Forum Activity for @jim-yates

I was admiring my friend Glen's limberjack at a festival and a few months later, he showed up with one he'd made for me.

 Limberjack from Glen.jpg - 97KB

Since I learned from Jean's column and before the 6+ fret became standard, I use DAA tuning most of the time.  I find chording easier (probably because I'm more familiar with this tuning.)

I first became interested in the mountain dulcimer after reading a Teach-In by Jean Ritchie in Sing Out! magazine in the early sixties.  Soon after that I bought Jean Ritchie, New Lost City Ramblers and Richard & Mimi Farina LPs with dulcimer playing on them.  I built my first crude dulcimer from hollow door mahogany and model RR plywood for the top, circa 1970. 
In the last decade I have had three musician friends buy dulcimers and have had two people request lessons.  There seemed to be a dip in the visibility of dulcimers after the great Folk Scare of the sixties, but in the last decade or so, they seem to be making a come-back.

My home made dulcimer

 homemadedulcimer.jpg - 32KB

Here's a point about the damage that can be caused by leaving a clip on tuner fastened to your instrument.  There are solvents in the plastic or rubber pads on these tuners that can react with the finish on several instruments.  I tune my instrument, then take the tuner off.  During a show, I will keep it clipped to my mic stand so it's handy.  I started doing this just because I hated the look of tuners, capos or cigarettes, sticking out of the tuning head, but later a student of mine pointed out the instruction sheet that comes with the tuner the one that no one ever reads, warned against leaving the tuner on the instrument.  I have seen the finish and the decals on instrument heads scarred from the solvent in the pads.
Vinyl straps and Naugahyde couches can also do this, ruining both the instrument finish and the couch.

I recall Music Alone Shall Live as a 3 dulcimer round at our local folk club back before the turn of the century.
We used DAA tuning.

Music Alone Shall Live   -   German folk song

1 - All things shall perish from under the sky.
2 - Music alone shall live, m usic alone shall live,
3 - Music alone shall live, and never die  die.

My brother Bob has a yard sale balalaika that he got a few decades ago.  Since he had no idea how to play or tune it and he got it before everyone had Google, he tuned it like the first string courses of his mandolin.  He figured that not many fiddle tunes utilized the 4th string anyway and he was right.

Bob's Balalaika

Sorry, I see there is no edit option.  My second paragraph should have been:

Traditional dulcimers are fretted diatonically.  If "W" is "whole tone" and "H" is "half tone", from the nut it would be:
W W H W W H W W W H . . .   To play an Ionian scale, you would start on the 3rd fret.

It's a little late to be adding to this thread, but I was surprised that no one had mentioned the way Mick's dulcimer is fretted.
Traditional dulcimers are fretted diatonically.  If, f "W" is "whole tone" and "H" is "half tone", from the nut it would be: W W H W W H W W W H . . .   To play an Ionian scale, you would start on the 3rd fret.
Since the seventies, most modern dulcimers have an added fret (6+) making the frets:
W W H W W H H H W W H . . .
Folks have started adding frets as they need them and I have even seen dulcimers fretted completely chromatically.
Mick's dulcimer seems to be fretted: W H H H H H W H H H W W H H H W H H H
Can anyone see the reason for this?

In high school, my brother Bob and I shared a room in my parent's basement. We had this picture on the wall for a few years.  It's a photo of one of our musical heroes, Sonny Boy Williamson II whose real name was Rice Miller.

I just found an old cigar box with some slides, capos picks and some harps that I haven't used in ages, but since the reeds all work, I may just give 'em another go.

12-hole harp from Grandpa Charlie

14 hole C harp

10 hole Echo Super Vamper


About 45 years ago, Charlie, my ex-father-in-law gave me one of his 12-hole diatonics.  It's a Marine Band Special in C.  It's very similar to my 10 hole diatonics, except that it has a full lower octave.
When I was in high school, I was a fan of Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller), who played low pitched harps, so I bought a 14 hole Marine Band in C.  Amazingly, it still works.
I was hitch-hiking in Scotland in the late sixties when my "A" Marine Band crapped out. I went to a music store and asked for a Marine Band in A.  The clerk had no idea what a Marine Band was, so I showed him one of mine.  He said, "Oh, you mean an Echo Super Vamper ."  He showed me an Echo Super Vamper and, except for the top cover plate, it was a Marine Band .  It still works just fine.

