Forum Activity for @ken-hulme

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...  

I won one of Bobby's Cumberland models in a Traditional Appalachian Dulcimer giveaway a couple years back.  I absolutely love the quality sound in such a small package.  Beat's a McSpadden Ginger six ways to Sunday!  It's been with me on several trips around the US as well as England, Scotland and Orkney last year. 

 ( Home | TTAD- The Traditional Appalachian Dulcimore

One of my favorite S&G tunes as well.  

It is the way it is, folks.  Nothing much can be done given the software involved.  The massive amount of time and expense to replace the site with something else just isn't on anyone event horizon. 

The perceived shortcomings cannot magically disappear.  It'll be easier if some of you "old dogs" can learn a few new tricks.   Let's not beat the dead horse.....

"out to sea" -- I hope that means you're on a boat someplace, not floundering elsewise!

Jill -- John's tuning pegs work very smoothly.  I've had one of his Thomas replicas for quite a few years, with no problems.  Every year or so I put a couple drops of Peg Dope on the shaft of each peg.

Ron always makes nice looking and great sounding instruments.   Not a historically accurate Tennessee Music Box (for a variety of technical reasons), but a very well done Box dulcimer for a very reasonable price. Someone should grab this while they can!

I have a copy of Merv Rowley's definitive article on Chord-Melody playing in DAA tuning  -- An Approach to Learning Chord-Melody Style .  The chord-charts there do not include any plus frets because it was written for those of us who only have pure diatonic fret layouts -- not even the 6+ fret.  

Your best bet in to learn to use the Strothers Diatonic Chord Wizard:
Tom & Missy Strothers | Diatonic Chord]

"There's no right way or wrong way to play the dulcimer".  -- Tom & Missy Strothers

Lovely dulcimer.  As John says, measure the width of the fretwire where the "mushroom cap" touches the wood, in millimeters or 1/100ths of an inch.  A caliper will do the job.  Thenyou can (hopefully) acquire some appropriate fretwire and either insert the frets yourself, or have someone do it for you.  Look for fretwire on sites like Stewart Macdonald (stewmac.com) or other places that sell luthier supplies.  To replace those 5 frets you'll need less that 2 ft of wire (but may have to buy 10 ft).  Find the wire, and we can probably find you someone to put them in for you for less than two arms and a leg...

Hi Lyssa; 

Welcome to the world of dulcimers!   We can probably help you, but we're going to need to see what's what.

You may not, in fact, be "missing" any frets.  Older dulcimers -- what we call "pre-Revival" and dulcimers from the early Revival period of the 1960s, '70s and even some today, have what is known as a 'true' diatonic fret layout.  More modern dulcimers have two and sometimes more frets not found on a diatonic fretboard -- but that does not mean the instrument is "wrong" or "broken".

Frank Bond was a "fashionable" and popular dulcimer builder in London in the late 60s and 70s.   He built a number of different styles/shapes/sizes of instruments with fairly long VSLs (distance between nut and bridge).  He also built diatonic and "diatonic-plus" fret layouts.  His instruments are highly regarded by dulcimer collectors, especially on this side of The Pond, as they are few and far between.  IIRC, there are a couple folk who are members here who own one or more Bond dulcimers.  

We're going to need to see clear and relatively close up pictures of the instrument, particularly the tuning head area, tail area, and the fretboard itself, so we can determine whether there are indeed any frets missing.  

New strings are simple, cheap, and easy to come by at a local acoustic music shop or online, and given the distance between the nut and bridge we can tell you what strings to buy and how to go about changing them.  

Looking forward to seeing your Bond, Frank Bond (not James)!

"Bagpipe" tuning is very traditional.  The when and where is unknown but we do know it was a pre-Revival tuning (although it wasn't called "bagpipe").  Unison (ddd) tuning has been around since at least the early 1600s, and we're pretty certain that the "dropped unison" or Bagpipe tuning (Ddd) was right there at the same time -- since the first 'fretted zithers' not scheitholts appeared in Pennsylvania.  In fact the earliest proto-dulcimers were most likely tuned to the key of C not D.  Key of D tunings really only appear and were made common during the Revival of the 1960s/70s.

I prefer Bagpipe tuning because it gives those of us who do not have a 6+ fret the same ability to play in two modes without re-tuning; as the 6+ fret does those who prefer to use DAd Mixolydian tuning.  

Dusty is right.   Dropping the melody string takes you out of Bagpipe and changes the key

@jimws --   The effect you describe is not related to the dulcimer or it's maker.

I assume you're playing Chords or Fingerdance style rather than Noter&Drone. 

Have you listened to Brett's rendition?  Or just read the tab/SMN?  Are you certain that the volume reducing to zero is not intentional? 

Are you sure you are maintaining the same downward pressure from one end of the slide to another?  As Nate suggests, maintaining the volume of a slide is easier with a noter than with fingers.  

