Forum Activity for @ken-hulme

How do you play the dulcimer?   String side up.

Yep pretty basic instrument. Builder was probably one of the hundreds who were gonna make it big building dulcimers in the Dulcimer Revival... but didn't. No Internet footprint for Danmont Dulcimers.  Trapezoid shape was fairly popular 20+ years ago.  Nothing special.  Sort of a wooden version of today's cardboard dulcimer. No frills, no "modern" 6+ fret, plywood top has a  tear-outs on edges, straight stick fretboard/tuner head.  At least the action doesn't look too high!.  Nice beginner instrument for someone who wants to play Noter & drone style.  Twenty years ago it would have sold for maybe $100-$150.  If you can get $50 today that would be good, IMHO and buyer would have a wooden, not cardboard body dulcimer..

JAndy -- I avoid squeaking strings by using plain steel bass strings of a slightly smaller gauge than the recommended wound steel.

If you want the exact gauges that Warren specifies for his instruments, as others have said go to Juststrings.com and order a 12 pack of each of the gauges:
Plain Steel Bulk Guitar Strings (juststrings.com)

At about $3 a dozen you'll have several years worth of strings for about $10...

Soooo sorry to hear this.  !

Nate said  "I assume the original developers of dulcimers were very innovative folks who were applying the concepts of older zithers to the materials they had in the Appalachians. This makes it hard for me to tell the difference between deliberate choices made by the 'masters of old' and choices made purely out of necessity. It's hard for me to imagine that they would have used staple frets if they had access to fretwire." 

You have to remember that those "innovative folks...applying the concepts of older zithers...":  were not consciously doing anything. 

They were random, scattered individuals who heard and/or saw an instrument someone had -- who in turn had seen/heard someone else's instrument... back through time to the zitters which came over in the late 1500s/early 1600s.  There probably were no Euro-trained luthiers among the Moravians, the builders to follow were trying to replicate instruments that had come from the old country. -- out of necessity.  Staple frets of the early 19th century were the high-tech of the time. prior to that there were wood/bone/ivory inlaid frets or the tied gut frets of Lutes.  Mushroom frets weren't invented until the mid 1800s in Europe.  

If you're lucky there is a dust/pressure/scratch some sort of mark on the surface of the fretboard.  Otherwise measure from the inside edge of the nut to the top of the 7th fret and double that from the inside edge of the nut to the inside edge of where the nut is a good place to put the bridge to start.  Position may need a bit of tweaking from there...

Welcome!  Warren  is a great resource and still building a few instruments a year at his home shop.  He'll happily answer your questions.  

I would leave his instrument tuned DAA or Ddd, and have your other instrument with the 6+ tunned to DAd since it was probably built with that tuning in mind.  

A wipe down with a damp rag is the perfect cleaning process.

One thing to note is that when changing strings we almost never recommend stripping the instrument 'bare' as you called it.  The reason is that if the instrument has no mark or slot where the bridge is supposed to go, it can be a real pain to get it back in the proper place so the instrument sounds correct -- the distance between nut and fret is critical to within a millimeter or so....   Better just to get in the habit of removing and replacing one string at a time.

Haven't heard of the maker, but a photo or two would help us ID the instrument.

Tony -- Dusty's given you the straight stuff.  If you want to know more about Modes and  Modal tunings, I can email you a booklet/essay I wrote several years ago called The Uncontrite Modal Folker, which goes into all the nitty gritty... Sendme your email addy in a PM...

Jeannie who?   Just kidding!  Of course I remember you!  As we're still (more than a year later) recovering a bit from Hurricane Ian last year, I'm all too familiar with the PTSD attached to natural disasters.  Ian brought back some of mine from 'Nam... 

Hope to see you here more often!!

Happy Holidays -- whatever End Of Year holidays you celebrate wherever you are!

Robin!   So good to see you here again!!  Have missed your posts.

Quiet home Christmas mostly.  Sally's daughter is coming down from Baltimore so 4 of us for the traditional English Christmas Dinner. 

Later this week we're going with some friends on a 1/8 scale mini-train Night ride around our favorite walking park -- Lakes Park -- where we volunteer with the bird patrol and trash pickup.  The train museum goes all out decorating with lights and such long the several miles of track through the park.  

