Forum Activity for @dusty

Todd, I see you've found the For Sale Forum here.  That is a great place to find used instruments, although the usual caveats apply.

The reason I mentioned McSpadden in my earlier post is that McSpadden dulcimers are all good quality and eminently playable.  They are also quite popular, so if you decide to sell one later on, you won't take a big financial hit.  I see you've found a Folkcraft for sale here.  Folkcraft are also of high quality.  If you find one at a decent price, they are usually a safe bet.

You might check Craig's list for used dulcimers, but as with Ebay, the majority of instruments you find there are of questionable quality.  Reverb is another online marketplace, but the prices there seem higher. And honestly, I would suggest staying away from online retailers unless you know the maker well.

As to your question about how to get your hands on a dulcimer to try them out, I can't tell you where to go in SLO itself, but I know some people in Los Osos who have a regular dulcimer gathering.  If you wish, I could put you in touch with them.  In the LA area there are lots of players and there are a few up in the Santa Cruz area and in the East Bay.  In the summer months there are in-person gatherings you could attend when you could just ask to try out people's instruments, but not much is happening like that this time of year.

@todd-metcalf, the listing should indicate if the dulcimer is a baritone. If it doesn't specify, you can assume it is a standard dulcimer.  Is it worth $250?  I suppose that depends on the model and your interest.  David's most common dulcimer was a student model dulcimer that he sold for about $120.  They were made of poplar ply, not solid wood, but they had excellent intonation and a nice punch to the sound.  He also made fancier models, but I've never played one so I can't speak about those.  

Is this the listing ?  If so, that appears to be a student model.  I do not believe there is another dulcimer on the market currently that you can get for that price that would be as playable.  In that sense, perhaps it is worth $279.  On the other hand, we know the original purchaser paid less than half that.

David's student model dulcimer is very well made and the intonation is spot on.  It can be fun to play, with a pop that resembles a mandolin.  However, since it is not made of solid wood, it does not have the deep, rich tone of a dulcimer with, for example, a body of walnut or cherry and a top of cedar or spruce.  My guess is that anyone playing for a while would outgrow it in the search for a more pleasing tone.

With shipping, that dulcimer will cost you over $300 and does not include a bag or case.  

There is no clear right or wrong answer here.  I'm sure you would enjoy playing it, but you might choose to keep your eyes open for a used McSpadden instead.

Well let me close the circle.  @Barnjam started this thread because he found it difficult to fret the middle string, so he sought a longer dulcimer with extended range on each individual string. If you click the link to Ron Gibson's "extended range" dulcimer that @Marko provides, you will see that the strings are very close together and there is little room on the outside of the melody and bass string.  My hands are not that large, but I would find the fretboard on that dulcimer to be insufficiently wide.  Folkcraft also created a 5-string dulcimer called the MaxDAD, which was basically a standard and a bass dulcimer together.  It was tuned DADAD (not sure how to indicate the octaves there).  But their first version of it did not work precisely because the strings were too close together.  So they widened the fretboard to make it more comfortable to play.  One reason I don't own any McSpaddens is that despite the consistently high quality of the tone, the fretboard is so narrow that if you bend the bass or melody string, you often move the string off the end of the fretboard.

What this demonstrates, I think, is that the wideness of the fretboard and the distance between strings is an important variable, perhaps more important that VSL even, and yet it is one that gets little attention either by builders or by players.

I don't know how practical it might be to build a longer dulcimer to add more frets and perhaps get an extra octave on each string, but the issue @Barnjam is dealing with is a common one that should be addressed by builders and players as we customize our instruments.

@Skip, you are correct that the way most luthiers make their dulcimers, a longer VSL just means larger spaces in between fret wire, for the fretboard is usually fixed at a little more than two octaves (most have 17, 18, or 19 frets).  However, there is no reason that has to be the case.  A dulcimer with a long enough VSL could be configured for 3 full, usable octaves. 

I personally would have no use for such a dulcimer, but it is theoretically possible to build one.

This is an example of how different our approaches to playing and therefore our design preferences can be.  One reason I love my McCafferty dulcimer is that it has only 14 frets but an extended strum hollow, allowing the right hand a more comfortable angle and more room to play.  I also had the luthier bring the strings closer together for me, for I find it easier to play fast when the strings are closer together.  And the 25" scale length means I can fret chords with ease.

@Barnjam clearly has different needs than I.  He is seeking a dulcimer with a longer VSL to accommodate an extra octave and greater space between the strings to accommodate his large hands.

Another possibility would be a wider fretboard with more space in between strings.  Just a thought.

@old-dawg, what have you tried?  Go to this discussion to learn how to start a new Forum Discussion and then go to the For Sale Forum and post your listing.