Our mango tree started dropping ripe fruit the first week of April, and is finally winding down.  We'll probably get fruit for another couple weeks.  I have been harvesting 10-20 per day.  I've made Mango Salsa, Mango Jam, Mango Lassi, Mango smoothies with backyard bananas, Mango bread, Mango Frozen Yogurt, Mango Shrimp dinner,  Mango-topped oatmeal for Sally every day, chilled mango by the bowl, and dribbling over the sink.  No to mention I've frozen 20 quarts of mango filets for once a month mango treats until next season, and given away at least a hundred to friends who love mango but don't have a tree,

I dunno Ken...  I check there every day and have noticed it Unavailable for at least the last week and more.  No notice...nada.

I wondered if the nominal owners had neglected to pay the periodic name license fee.  

NOT GOOD.  The "revived" ED has never been busy.  The owner never identified him/herself.  Never been welcoming or active.  Only 3 or 4 people every posted regularly -- Ken & I and someone named "Carolina Rockman" who I've never run into anywhere else in dulcimer media.  

Mine!  Mine!  That's Mine.  That too!  Mine. Mine!

 MINE MINE.jpg - 56KB

Welcome Buckeye67 and Student!  I'm a primarily Celtic music (Child Ballads) player on the MD, although I also play a little tin whistle and mirliton flute.  

I'll recommend to you both the booklet I wrote years ago for new dulcimer players, called   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 the tuning, playing, care and feeding of your new friend.  You can find it here:

Ken Hulme's "I Just Got A Dulcimer, Now What?" Article - Strumelia | fotmd.com    

part way down the discussion.  Thanks to Lisa and Dusty for fixing the link...

As Dwain says, now that we know why that gap is there at the tail and those arches between the rest of the fretboard and the top, do not fill any of those gaps,   Give it a gentle cleaning and a new set of strings, and start playing.   Dwain suggests leaving the string pins where they are, I suggest moving hem onto the tailblock. Your choice.

You're right.  That is a Howie Mitchell "floating tail" gap and it is supposed to be there.  Combined with that 'severely' arched fretboard the intent is to free the soundboard and allow it to vibrate freely.  Many builders arch the fretboard for both that and aesthetic reasons.

That said, moving the string pins down onto the tailblock is still not a bad idea, as doing so will still prevent the fretboard from potentially pulling up.  

AFAIK,  that tuning head shape is unique to this dulcimer.  A one-off design by the builder, probably.  In those days a strap would often be tied at the head end, with a loop over the tail button for "quick release". 

Dwain has given you good advice on fixing the 'cut-away' tail which, if I remember correctly, was a Howie Mitchell design concept from the 60s Revival era. 

That, those tuners, plus the 6+ and 13+ fret layout makes me think that this is a 1960s dulcimer, or at least influenced by Howie Mitchell's book called The Mountain Dulcimer:  How To Make It and Play It, after a fashion.  The instrument with its under curled tuning head certainly in an interesting build -- probably a one-off which would explain no builder's label.

One of those special moments -- a few years back, the folks at the Mount Dora Festival here in Florida, called and asked me to substitute teach a Noter & Drone for Beginners class, when George was taken suddenly ill and hospitalized. 

When converting 4 to 3, we almost always remove the outer melody string. 

If you can't find a .020 wound string bass string, just use a plain steel .020.  Traditional dulcimers were often strung that way. The lack of winding gives a subtle difference to the overall tone which adds to the 'high silvery' sound which I like.  

That milk paint really look good John.  Better IMHO than whatever black you used on mine...

I have to agree with Dusty.  Electronic dulcimer media are sending the same message as DPN to thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, more people today than DPN ever heard of.  DPN was the wonder of its time, it brought together players and builders across the country, and encouraged many, many people to take up the art and craft of dulcimer.

But as the song says, "the times they are a changing..."   I too miss the old DPN.  I always wished it could have been a monthly not a quarterly.  Back in the day, 'newsletters' were quarterly mimeographed publications of a few pages sent to a small list of subscribers.  The most successful newsletters graduated larger mailing lists and published monthly. The very best became full-fledged glossy magazines.  DPN seemed to stall half way between.  It went gloss and included ads, but never went monthly.  Knowing a bit about the history of publications, I suspect that that was the first step 'downhill' -- it failed to continue to grow.  Readers demanded more, and more frequent, information (a trend which electronic media are especially good at), but DPN never made that leap.

What a beauty!   I'd  say that top and fretboard are walnut, as are the walnut shell sound hole covers.  That ET/TE brand is certainly distinctive but I don't know who it is.  Is there no label to be seen inside the sound hole(s)?

FYI the instrument has a true Diatonic fretboard layout -- with no 6+ or 13+ frets.  Appropriate tunings would be (bass to melody) DAA or CGG. both are 1-5-5 tunings and use the same tablature.   

