Forum Activity for @ben-ramage

What's in a NAME???

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I have started calling my Ron Gibson "Jenny" (totally unoriginal, she is one of Ron's Jenny Lind models; my other is simply "the other one" or the Red Kite. My other instruments have similarly unoriginal names.  "Clouds" (5 string banjo whose fret markers are shaped like clouds), the Short Stalk (short stalk 5 string) the Davidson is a 5 string travel banjo tuned to A named after the maker, a luthier called Phil Davidson, who also made my guitar bodied bouzouki which is called the "8 String". I have two Gibson mandolins called with blinding unoriginality "The 1932" (go on guess when it was made) and the 1923 Snakehead (or, simply "the snakehead"). Then there's the Weber, (named for the former Gibson luthier who built it, not for the barbecue) and so it goes.  I agree with the statement never name something you might have to sell.

Why do people always pick on the banjo player?

I have a 6 string from Ron. I found him helpful to deal with, the instrument is well made, looks good and plays well.

Naomi

I know it will be much better to have your very own personalised instrument, but as my mother always told me, I was born impatatient.

Naomi,

I am so sorry, but when I saw it and listened to the sound bites on the web site, I deliberated for about as long as it took to open my laptop and email Ron to ask him to ship to England.

I must confess to being equally guilty, here is my latest (awaiting deliveryfrom Ron)

http://gibsondulcimers.com/In%20Stock/JL%2054112%20JL/54112%20Front.jpg

With tongue only slightly in cheek. If, like me, you moved here from mandolin/bouzouki world, you already know about twin courses of strings, (tuning a mandolin can be the most soul destroying experience), but hey if you really really want one and are suffering from Dulcimer Deficiency Syndrome, then get out and start looking at six strings. Then you will know what to look for when you are ready to go for that next dulcimer.

Iplayed MandolinuntilI damaged a finger on my left hand that meansI can no longer play 4 finger closed chords (Bluegrass style mandolin adds "percussion" to the ensemble using closed chords when not playing melody). I can still play melody to some extent; tunes range from Bluegrass or Old Time to Scottish or Irish Folk (Iwent to universityin Glasgow in the Folk Revival of the sixties, when I had pretensions to become a banjo player) Nowadays, it's Soldier's Joy to Wha' Saw the 42nd via Doon In The Wee Room, or Over The Waterfall. I now play a guitar bodied bouzouki, tuned GDAE, which I can do 2 fingered (it's amazing how many 2 fingered open chords there are and how effective they can be). Theoretically I play in what you might call a 'Garage band' but we meet on a boat about twice a year, so usually I strum unaccompanied; anything from City of New Orleans to Norwegian Wood, via (Dublin in) The Rare Ould Times, The Gresham Disaster, or Sinking of the Reuben James/Wildwood Flower. I have absolutely no idea where I am going to find folks with whom to join in on dulcimer. I will have to persuade my 'boat band' to play more Joni Mitchell!

And as an even further complication, neither can I count! The bouzouki has two (that's 2) courses tuned an octave apart, namely those that I tune as G and D in GDAE that's the twocourses which have wound strings. It's the heat that does it, we haven't had rain here in England for at least a day, my brain is turning to mush!

Ben Ramage said:

At risk of oversimplification, an octave mandolin is a big bodied mandolin (called a mandola in the UK) that is tuned an octave below a mandolin, all courses being in unison. I tune mine GDAe. An Irish bouzouki is an offshoot of the Greek bouzouki, it may, but need not be round bowled. Mine is guitar bodied. Scale length may vary between 580 mm and 600mm. It has the bass courses tuned an octave apart, not in unison. My bouzouki is gG DD AAee (if you take my drift), others tune theirs GDAd or ADAd. To complicate matters some Irish bouzouki players tune all string courses in unison the same as a mandola. I am not an expert on it I tend to use it as the mandolin equivalent of a 12 string guitar (hence the guitar body).

And to complicate things even further, yes that is a 5 string banjo I am holding in the photo!

At risk of oversimplification, an octave mandolin is a big bodied mandolin (called a mandola in the UK) that is tuned an octave below a mandolin, all courses being in unison. I tune mine GDAe. An Irish bouzouki is an offshoot of the Greek bouzouki, it may, but need not be round bowled. Mine is guitar bodied. Scale length may vary between 580 mm and 600mm. It has the bass courses tuned an octave apart, not in unison. My bouzouki is gG DD AAee (if you take my drift), others tune theirs GDAd or ADAd. To complicate matters some Irish bouzouki players tune all string courses in unison the same as a mandola. I am not an expert on it I tend to use it as the mandolin equivalent of a 12 string guitar (hence the guitar body).

And to complicate things even further, yes that is a 5 string banjo I am holding in the photo!