The one on the "front page"? That's just a simple trapezoid-shaped dulcimer; a number of us make them. Some are wider, like the one Stephen has, some are narrower like the attached photo of a museum replica I'm building which was made around the time of the Civil War.
The body shape comes from the Pennsylvania zithers which came over from Germany in the late 1500s/early 1600s.
I don't know the maker of Stephen's; you'd have to ask him.
Dusty -- I'll be interested to hear your take on the flexi-frets. I've heard from others that removing/replacing frets is not as easy/simple as it is made to sound.
That, plus it seems most beginners get caught up in collecting tab and playing only from tab without actually learning to play from memory. I don't know how many folks I've seen who literally have to use tab to play Boil Them Cabbage!!!
IMHO "Intermediate" is just a state of mind. If you play better than most of the folks around you, but aren't up to "really good" (in your mind) players, I'd say you're intermediate.
What Matt said -- you will get a few extra notes, but it depends on what kind of music you're playing whether those particular notes will do you any good. In your current repertoire, are the significant (say even 10%) songs that require those 'non-traditional' notes??
Are you playing Fingerdance or Chord Melody style?
Passing Forward. Good on ya!
Glenda -- that's a really different tune for Going Home. Had never heard it, but I like it.
The one I'm familiar with (and play) is based on The Largo from Dvorak's From The New World symphony,with words by William Arms Fisher in 1921. The English boy choir Libera has an outstanding version on YouTube. I don't have the high sweet tenor voice, but do a passable baritone version.
Ohhhh… that's TOUGH!!
After much consideration..... Leonard Cohen's Suzanne a.k.a Suzanne Takes You Down
The one I'm playing, the other one, the black one, the one Bobby made, the one Til made, the Gross replica...
Well, 3 minuts with Google tells me that he lives in Claremont, NC, apparently does not have a website or blog, and sells through Ebay and a couple of NC dulcimer shops.
Handling Accidentals
1. Skip them entirely with sustain of the previous note occupying the measure. Or play either the note before, or the note after, for the same measure as the 'missing' note. Most of the time, if the audience knows the song, they will 'hear' the missing accidental. If they don't know the song it doesn't matter. This was a very common traditional approach, as many players seem to have used an Octave tuning (Ddd, Ccc, etc) rather than Modal tunings like Ionian (DAA), Mixolydian (DAd), Dorian (DAG) or Aeolian (DAC)
2. Re-tune -- it's only one string and should take less than a minute while you're introducing the next number! Create sets of tunes in each tuning that you use; rather than playing one song in this tuning, the next in something different. It's easy find half a dozen songs in each of the common Modal Tunings.
3. Bend the melody string. Try removing (permanently or temporarily) one of the doubled melody strings until you learn to bend a pair.
As a 99.5% N&D or Fingerdance traditional player, numbers 1 & 2 are my options of choice, and my choice depends on the missing note(s) in which tuning
That post by Lois is indeed in a Group discussion, not a general public discussion. The Group is called Beginner Players, and the thread is about I, IV and V Chords. As Dusty sez -- to see everything you have to join the Group.
I see her birthday is today she's turned 65. I also see, on her Facebook page, that she lists herself as "former owner of Laurel Mountain Instruments. My best guess is that she's not building; or not building under that name anyway. I'd say query her on Facebook.
I have a whole set that I call Top Of The Pops -- 1650 !!
These days my 'performance' playing is standing up with my dulcimer on a waiter's folding table 30" high. If I have to sit and play I look for a standard metal folding chair.
Lisa -- your jouhikko looks a lot like my Anglo-Saxon Lyres -- but with sound holes!
I've made soundholes in all sorts of shapes over the years -- from circles to the Space Shuttle. All my instruments now have plain circles, in patterns, but I'm partial to leaves -- maple and tulip poplar in particular.
IMHO there are two ways to strum -- strum to a fixed rhythm, and strum to the rhythm of the words. Not being fond of little blue guys living in cities (metrognomes), I have personally always strummed to the rhythm of the words.
Those aren't "crazy chops"... those are embellishments which make the tune yours , rather than blindly following of someone else's tab or SMN.