Here's a link to a booklet I wrote several years back called I Just Got A Dulcimer, Now What?   which is an illustrated glossary (so we all speak the same jargon) plus answers to many beginner questions about the tuning, playing, care and feeding of your acquisition...  The link to the article is at the bottom of this discussion:

Ken Hulme's "I Just Got A Dulcimer, Now What?" Article - Strumelia | fotmd.

You're welcome to red, print and distribute it as you see fit.

@bvmaestro -- As you've probably read, cardboard dulcimers are as cheap, and as good as you can get unless you build then yourself.  If you DYI a batch of instruments you can get the cost down to about $20 each.  Check out the program(s) of the Waldorf private school system... 

Is he referring to BLUES notes -- which frankly can be any note at all.  Or BLUE notes which would only refer to some chart/table of notes which includes some colored blue?  

What, exactly do you mean by "blue notes".  With dulcimer there are the basic diatonic frets, diatonic frets plus one or two extras, or full chromatic frets like a guitar.  In 40 + years of messing about with dulcimers I've never heard the terem "blue notes",  

We now know that the term "Scheitholt" was more or less invented by Michael Praetorius in his masterwork De Organographia, in 1618 which described the instruments of Europe at that time.  The term is actually the Austrian slang "holts scheit" meaning 'firewood' and referred to a specific boxy form of fretted zither found only in the Tyrol district of Austria.  That's like calling all mountain dulcimers Ozark Walking Sticks or Tennessee Music Boxes regardless of shape or place.   

Scheitholt was never used to refer to the 'ancestral' fretted zithers of Pennsylvania, where the instruments were correctly referred to as "zithers" or "zitters" by the locals.  

I personally go smaller rather than larger in my selection of pegs, Nate.  I like 1/2 size violin pegs on most of my builds.  I've always felt like many of those pre-Revival dulcimers had 'way too large of pegs for the size of the tuning head and instrument.  Probably, as you suggest, because the players had trouble adjusting hand whittled pegs with small heads and short shafts.  With well fitting pegs, and experience,  the issue is moot.  People have been playing small violins since the 16th century.

My two Holly Leaf pattern dulcimers shown here have different size pegs.  The larger one has full size -- 4/4 - violin pegs and the smaller one has either 3/4 or 1/2 violin pegs, I can't remember which.  When I made that smaller scroll head, the full sized pegs just looked out of place -- too big for the size of the head, so I got smaller ones.  The same taper reamer that I have works for all sizes of commercial pegs from 1/8 violin up  to full size cello and viola IIRC.

 final4.JPG - 115KB

Not a dumb question Nate.  There is no apparent socio-cultural link between Hammered dulcimers (a kind of psaltery) and the Appalachian dulcimer(a kind of fretted zither).  The only commonality is the shared "dulcimer" cognomen.  The hammered dulcimer was a popular parlour instrument in the 1700s and 1800s across Europe and the Americas.  It evolved from a Persian instrument dating back to the 900s which spread across Europe in the early medieval period.  The Appalachian dulcimer evolved from fretted zither brought to the Pennsylvania colonies in the late 1600s/1700s by folks we today call the "Pennsylvania Dutch".

You asked "...why is there such a noticeable cultural overlap between hammered dulcimer people and mountain dulcimer people?".   The answer, IMHO is that they are both, today, uncommon folk instruments (not guitars banjos or mandolins), and both -- as Dusty says, originally pure diatonic.  As you suggest, I too suspect that the connection only came about during the mountain dulcimer and folk music Revival of the 50s and 60s.  

Yep!  Sorry John; Credit where credit is due!  YOU made those Lyre pegs and the wrench, not Dan Cox,  and a darn fine job you did, too.  Mea culpa....

Nate -- here's an idea I got from Michael King, in England, my Lyre plan supplier -- a tuning key for wooden pegs.  Dan Cox made this one for me when he made the oversize pegs for my Oberflacht Anglo-Saxon Lyre.    You can approach the peg from almost any angle and the 4" or so length gives you plenty of leverage.  

 Tuning Key.JPG - 175KB

Do you mean the peg shaver?  If you're making pegs from scratch they are so much less work than trying to whittle a taper with a pocket knife.  They used to be very expensive but you can get them now for around $30 that will create several different tapers to match the taper of the peg hole reamer that you have to make a perfect fit. 

You can also make your own peg shaver with a block of HARD wood and the peghole reamer you already have.

Personally I use standard commercial violin tuning pegs, Unless you're trying to duplicate the pegs of a particular pre-Revival builder, they are just fine... inexpensive and available in a variety of sizes from 1/8 to 4/4 violin plus sizes for cello and viola. They can be found in a variety of woods and knob designs.  I've been paying under $1.50 per peg for the sizes I use.

I agree with John,  If you want that traditional look go with Perfection geared violin pegs.  Simple to install.