Forum Activity for @ken-hulme

Unless you have perfect pitch, for all intents and purposes, any ordinary dulcimer like a McSppaden can be played in either DAd or DAA without any issues, simply by changing the tuning. You'll nevere hear the difference.   Any ordinary dulcimer can be played in any tuning, provided the strings are appropriate for the tuning you want.  A standard string set for DAA/DAd will let you tune up to FCC or FCf before the strings get too tight; or down to BEE or BEb before the strings get sloppy loose.

There are indeed dulcimers built specifically for certain tunings.  But McSpadden is talking about tuning the dulcimer a certain way, not building it to be only played in DAA versus DAd...  Nate is right to say that the intonation can be tweaked slightly, but most people can't hear the difference...

The onlty slide player I've ever seen was at Cullowee years ago when I was in the Traditional track. One of the teachers -- Norris Bennet --  was a member of the Ebony Hillbillies, the famous black NYC string band.  Slide dulcimer certainly is an interesting sound.  As Wally sez, you can try other gauges but there are scientific reasons why you can only go so thick or thin on string gauges for a particular VSL. 

Something you might want to try is using wound versions of the mid and melody strings, to 'fatten them up' closer to the diameter of the bass.  Juststrings.com sells Phosphor Bronze wound 12 and 14 gauge Acoustic Guitar strings for $4-$8 depending on brand (and string brand is irrelevant).   

Conversely, you can try using a plain steel bass string (we traditional dulcimer players do this all the time to help us get that 'high silvery' tradtional sound.

Also, the bass string notches in the nut & bridge could be filed just a very tiny bit deeper to bring the top of the bass string down just the tiniest bit. 

RevDave -- I suggest investing $50 or so in a carboard dulcimer.  The sound is good, the frets are dead on and intonation can be adjusted if needs be.  They're a greater learner instrument, and can be 'upograded' by making a simple wooden box...  The picture shows a cardboard dulcimer fretboard transferred to a Virginia-style elliptical body that a student made ...

 Simple Virginia.JPG - 39KB

RevDave:  ALL of the issues you have with your no-name kit dulcimer are pretty easily fixed -- by you-- with a  little help from your friends here, for less than $20 and a little time. PM me if you'd like some help fixing it up...

The fact that the instrument is plywood means absolutely nothing -- there are wonderful sounding plywood dulcimers, cardboard dulcimers, even dulcimers made from Legos(tm) and plexiglass!  

Essential differences?   Apple & Oranges!!!  EVERYTHING:   Internal volume of the body, internal bracing dimensions and locations, plank thicknesses, dimensions of the fretboard, mass of the fretboard (hollow or solid), dimensions of the soundholes, location of the soundholes relative to the bouts,  where the nut and bridge set relative to the end blocks, how much length of string between the bridge and the sttring break to the pins, style and material of nut & bridge construction, just for starters. 

Wood choices actually play very little part in the sound of the dulcimer compared to the hundred or more other factors.  External shape plays NO part in the sound of the instrument.  

Choose an instrument first by its sound, second by its look, third by its price, fourth by the craftsmanship, fifth by reputation of the builder.

Thank for looking!   Building ekeps me off the street occasionally!

I do occasionally build for sale.  You can see examples of my work on my Facebook page in Collections on the top left under my basic info.

Bill has been a quality builder for quite a few years.  I've played, but don't own any of his dulcimers, as I prefer the sound of traditionally-built dulcimers rather than modern-built instuments.  The builders (other than myslef) who produce traditionally-built dulcimers today make fantastic replicas of original instruments with the traditional high-silvery sound.

If you don't like pick noise, change your angle of attack.  Do not hold the pick rigidly vertical like this ...|... Instead, turn your wrist as you strum out and back so that the pick slides across the strings at a flat angle,  like this ///  and this \\\   but even flatter.  Robert Force likens the motion as similar to when you burn your fingers pulling off a toasted marshmallow -- and whip your hand back and forth to cool them off...   Don't strum by rotating the arm at the elbow hold the hand rigidly, but by rotating the hand at the wrist. 

Yep -- NOT  baritone.   The overall length of a dulcimer is almost meaningless -- it's the VSL -- distance between the nut and bridge -- which matters.   

I second the Howard Feed N Wax.  Those tuner knobs are yellow because the tuners are very old, they were originally white.  The tuner bodies are corroded and need cleaning along with everything else.  

As Dusty sez, both the nut and bridge are "worryingly thin" (unless they are made of brass)  and need to be replaced with something besides credit card and doorskin plywood.    The gaps can be filled with Titebond (tm) glue which can be mixed with some fine dark-wood sawdust to make it a real filler.