Part of it depends on the kind of music you play -- I love the Child Ballads of Scotland and England, as well as 19th and early 20th century folk and Americana music. If you play wordless dance tunes it's different -- you need the fixed rhythm or the dancers will go nuts.
You can buy two Warren May's for the price of a Blue Lion! I've played all three you brought up, plus a number of other higher-end dulcimers over the years like Bonnie Carol and Modern. Each builder has his/her own "voice" of instruments.
I found over the past 40 years that my taste changed radically. Originally I liked those deep, mellow sounding instruments, and I even had a couple of custom-built dulcimers made in that "range" by Nic Hambas and Till Holloway. But then my taste changed, and today I prefer the "high silvery" sound of traditional dulcimers much more than the deep mellow sound of more modern instruments. There's no accounting for taste!
MacDonalds, Longhorn Steakhouse, Commander's Palace.
McSpadden, Warren May, Blue Lion
McSpad and Blue Lion are "production" instruments at both ends of the dollar spectrum. A Warren May is an individually made masterpiece that may not be for everyone. Don't buy any of these without trying them...
LOL! Where does one get just a piece of bamboo?
From the bamboo clump in the backyard... or down the block... or in the woods. Some people actually have to buy a short bamboo pole from a garden center or similar place and cut it into lengths.
I use a variety of "pen blank" of exotic woods that are 3/4" x 3/4" x 5", which I round out with a belt sander to about 1/2" diameter. I prefer noters about the diameter of my index finger. One of my favorite hard woods is Lignum Vitae one the hardest 10 woods in the world. My other choice for noters is a 4-5" piece of bamboo.
I've used glass -- a swizzle stick -- a time or two -- very fast!
Odd twang . .. I suspect the notch in the bridge ...too wide at the bottom, not angled correctly .. something . How did you cut them? Triangle file? Jewelers saw?
The harder the wood the better. Harder wood can be sanded much thinner and played longer before the tin edge at the tip wears away. Maple is good, myrtle also (nearly as hard), and I really like bamboo splits from a culm that is big enough that you don't have to deal (much) with the curved surfaces. Bamboo, of course has a lot of silicon in it, which makes it particularly tough.
Oak is hard enough, but not pretty. Walnut may be pretty and tough, but the thin edges wear out quickly. Hickory, Birch, Ash are also good.
Wooden "picks" called 'strummers' were fairly common in the Olde Dayes of dulcimer and well into mid-20th century. Robin Clark in Wales uses one periodically as do I and several others I know of. He found an old video of someone (Nettie Presnell??) playing with a strummer.
I make my own strummers from a variety of hardwoods -- maple, chestnut, yew, oak, bamboo, myrtle, etc. I have a Lignum Vitae noter, but not a strummer. The strummers I make are about 3-4" long and 3/4" wide -- roughly index finger size -- and are generally used with broad sweeping motions mostly. Thickness varies from 1/8" to a feather edge, averaging about 1/16".
I also have a pick made from Vegetable Ivory. When I was out in the Pacific I picked up a number of Ivory Nut Palm nuts, and carved picks from them. Most went to dulcimer and uke playing local friends out there.
She's a sweetie, David! Congrats!
I'm with Rob -- the tune of any song can be made into an interesting instrumental piece. You as the arranger must like the tune or you won't do it the justice it deserves.
Not that I make instrumentals out of song tunes, I just don't sing the words and play the tune at the same time...
If you know which goes where, it's pretty evident what the channel is
1. Put on the Bass drone, go to nearest tuner far side
2. Put on the Middle Drone; go over the bass tuner shaft if necessary to the farthest tuner on the far side
3. Put on the outer Melody string, go to nearest tuner near side
4. Put on the inner Melody string; go over the nearest tuner shaft if necessary to the farthest tuner on the near side
Could it had had the frets set by ear, rather than tuner -- say Just Intonated? I've seen several "tulip" dulcimers from that era. I think Wilfred in Germany has one, and there's one pictured in one of the early books -- Michael Murphy's Dulcimer Book perhaps or the early edition of the Mel Bay Learn To Play (I don't have them handy)
Someone whom all can see, blatantly tapping a foot to follow!
