fun for psalteries, rebecs, jouhikkos, etc.  If you use an underhand grip to bow (as with a jouhikko/tagelharpa) you can leave the hair more slack because you tension the hair while playing, with your bow grip hand.

Wow, June was so hot that for the first time ever, our backyard blueberry harvest is now overlapping with our garden tomato season. 

Today I made a big blueberry pie AND picked several gigantic ripe red and yellow tomatoes.  I think we may have another 10 days of blueberries or so.  Spent an hour and a half working my way along the rows pulling up weeds in the vegetable garden.  Probably three more days of the same to finish that round.  The bending is tough, but I find kneeling is worse.  sigh....then you blink and the weeds are all back again...lol.
For lunch I had two fresh thick sliced tomato sandwiches with mayo and onions.  Bought some bacon so we can start making BLTs tomorrow...

Well, that was easy!   

I have both an old fashioned paper calendar hanging on my office wall and calendars on my computer desktop and my ipad.  The digital calandars are kinda cool because many of them will allow you to set popup reminders ahead of important events.  Lots of stuff I'd forget if it weren't for that.   

Thanks Robin!

To send a PM:

As Robin said, Hover on your top navbar NAME LINK, and the drop-dpown menu will show "Private Messages"-  click to get to your Message area.

There you can see past message threads you may have sent or received.  To create a NEW pm, look there top right for "New Message" button.  go there and start typing a name, like John...and all members with John will show in a list as you type (autofill) and you pick which John you want to send it to. and you type your PM and then send.

Make sure you look in your "Notifications TAB" in your Account Settings area, to checkbox the things you would like to receive email notifications on...like be notified when you receive a private message, for example.

Hope this helps!

What kinds of tunes are these?   Traditional irish maybe?

You might be able to embed an mp3 into a post here...in the texbox, click on the video-y looking icon on the right (right before the smiley icon) and explore that.

Hi Charles, you can link to that recording here in a discussion if it resides someplace else online, but you can't upload the recording to your member audio clips- because all audio/video clips uploaded to the music and video site sections have to feature yourself playing or performing...see the site rules.  Had to remove the recording.  Very sorry! 

2)  Your profile page "EVENTS TAB" and "CALENDAR TAB" are designed to show events that YOU created, and their dates.

Thus, since Leo is the person who created that Harvest event, if you go to HIS profile page and click on his Events Tab and his Calendar Tab, you WILL see the Harvest event listed there in both places:  http://fotmd.com/leo-kretzner/event

In general, our profile pages will show things that we ourselves have created .  That's also why most members here will not have anything showing in their Groups TAB on their profile page- because they have not created any groups/don't 'own' any groups.  To see the groups you are a member of , you hover over your top navbar NAME link, where the drop down menu shows things like your Private messages inbox, Logout, groups you are following (a member of), and your account settings.

If you ever create an event such as a festival or gathering, it will then appear in your profile page Events Tab and on your own events' Calendar.

I know it's all different from what you are used to, but once you get familiar with the 'concepts' of how this site works, such things begin to make more sense.  At least, that's what happened to me!  Stuff that used to make me go "Huh??" now make make me go "Oh yeah, of course!"

I do apologise to everyone for the significant learning curve for our new home here- there was only so much that I was able to recreate to mimic or function in the very same way as folks are used to from our old site.   I'm pretty certain that over time, most of these things will become less puzzling.

P.S. Tumbleweed, if you are attending that event, then YES i would definitely click as well to "Follow" it- that way you'll get notified if others post in or update that event.

I'm sorry for the confusion concerning how the "attending/calendar' features function.

Tumbleweed, this is one of those things that I need to explain carefully, so please bear with me...

1)  When you clicked the "attending" button, you DID successfully subscribe to be shown as someone who will be attending that event. You are shown in the event's list of attendees, here:

Joe thank you so much for your encouraging post.   Yes your avatar image is fun and original!   It's amazing how delightful some people's images are- and so much wonderful variety!      Big hug to you...

Thanks guys.   I know that it's not always intuitive and breezy to figure out how things work here-  partly because we are sooo used to things working a certain way.  We're on a whole different platform now, that was pulled around this way and that to make it function as closely as possible to how we have been used to for six years-  but some things are just plain built differently and we have to learn new 'work patterns' to get around and do stuff that used to be familiar but now works differently.

It's kind of like remodeling a house-  the entrance door used to be on the side, but you put a window there instead and relocate the door at the back so people can drive around and bring in their groceries in more easily...people will keep automatically knocking at the side window while fumbling for their keys....for a good long while...  lol.

I appreciate your extreme patience... the good news is that the place is pretty good already and will only get better slowly and steadily!  And we are now SAFE, updated, and expanded.  In contrast, the old site was being badly neglected by the old provider, and we were completely dependent on that company to keep it running FOR us.  Now there is no uncaring corporation to be dependant on anymore.  

Ken, great idea!  I'll be sure to put this in my 300 page "Tips on Navigating FOTMD" outline I was planning to write this afternoon! 

Great!  And I didn't even have to 'fix' anything!  

I should mention however, that there IS something I'm working on fixing that is related but different-   When we are 'following' a discussion and we get an emailed notification of a new post, if we click the link in the email, we are not taken to the new post as we should be...instead we are taken to the reply box at the bottom of the discussion's first page.  This is something I currently AM working to correct.  

You guys are totally crackin me up

I need a bigger red pen.

Ken...now you'll have me counting the hairs in my hairbrush....     

(that last picture looks like a football play....)

('AngryFishingGuy' would doubtless have lots to say about all this!)   

Sheryl, KenH, KenBacker...?    Does this help you all?

Ah you mean hovering over their Avatar picture on the right?  True!  though it doesnt give the exact time.

However, on the fotmd Main Page, in the lower left module titled "Latest Forum Posts"... it DOES tell you the last poster and the exact time of their post.  Also when yuo are THERE, clicking on the thread title WILL bring you to the latest post in the thread. (possibly because there's no other choices to click on)

Sorry I know that's a bit odd that it's different there than the other place, but hey nothing's perfect right?  Maybe I can do a rehaul down the road a ways...  or next year... when i'm old...  gettin there fast...  lol!  

I realize that this may not be terribly obvious, but does this help solve the issue?

I discovered it simply by trying to 'click differently' when I wasn't getting the result I expected.