We're also hosting our annual friend party to watch the classic Denholm Elliot version of Dylan Thomas'  A Child's Christmas In Wales.  I'm making mince tarts and apple biscotti for both events, with Apple Cider and non-alcoholic Wassail Punch.

Sounds like a great time!  Now that you have  Mari Lwyd, you can add the others by dressing up as Punch & Judy, Merryman and Sargeant.

You'll enjoy your new 'friend", I'm sure.

Always best to use the Search function first before creating anything new -- someone else over the years may have already answered the question your have, or experienced what you have etc.

Forums are major categories of Discussions -- General Dulcimer/Music, Instruments, Resources
Groups are specialized subject areas -- Beginner Questions, Music Theory, History, playing styles etc.
Discussions are specific subjects/questions/observations which you create within a Discussion or Group -- What do you use to make your dulcimer shiny?  Where can I find a dulcimer from a certain maker?, Which strings should I use?

If you are asking a new question, start a new Discussion in a Forum or Group rather than add it to an existing discussion -- others may want to know the answer to your question but won't be able to see/find those answers easily if they are buried in a non specific discussion.

In a Forum Or Group Discussion, near the top you will find a white square button with a black + sign.  Click the button to name and create your new discussion question/observation/subject.

The role of the dulcimer, and probably its predecessors as well, was to play what I call "personal" music or in small (3-4) person music group, for listening enjoyment within say 20 feet -- porch or small room in a home. It never was intended as a 'performance' instrument with the player standing/sitting in front of an audience.  It never was intended to be used with any electric/electronic amplification -- at best a 'possum board' or double-back amplification. 

The dulcimer played instrumentals or accompanied the singer/player in the religious and secular music of the local community (folk music) -- not a part in orchestral compositions.  Here in the States that was what we today call "Appalachian" music  (the precursor to Bluegrass, the repertoire varying from region to region, with some songs common across all regions, with variations.  Much of that music was based on English, Scottish and Irish tunes and lyrics which came to America with settlers from those countries  -- although there never was an Anglo-Celtic predecessor instrument. 

Few of the lefties I know string their dulcimers the other way around.  If your dominant hand is doing the complicated task of fretting, and your off hand is doing the simpler task of strumming, that's a good thing.

Shannon -- you do realize this thread was last editied 6 years ago, don't you?

Great Interview!   

I've made and played a number of all maple dulcimers over the years.   Durable certainly; it's maple after all, not Aspen or Balsa wood.   A bit harder than walnut or cherry.

 "Good sound", like "Beauty" is in the eye/ear of the beholder.  What you consider "good" might not be so 'good' to me or someone else.  I prefer a "highly silvery" sound, where others prefer a more "mellow" tone like a baritone uke or guitar.  This is why we highly recommend you hear the dulcimer you're going to buy.  

AS Strumelia (the boss) said 3 years ago. Let's keep the discussion to the original topic Question:  String Break Angles, VSL, Radii, Excessive String Length

Good start, Brad.  If you ever get tired of trying to figure out those chord shapes, you can simply play the melody on the melody string(s) and just let the others hummm along.

Nate's right -- 6 strings give a richer, fuller sound... but it can be difficult to learn to play, pressing down pairs of strings.  If you're trying to learn chords you might find it easiest to just remove one string in each course.for 6 months or so until you're comfortable playing.  Then you can add back strings one at a time and see if you like the effect.  Many of us who play Finger dance or Noter & Drone -- fretting justthe melody string -- like the tradition and simplicity of just three strings.  But the real thing to know is -- whatever works is right for you -- regardless of what anyone tries to tell you

"Is it really normal for a dulcimer to have a very weak, drowned out sound?"

More or less.  The dulcimer was never designed/built/intended to be an ensemble instrument. 

Until the late 20th century the dulcimer has always been a solo instrument for playing to an audience of say a dozen quiet, appreciative listeners, no farther than say 15 feet away.  If accompanied at all it would have been by a sympathetic fiddle, guitar and/or banjo player who understood how to blend their own instruments with others, not play as loud as they could because they could.

What wewas it Jean Ritchie said?  Her Dad tuned the dulcimer to Bim, Bim, Bom.  What the actual notes were didn't, and still doesn't matter.  There weren't any absolute notes.  Some of us these days say that we're tuned "in the vicinity of"...  in the vicinity of D or A or C

Sorry... I just trained my ear through decades of singing in choirs and playing with other musicians.  And listening over and over and over again to cassette tapes/vinyl in the Dark Ages before on-line music...