There's another Too Young To Marry a.k.a. My Love Is But A Lassie Yet, which predates Robert Burns, but for which he wrote lyrics under that title...
ABC:
|:d/c/ | dD FA | dD Dd/c/ | dD FA | eE Ed/c/ |
dD FA | Bg fe | d/c/B/A/ Bc | dD D : |
|: f/g/ | a>f g>e | fd df/g/ | af g/f/g/a/ | be ef/g/ |
af ge | fd fe | d/c/B/A/ B/c/d/e/ | fd d : |
Aye, well, I didn't understand that from your first post, it's true. As Skip says, tune the Middle Drone A string UP to the same d as your melody string(s). A 14 ga string on 26"-27" VSL should be able to tune to d, because you can play that same d on the 10th fret. Then your tuning will be Bagpipe D -- that is Ddd
You may be looking at the tuning "backwards". Dulcimer tunings these days are specified from the Bass to the Melody string and we only ever mention the doubled melody string(s) if they are actually tuned differently.
The Bass string is D, your A string is the Middle drone, and the d string(s) are the Melody string(s) an octave higher than the Bass.
On a 26-27" VSL, a 14 ga should be easily tuned to the 5th above the Bass string -- A. Fret the Bass string at the 4th fret, and sound the note -- that's what you tune the Middle Drone string to -- A. Your Melody strings should be a bit lighter gauge -- 12s. Tune them to d an octave above the Bass string D.
BTW -- Bagpipe Tuning is defined as a Bass string tuned D (for example) and all the other strings tuned an octave above -- Ddd for example, not DAd. DAd is the Mixolydian Modal tuning.
I do not believe shape has any impact on sound. Interior volume, definitely. But shape, no. Not in any meaningful way that doesn't involve a lot of scientific sound analysis equipment.
I have a standing offer of $200 cash for anyone who can pass my blind listening test -- a selection of 3 or more dulcimers of different shapes, playing the same tunes in the same way. You will never see the instruments, only hear them, until the test is over. All you have to do is correctly identify which shape is playing which tune at which time. I've had people who swear they can tell one from another who somehow never seem to be willing to put this to the test, when push comes to shove.
I've played both instruments. And I know Bonnie Carrol personally, from "the old days". No, Bonnie's dulcimers do not sound 4x as good as a Ron Gibson, or anyone else's. Price in dulcimers is not necessarily about quality of sound. It's about materials and workmanship and perceived value (name among other things). For example, a $100 set of tuning machines (compared to a $10 set), and $200 worth of exotic wood (compared to $20 worth of poplar) make a dulcimer more expensive but do not particularly contribute to making one sound better than the other. There are a huge number of variables (well over a dozen) which contribute to the sound of a dulcimer.
No need to remove/clean/oil those tuners; just tighten them up say a quarter or half turn to start. Then try things to see if they hold the tuning better. If you crank down on them too hard you may break the "plastic" knobs (but replacements are cheap and easy to find).
1. Regular flat picks; with the exception of the Herdim "Thumb-Flat Pick" -- basically an ordinary sized flat pick with a thumb-sized loop. IMHO the best of both worlds -- the loop keeps the pick from flipping away.
2. Heavier than light. Beginners tend to use too light of pick; but with experience shift to a heavier pick and more control for less "pick-click".
3. See #1
4. Credit cards, thin wooden 'strummer' type plectra.
5. Don't buy packages of picks online -- buy dozens of singles from your local music store. Different weights, sizes, shapes, etc. eventually you'll settle on a half dozen that you use all the time.
What Dusty said but also on the Everything Dulcimer Facebook page
A Capo and a Reverse Capo can help you attain other tunings. Personally don't play chords, I play N&D or Fingerdance, and I re-tune, so others will explain who those tools can do better than I.
Most of the multi-instrument jams I've attended over the years go so quickly that there is no time to be flipping through pages trying to find the tune that has been called. What I do is listen the first time through and try to pick out a 3, 5 or more note "run" on the Melody string, and then play that run in the same time and tempo as everyone else. I'm sort of creating my own part, if you will, that fits in with what the others are playing.
Yep -- back when a chip was a real chip!
When I got involved with computers, a Megabyte was phenomenally large!!