In the early sixties, I went with a banjo playing friend to see Pete play at a high school in Hamilton, Ontario.  My english teacher, who knew that I was a folkie, gave me a poster for this show which hung in my room as long as I loived with my parents.  Although I wouldn't get my first banjo till the early seventies, I did buy Pete's red banjo book and practised banjo techniques on the guitar.
I last saw Pete at Hugh's Room in 2014.  He played the whole night standing, and, though his voice was very frail, he had no trouble getting the audience singing along.

Here's Pete walking past Maggie to the stage.  

 Maggie & Pete.jpg - 84KB

About 45 years back, I found this little old tenor guitar at a yard sale.  I kept steel strings on it for about a decade, but, being worried about its integrity, I switched to nylon and put it in Chicago tuning (DGBE).  It was mostly a wall hanger for a long time, but since joining Ukulele Underground, I have been making some videos and occasionally whip out the tenor guitar/baritone uke.  Here's what it sounds like.

This is actually a fun song to play.  You don't have to use the falsetto voice.

Tiptoe Through The Tulips Al Dublin & Joe Burke 1929

Intro: C / A / |Dm / G7 / :||

[C] Tiptoe [A] to the [Dm] window [G7]
By the [C] window,[C7] that is [F] where I'll [Cdim] be
Come [C] tiptoe [A] through the [Dm] tulips [G7] with [C] me [A][Dm][G7]

Oh, [C] tiptoe [A] from the [Dm] garden [G7]
By the [C] garden [C7] of the [F] willow [Cdim] tree
Come and [C] tiptoe [A] through the [Dm] tulips [G7] with [C] me [F][C][C7]

Knee [F] deep in [Em] flowers we'll [A7] stray
We'll [B7] keep the [Dm] showers a[G7]way

And if I [C] kiss you [A] in the [Dm] garden, [G7]
In the [C] moonlight [C7] will you [F] pardon [Cdim] me?
And [C] tiptoe [A] through the [Dm] tulips [G7] with [C] me [A][Dm][G7]

 Tiny Tim 1957.jpg - 65KB

https://www.facebook.com/groups/BeginningHammeredDulcimerPlayers

https://www.facebook.com/groups/177530402583937

https://www.facebook.com/groups/146510668705434

https://www.facebook.com/groups/175933649422605/?hoisted_section_header_type=recently_seen&multi_permalinks=1162454044103889

https://www.jonweinberg.com/music/jwhd_links.html

Here's a song I love to play on my concert uke tuned gCEA .

Walkin' My Baby Back Home

In 1960, my brother and I had one guitar between us and it was frustrating.  We wanted to play together, but we couldn't afford another guitar.  Since this was the time that The Great Folk Scare was in full swing, we had a couple of Sonny & Brownie LPs  and Hohner Marine Bands were about $2.00, so we each bought a harp and tried to sound like Sonny, with little success, until we read an article in Sing Out! magazine where Tony Glover explained cross harp, palying in the key of E with an A harp.  Suddenly it all came together.

Here are the harps that I play regularly.  The little box fits in my guitar case.

Here's a tune on the Tiple that I recorded for a ukulele group I belong to.  I had been fooling with the tiple and a 14 string banduria, which is why I credit the tiple with 4 more strings than it actually has.

Here's one I learned from The King Of The 12-String Guitar, Lead Belly.  Alabamy Bound
I love playing the call & response.

I don't own a 12-string, but at the start of COVID I borrowed my brother Bob's Epiphone 12-string for a couple of weeks which turned into over a year because of COVID.
Here's a sample of Carl Martin's Vegetable Dance , played with a flat pick.

Right after the turn of the century, I got a friend request on Myspace from a fiddle player named Saskia Tomkins.  Her family was moving to my part of Southern Ontario and wanted to meet some musicians and find out about venues.  We became good buddies and I met her family.  Her husband, Steafan Hannigan was a multi-instrumentalist and a whiz on the bodhran.  Steafan and Saskia had three pre-teen kids who were also starting to become fine musicians.  Their son, Oisin, has becomea very talented percussionist.  He's all grown up now and is a married man living in Montreal.
Here's Oisin demonstrating some bodhrans.