Second question is "Why down-size?"  After all, you only have five!!  Tune each one to a favorite tuning, like many of us do;  that's one way to avoid having to re-tune.

As Matt sez, what's the first one you grab?  

I've never heard of Hickory Ridge dulcimers, but there are hundreds, if not thousands of builders these days.  Same with "dulcimers by Gary". The only "Gary" I know of building dulcimers is Gary Sager, but I don't think he has ever signed his instruments that way.  

If you look on the Folkcraft site there should be a table telling you what those model numbers mean in terms of woods.

Basically everyone writes tab in their own way.  So, if guitar-like notation works for you, that's great.  Realize of course that Jean did not play chords in the guitar sense.  She played Noter & Drone style, where the middle and bass strings drone open notes and the melody note is fingered only on the melody string...  Mostly, noter & drone tablature is just written as a single string of numbers representing the melody string, one note for each note sung.   

I did find this for you, from the Ultimate Guitar site -- the chords for Jean's unique version of Barbry Allen:
BARBRY ELLEN CHORDS by Jean Ritchie @ Ultimate-Guitar.Com  

Well there's a YouTube vid that teaches DGD chords:   Dulcimer chords in DGD tuning #5 Am #mountaindulcimer with FREE chord chart (youtube.com)

There's this too:

Milton came ashore about 85 miles north of us, at Siesta Key in Sarsota.  Nothing here but winds, not much rain.  Lost power for about 15 minutes is all..

We're in the Cone Of Uncertainty:

 Hurricane Cat-egories.jpg - 38KB

Have been using MIMF for twenty years I think...  They have(or had) the best fret spacing calculator on the planet -- WFRET; The older version (which I still have) is best.  LOTS of interesting ideas and articles there.

Don Pedi and Lois Hornbostel and their local groups have come through pretty well.  Black Mountain is devastated.  Asheville is still pretty much an island.  Blue Ridge parkway is closed.  Our Traditional builders in Virginia and Tennessee got some nearby flooding but nothing damaging to their homes or families.  

Here on Florida's Gulf Coast, from Tampa north around the Bend to Tallahassee took the brunt of the incoming storm.  Fort Myers where I live had 3-5 ft of storm surge walk up the Caloosahatchee river and spread across the low laying areas, but it drained back out within a few hour on the ebbing tide.  Mostly we had an average Tropical Storm -- winds 40-50, gusting 60+.  Strangely wegot very little rain here...

MARKED SAFE FROM HURRICANE HELENE!  We were just south of the major effects.  Sunny half of yesterday, but then the usual Tropical Storm tango of winds 40-50mph, gusting to 60+.  Very little rain.  Low areas have some tidal storm surge flooding, but we're a whooping 10 ft above sea level here.  No damage to structures (whew!) and only lost a few branches in the Silverleaf tree (which needs pruning anyway).

Robin has been a member here for years, although he hasn't participated much recently.  He's a great dulcimer player and innovative builder.

Pictures would help.  Especially a close up of the Maker's label inside the instrument.

I've never heard that about not going up/down one string size once you set the action.    I suppose it's possible to adjust intonation by having the strings at different heights, but certainly is not a common technique.  Normally, folks who worry about intonation (not all of us by any stretch) adjust the angle at which the bridge sets to the strings -- usually the bass end of the bridge is something like 1/16" to 1/8" farther down the fretboard than the melody end  rather than exactly 90 degrees to the line of the strings.

Gotta remember that the dulcimer is still a folk instrument.  People keep trying to apply fancy orchestral instrument "tweaks" to an instrument never intended for such things.

In all my 50+ years of playing dulcimer, I've never seen anyone set the action at different heights from melody to bass.  I always set my action height as Nickel & Dime -- a nickel thickness above the fretboard at the first fret, and a dime thickness above the 7th fret.  

I prefer hard woods for nuts and bridges -- the harder the better -- Lignum vitae, Snakewood, Ebony for exotics, Madrone, Osage Orange, Blue Beech, for American hardwoods.

My "adverse conditions" are usually heat, humidity and salt air.  My go-to instrument(s) are my traditional dulcemores with auto-harp tuning pegs rather than wooden pegs.

Make a fan of lengths of 1x2 with cross pieces to hold the wide ends apart.  Mount that to the wall with standard hardware, then attach the dulcimers to the angled arms...

My experience almost exactly parallels that of mu "dulcimer twin" -- Ken Longfield. -- except my journey started in 1974 and half the continent away; he in Pennsylvania, I in Colorado. 

Lovely, John!   Is that based on measurements you took when we were in Berea and Lexington for the Grumpy Old Men Gathering?

Keep us posted -- show us your solution...