Karen, everything people have said here is accurate.  However, you cannot harm the dulcimer by putting on lighter strings for a standard tuning and trying it out. (In contrast, putting baritone strings on a standard dulcimer might do some damage.)  I would suggest that you try it.  See if the strings sit right in the grooves on the nut and bridge.  Test the intonation, both by ear and by using an electronic tuner.  It might be that the intonation will be slightly off but you will barely notice it.  If the strings wiggle around in the nut and bridge, though, you might get some buzz that will be off-putting.  In short, all you risk by trying it is the cost of three strings.  That's still less than a lavender latte at your favorite cafe.

The question of extra frets comes down to what kind of music you want to play. If you are going to play traditional tunes in a drone style, you don't need extra frets.  You will get used to re-tuning your melody string to get the mode needed for each song.

If you are going to play with others, especially those who play chords, if you are going to join workshops and jams and learn songs from other people's tablature, you will want the 6.5 fret.  The 6.5 fret has been standard now for several decades, and most tablature assumes you have that fret.  The 13.5 fret is just the octave version of the 6.5. I would suggest getting it so that you have the same fret pattern in both octaves.  However, if you are getting one of Ron's small dulcimettes, the frets may be too small up high for a usable 13.5 fret.  Follow his advice on that.

If you want to play blues, jazz, ragtime, pop, rock, and other modern music, you may want a 1.5 fret (and an 8.5 as well).  That is the configuration on my main dulcimers now.  However, remember that we celebrate how easy the dulcimer is to play, and the more frets we add, the more complicated it gets.

And remember that you can always have frets added later on.  My advice would be to get the 6.5 and 13.5 but hold off on the 1.5 and 8.5 until you know for sure what you are doing and why you would want those frets.

@Debi, you should know, first of all, that 26.5 is not considered a "longer" scale length.  I would say "longer" would only apply when you get to 28".  Second, your fingers will stretch.  That 1-2-4 A chord might be a challenge at first to play on a 26.5" scale length, but you will be able to do it, and over time your fingers will stretch and strengthen and it will get easier.  Third, there are always workarounds for chording if you really can't reach a chord. Instead of 1-2-4, you could play 1-0-4 or 4-4-4, assuming you need that 4th fret on the melody string for the melody.  If you are only strumming chords, then 1-0-1 will work as well, or 4-4-6+.

I only use the 1-2-4 chord as an example because it is the hardest stretch of all the "normal" chords on a dulcimer tuned 1-5-8 such as DAd.  But the same principle applies to other chords and chord shapes as well.  There are always alternatives.

Cecil Sharpe, who traveled through Appalachia over a century ago, was also struck by the number of old English ballads being sung in the region.  I do not find it surprising.

People tell stories.  Perhaps not all people, but all peoples.  Nowadays, we read books, watch TV or movies, or listen to the radio or podcasts or whatever. But before modern mass media, stories were oral, and some of those stories came in the form of songs.  A ballad is just a song that tells a story.  I don't find it surprising either that Jean Ritchie's family sang so many ballads or that so many of those ballads were ancient ones from the old world.  Old stories still have something to teach us, even stories from distant lands long ago.  Even if only implicitly, they tell us who we are and where we came from.  We still read and tell stories from the Bible, from the ancient world, from Elizabethan England, and so forth.  The ballads the Ritchie family sung were just part of the cultural repertoire they inherited, shared, and passed on.

What makes American folk music so rich, I think, is that those English ballads mixed here with other traditions: African-American field hollers and blues, work songs, native American chanting, Caribbean syncopation, spirituals, sea shanties, railroad songs, cowboy songs, etc.  And the music was not merely replicated, but expanded upon and rendered "modern" through new lyrics, new chords, new rhythms and tempos.  The Irish ballad The Wexford Girl was given new lyrics as the Knoxville Girl to tell the story of an American murder.  The Scottish song about migration to North America, The Bold Princess Royal, was given new lyrics as Sweet Betsy from Pike, the story of westward migration in the United States.  Rosin the Beau was used for the campaign song Lincoln and Liberty, the abolitionist Roll on Liberty Ball, and the song about settling in the Pacific Northwest, Acres and Acres of Clams.  But even when we add modern lyrics and chords to an old ballad, we still, as is the case with Rosin the Beau, sometimes sing the original versions as well.  Just because Bob Dylan wrote great lyrics to Fare Thee Well doesn't mean no one sings The Leaving of Liverpool anymore.  Just because Elvis made lots of cash with Love Me Tender doesn't mean people don't sing Aura Lee from time to time.

Ballads served as "entertainment," as @john-c-knopf says, but they were also news, biographies, moral fables, histories, and so much more.

I'm sure there are lots of reasons people might be drawn to older music and stories, but it is not surprising to me at all.  We still find Barbara Allen to be a compelling ballad, just as we find Antony and Cleopatra to be a compelling tragedy.

Well I'm an old dulcimer player, and I like to party!

Hi Kathreen,

Your question is a good one, and one that has a simple mathematical answer.  If you know the alphabet from A to G and can count to 7, you can transpose from one key to another.