Some more photos, before and after:   https://fotmd.com/jim-yates/gallery/rs-williams-banjo/all

Just this weekend my friend Teilhard Frost, a wonderful gourd banjo builder (and player) paid us a visit toreturn my R.S. Williams banjo which had been in terrible, unplayable condition since I bought it for $20 at a yard sale in 2018(?).  I could see that it had promise and when Teilhard saw it, he said that he could bring it back to playable condition.  Well he sure did that.  It was made prior to 1879 (when the company was renamed R.S. Williams & Son) and has been restored with rosewood pegs and nylon strings.  I have been playing it constantly since I got it back.
One photo before Teilhard got hold of it and one after he worked his magic.

 RS Williams banjo.jpg - 123KB

Strumelia,
It has a 16.25 inch scale.

I bought a ten string Regal tiple, made in Chicago, at a yard sale a few years back.  I haven't used it much till COVID locked me in and I started taking part in a weekly ukulele get together.
The tiple has 4 courses of strings and I tune them gG-cCc-eEe-AA.  The saddle is not compensated, so playing far up the neck causes some sour notes, so I stick to the first 5 or 6 frets.
Any other tiplers on this site?

I'm not sure how to add a photo.

I also enjoy Mary's banjo and dulcimer playing.
I'd like to share a banjo duet that AlKirby and I recorded alittle over a decade ago.  Al is playing Scruggs style and I'm playing clawhammer style.  Our friend the late Zeke Mazurek added some fiddleto the mix.  This was on our Sittin' In The Kitchen CD.
https://www.banjohangout.org/myhangout/media-player/audio_player2.asp?playlist=1201&musicid=

 Sittin' In The Kitchen K&Y.jpg - 197KB

I have a few instruments in the banjo family.
I play clawhammer and a few other folk styles on my 5-strings. 
I have a tenor that is strung with nylon strings that I often play in the Maple Leaf Champions Jug Band.
I also have a few banjoleles that I use Somebody Stole My Gal, Sweet Sue and Walkin' My Baby Back Home.

I used to play bluegrass banjo,but the arthritis in my thumbs has slowed that down a lot.

I just recalled a couple of songs that the kids in my class seemed to like a lot.

I'm Gonna Tell by Rosalie Sorrels was a favourite.

  I'm gonna tell, I'm gonna tell
  I'm gonna holler and I'm gonna yell
  I'll get you in trouble for everything you do
  I'm gonna tell on you

I'm gonna tell how you broke the plate
And I'll tell all about the bananas you ate
I'll tell on you one time, I'll tell on you two
I'm gonna tell on you!

I'm gonna tell Papa where you hid your gum
And then I'll tell that you still suck your thumb
And soon he'll find out about the cat and the glue
I'm gonna tell on you!

Another that I learned from a Michael Cooney record was one that he called What Do They Make In Washington?
Michael once worked at the Toronto Folklore Centre and he said in the liner notes that his Canadian friends should feel free to change the lyrics for Canuck kids, so I did.  My students sang:


There was a teacher in a fifth grade classroom
Teaching geography;
All about the goods from the different places
All across the country.
Well the lesson was nearly over
When a little kid raised her hand
She said, "Please tell me teacher,
For I do not understand:

  Tell me what do they make in Ottawa
  To give to all of the nation?
  Oshawa people they make the cars
  In Bewdly we take a vacation.
  They grow those big potatoes
  In P.E.I. I know
  But what do they make in Ottawa?
  I really want to know. 

After a few more verses, we come to:

Well, the teacher was bewildered
As teachers often are,
He knew that this young student
Had taken things a little too far
And searching for an answer
This is what he did say,
"That's a very good question.
We'll save it for another day."

The guitar can play in any key, especially if he has a capo.

Ukulele players seldom use capos and (almost) never above the 2nd fret. 
If she's strumming chords, in the key of D, simple D-2220 or 2225, A-2100 or A7-0100 or 2130, and G-0232 will accommodate most dulcimer folk songs.

I have used DAA as my primary tuning.  Since dulcimer is not my primary instrument, I like to stick to one tuning.  I have tried DAD, but find DAA better for chords and double stops and I really miss those lower notes on the melody string.
I have talked to those who feel that DAD is better for chording, but since I started on DAA, I have many patterns and shapes memorized. 