Lots of things you could do, certainly.   Personally I would saw the tuning head and headblock on a downward angle, drill 4 new holes, and install autoharp tuning pins as tuners.  This is what Bobby Ratliff did on his Cumberland Travel Dulcemore that I won in a TTAD contest a couple years back. 

Those tuning pins are tapped into pilot holes, and thread the hole as you turn them to screw the pin deeper into the wood.  They hold tuning very well, and are easily adjusted using a clock key or autoharp tuning wrench.  Best of all, they only cost about 40¢ each.  

 Bobby's tuninghead.jpg - 166KB

Another Devonian era person, eh?  I joined that age myself back in June.  Welcome, welcome.  There are several ways to play the dulcimer, to accommodate a variety of 'issues'.  We have a number of UK players here, so you're in good company.  If all else fails you can build your own box-shaped dulcimer for just a few quid and a day's worth of minor effort, and at least get started learning while looking for a really nice instrument.   That's how I started off fifty years ago -- built one so I could learn to play it...

We know shipping to the UK is really expensive.  One thought is to have someone here make you a fretboard, which can then be attached to a dulcimer shaped box over there.  The fretboard is the  critical part, of course, to making the instrument sound good.  A good size fretboard is only about 65x4x2 cm and should not be too expensive to ship.

Do you know about the Nonesuch Dulcimer Club there in the UK?  it's been around for dog's years.   You might google it and contact them to see if anyone has a dulcimer for sale.   

If you go to the Beginner Players Group here, you'll find a PDF of a booklet I wrote years ago called I Just Got A Dulcimer, Now What?, which is an illustrated glossary of dulcimer terms (so we all speak the same jargon) plus answers to many beginner questions about tuning, playing, care and feeding of your dulcimer when you get or make it.  

 Burnsville1.jpg - 183KB

Nate -- what you show ARE dampers for mandolins.  But bead type fine tuners are/were common on dulcimers; especially the melody and middle drones -- the most commonly adjusted strings...

Nice looking dulcimer.  Never heard of John (definitely John) Dubroff, but there there have been thousands of people who built a handful of dulcimers since the 1960s.  However -- he appears to have done a nice job on this narrow waisted hourglass design.  One interesting thing is that two of the strings have fine tuners -- those light 'beads' or whatever they actually are -- behind the bridge and before the strings bend over the tail piece.  

Send me your email address and I'll send you a PDF of my beginner booklet I Just Got A Dulcimer,  Now What?   It's an illustrated glossary of dulcimer terms (so we all speak the same jargon), plus answers to many beginner questions about tuning, playing, care and feeding of their new instrument.

Lilley Pad -- Probably best if you start a New discussion rather than tacking this technical question onto the general  Introduce Yourself thread where it won't be seen by others.

Go out to General Dulcimer or Music Question, then click on the + on the top right of the page and give your Question a good name like Pickup Question.  Then put the info you posted here in there.  That way others who have the same question can search and find the answers which you'll get.

Both nuts and bridges are often set into slots on the fretboard.  You SHOULD be able to "switch between tuning... like crazy" without any issue.  And many of us do. 

However.  You did say it is a Roosebeck, and they are not particularly known for their precision.  And of course the VSL is the most crucial measurement on the instrument.  

Hopefully there are marks on the fretboard which show exactly where the nut was originally located.  If so, I would definitely Superglue it in place with a couple drops of glue.  If there are also marks which show exactly where the bridge was, I would glue it in place with a couple drops of Rubber Cement.  Rubber cement should be strong enough to hold the bridge in place when everything is under tension, Then I would get out my tuner and check the accuracy of the scale up and down the fretboard. Once satisfied that the scale is true, then I would use a sharp knife or awl to cut a line in the fretboard to exactly locate things again if necessary...  

Sorry to say I've NOT heard of James Norris.  Can't find any  trace of him, either -- no newspaper stories, no obituary etc. There are hundreds, if not thousands of folks who build a dulcimer or ten or twenty; he could be one of those.   

Can you post photos of the dulcimer you have?  Teardrop shapes aren't as common in Kentucky as the hourglass

Bravo, John!   Love the new website!  Love my Thomas replica too!

Yes... Donate one month, then cancel it...

Sorry I misled you guys about that WOUB program availability.  I couldn't get it either, in spite of the fact it showed on my Passport.  I had our local WGCU Passport person check, and she just got back to me this morning, saying it's only available if you make a $12 per year donation to WOUB, watch the program, then cancel your donation before the first month is up...

The Ritchie video called Mountain Born is different from the one on the series Ramblin'

I have a friend who built a fretboard so that the Nut was 4 notes below the normal Open notes of DAA.