@shannmilan... to reiterate what Wally said -- It's hard for us to help you unless we have some idea of your background...  There is no one BEST instruction material.  Some of us are self-taught from the days where there was no internet, and no massive library of teaching materials.   How much experience have you had with any music?  Are you trying to play chords or melodies only on the melody string(s)?  What kind of music are you wanting to play on the dulcimer?

I have my students start learning to play childhood songs they already know in their heads --  Frere Jacques,  Happy Birthday, Three Blind Mice that sort of thing,  Start by picking out those song, one note at a time on the melody string.  Sometime I tell them the first note or two, sometimes not.  

IMHO dulcimer players need to be intimately familiar with where the notes of the scale are found on their dulcimer, so that they can pick out songs on their own and not be dependent on tablature to play Happy Birthday for example.  I teach them to strum outward with their thumb for starters, not worrying about anything except the first string closest to them.  Then I teach them how to hold a pick without a death grip, and how to strum with that pick; while at the same time their other hand is moving from fret to fret along that first string and pressing down to change the notes. 

Just revisited this.   Can't believe I missed Lisa's link to the 2021 Live recording!!   Not too bad for a couple of old guys.  There's hope for me yet!!

Nate -- build a dulcimer out of 1/8" plexiglass...  I played one once -- sounded decent anyway.  

The only laminate dulcimer that I've seen de-laminate was one that didn't quite survive last year's Hurricane Ian.  And that was a combination of being submerged for a week in water who's temperature was approaching 100F.  Several years ago I acquired a 'no-name' laminate-body dulcimer, and had passed it on to a student.  She called about three weeks after we were hit by Ian, and wondered if it was recoverable.  Their house had more than 4 ft of water trapped inside for over a week before they could even get back onto Sanibel island and think about beginning recovery.  They had to empty not only water but organically stinking mud from inside the instrument.  The water receded and things began dry out -- in temperatures also around 100F with no A/C -- no electricity.  It started de-laminating wherever there were bare plywood edges.  The finish had crackled enough to let water under the 'skin', and of course the inside was not protected at all.   I salvaged the tuners and that was it.

Other than that I've not heard anything a laminate dulcimers not standing up to normal use.   One that Harpmaker Dave made me out of Baltic Birch, lived aboard my un-airconditioned sailboat for a decade, and had no issues at all in our het and humidity here in Southwest Florida.

@mooddancer -- I understand you have an acquaintance who builds and plays -- why not get him/her to build you are shorter scale dulcimer which I understand is what you're looking for?.  That would no doubt be better than any McSpadden ever made.  

Ron made/makes outstanding modern-trad style dulcimers. Which one are you considering?  Have you checked out his website?

We're just getting things started growing again here, with the Fall/Winter rains coming fairly regularly now.  Summers are brutally hot but quite lacking in rain and everything dries up.  Luckily we didn't get too much moister from Hurricane Idalia here a couple weeks back...  Feast or famine.

Hurricane Lee missed us but according to the National Hurricane Center it will be coming ashore, hopefully as "just" a Tropical Storm,  somewhere between Boston and Halifax on Saturday.  Folks there are gonna get some seriously windy and wet weather.  

Look at the old Everything Dulcimer archives.  IIRC there were a number of discussion of Honea dulcimers 'back in the day'.

Can't remember that I've ever had the opportunity. Maybe once, years ago, in a multi-instrument jam.   Not exactly a common folk instrument around these parts.  I've been to a number of statewide folk meet-ups here in Florida and can't remember seeing or hearing any sort of squeeze-box.  

No thanks.  Seen too many of those with unplayable fret spacings.  Seagull makes good guitars, but...

I see John commenting and showing his builds on the FB page Let's Make Dulcimers (an Psalteries and Mandolins, etc.).  He's actually a member here, but not a big contributor.  I've not played one of his but it's obvious he has very high level skills as a builder, and his designs are r4ally nice.  I'm sure you'll really appreciate your purchase. 

I'd go to FB and contact him there.  He has a personal Page and a Dulcimer Page as well, I believe...  

One of my favorite S&G tunes as well.