I really like this tuning when playing fiddle tunes too Strumelia, but when I'm singing folk songs in C or D and playing backup, I prefer drop C tuning gCGBD.  When I play this tuning in D, I like to start with open G, gDGBD, and capo the first three strings at the second fret and leave the 4th string open, capoing the thumb string to A.  This gives me aDAC#E, but I can use key of G shapes.

I use a capo for D rather than tuning up.  I'm a bit nervous about tuning up with the medium gauge strings I like to use.

I was a single father of two 3-7 year old sons for about 4 years.  The songs they loved us to sing while driving in our truck were Mama's Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys, John Prine's Spanish Pipe Dream (which they called "that Blow up your TV song") and Gene Autry's Cowpoke Pokin' Along.

I recall a song about the musical instruments: "The clarinet, the clarinet goes doodle, doodle, doodle, doodle det... The violin's singing with lovely ringing... "

My dad used to sing us a song with the lines "Hush, hush, whisper, Who dares?  Christopher Robins is saying his prayers." when he was putting us to bed.
In the car, he'd sing The Whiffinpoof Song, St. James Infirmary and Frog Went A Courting.  He ended the song with verses I've not heard anywhere else:
They paddled off across the lake uh huh,
They paddled off across the lake uh huh,
They paddled off across the lake
And were swallowed up by a big black snake
Uh huh, Uh huh, Uh huh.

Well that was the end of him and her, uh huh,
That was the end of him and her, uh huh,
That was the end of him and her
Now we won't have tadpoles covered in fur,
Uh huh, Uh huh, Uh huh.

I taught school for thirty some odd years and some of that time was spent teaching music to kindergarten to grade eight students.  Some songs that went over very well with kids were Pete Seeger's Abyoyo, Carl Martin's The Vegetable Dance, the old jug band tune Boodle Am Shake, a song I learned in Scouts called The Watermelon Song and Hopalong Peter, a tune I learned from The New Lost City Ramblers.

My first dulcimer, made in about 1970, before I knew much about building instruments, stated in my classroom and kids were welcome to use it.  The diatonic scale made it easy for kids to pick out tunes or invent their own.  This old dulcimer, made from a the wood from a hollow core mahogany door and model railroad plywood for the top, has a lot of battle scars from kids playing it, but has given a lot of kids a lot of fun.

 homemadedulcimer.jpg - 32KB

Our back room has an old foundry mold (I have no idea what the product was.) with a carved rosewood elephant sitting on it. 
Maggie said, "Jim, you're not going to take a picture of that thing before you wipe the dust off." 

Sorry Maggie.

Not so creative.  I got the idea by actually getting my moustache caught in the harp rack.
I've never tried playing the mouth harp with the dulcimer.

Here's a tiple, essentially a 10 string wire strung ukulele.  It was made in Chicago by the Regal Company.
It has four courses and is tuned gG-cCc-eEe-AA.  I do play this on occasion.

This is an old Oscar Schmidt guitar zither that hangs on our back room wall.  I also have a mandolin zither that was given to me by a cousin, but it hasn't found a home.  I doubt these will ever be played, but they look neat.

I don't believe I'll play the mouth harp with the drum, but when playing for kids, I have played the mouth harp while working a clog doll (limberjack).  I would play it for a while, then pretend to get my moustache caught in the rack.  I'd then ask one of the kids to come and work the doll while I played the mouth harp.

And if you have a rack, it should be perfectly legal to play while driving.  In Canada, at least, hands free devices are legal.  I'm not sure the police would agree.

A couple of folks mentioned Chromatics.  Toots Thielemans, the master of the chromatic harp passed away today (August 22, 2016) in his early nineties.  Here's a clip of Toots playing his most famous composition, Bluesette.  Part way through he is surprised by another master of the chromatic harp, Stevie Wonder.
I bought a chromatic in the mid-sixties after hearing Toots, but it has not received much attention.

A friend of ours and a mentor to both of my sons, the late Willie P. Bennett was the best rack player I've ever heard or played with.  Here's the last song I ever heard Willie play:

Willie plays Stardust

One of our neighbours, Carlos Del Junco is one of Canada's (and the world's I'd guess) best mouth harp players.  He sometimes sits in with our jug band.  Here he is with our fiddle player, Jim Bowskill, playing guitar (Jim is a master of many instruments).

Jimmy Bowskill & Carlos Del Junco