If we start with D as 1, count to A.  D = 1, E = 2, F# = 3, G = 4, and A = 5.  So to move from a chord in D to a chord in A, you just count up that same amount, starting with 1 and counting up to 5.

For the main I, IV, and V chords . . .

Your chords for D in the key of D will be A in the key of A.

Your chords for G in the key of D will be D in the key of A.

Your chords for A in the key of D will be E in the key of A.

And for the relative minor chords . . . 

Bm in the key of D will be F#m in the key of A.

Em in the key of D will be Bm in the key of A.

F#m in the key of D will be C# minor in the key of A.

Does that help?  There is no reason to seek a chord chart. The chord positions are all the same ones you already know.

Some years ago I made the chart below for the most common keys in folk and old timey music.  Perhaps you'll find it helpful.

Hi Carolyn. It was nice to meet you last month.

I can't remember if I told you, but in addition to the little dulcimette I shared with you, I also have a baritone dulcimette, which I actually prefer due to the extra sustain.  I originally requested a 6-string instrument, but I have been playing it with just 3 strings for the last several years.  With 6 strings it is great for strumming, but the 3-string configuration allows for more nuanced play.  It is tuned to G or A, so it is not always easy to play with other dulcimer players; that's why I took the dulcimette up to the Wallowas.

I think you'll have a great time playing your new instrument and figuring out which arrangements work best for it.  Good luck!

Perhaps this is too obvious, akin to telling you to turn your computer off and then on again, but have you looked into the soundholes to see if there is any information about the luthier?  You might have to shine a flashlight in there to see.

FWIW, the wood is beautiful, and the instrument appears to be in pristine condition. Barring any new information, @ken-longfield's estimates about its value are likely pretty accurate.

Alex, in general I think the more experience with music of any sort, the easier it is to learn any instrument.  There may be challenges, but they pale in comparison to the challenges faced by someone with no musical experience.

I came to the dulcimer from the guitar and mandolin, and yes, it took a little bit to get used to the bass string being on the other end of the fretboard.  But I found the diatonic fretboard the real obstacle.  There were notes in my head that did not exist on the instrument.  And whereas on the mandolin, for example, once you learned a G major chord, you could slide up a fret to get an Ab, another fret to get an A, another fret to get a Bb, and so forth, moveable chords do not work as simply as that on the dulcimer.  It was indeed confusing.

However, the techniques I had developed for right-hand fingerpicking and flatpicking both transferred over with minor adjustments, and even my left hand, though resembling more piano than guitar technique, was also more advanced than that of a beginner.  No one had to teach me what a hammer-on is, for example, or how to bend a string or get harmonics, or how to strum to get a waltz rhythm, and so forth.

Learning a new instrument is difficult, but experience with one instrument makes learning the next one that much easier.

As challenging as it may have been to understand the diatonic fretboard, some people come to the dulcimer with no knowledge of music at all. They don't know what a note is or what a key is.  They ask questions like "how do I know when to strum?" which is not something someone who has already played another string instrument would ever ask.

The main purpose of a radiused fretboard is to facilitate barring across all the strings with a single finger. Aaron O'Rourke uses his pinky for that purpose.  Stephen Seifert uses his ring finger.  Barring with a single finger instead of using three fingers allows more fingers to fret strings above the barre, enabling the playing of more notes while not losing chord tones. To my knowledge, the first luthier to build a dulcimer with a radiused fretboard was David Beede when he designed a dulcimer customized to Aaron's specifications.

A second reason a radiused fretboard might be useful is in playing single-note runs on the middle string.  It is easy enough to angle a flatpick upwards to play single notes only on the melody string or downwards to do so on the bass string without hitting the other strings.  But the middle string is more challenging.  A radiused fretboard essentially raises that middle string up a bit relative to the melody and bass strings, making it easier to play by itself.

I have not opted for a radiused fretboard because I rarely barre with a single finger and also because I'm afraid that I would get used to it and never want to play all my dulcimers with flat fretboards.  But this discussion would benefit from comments by someone who uses a radiused fretboard rather than all of us who don't.

Pretty funny there, John!    It begs the question, though, if I have a shell, why do I need a hat?

As a rightie who does everything rightie, I'm not sure what I can add here. In general, lefties are better with their right hands than righties are with their lefts.

I can imagine fretting strings with my right hand and yet I would not be able to strum or pick with any fluidity with my left hand.

The general consensus is that strumming and picking is more important for the making of music than is fretting strings, which is why most of us strum and pick with our strong hand.  Let's all remember that when people ask for tab to learn songs as though all that matters is the fretting hand.

I would give my left arm to be ambidextrous.

Unless you are going to play with a noter, definitely remove the outer string so that the remaining three would be equidistant.  That extra space on the fretboard is nothing to be feared and would actually make bending the string a bit easier.

If you play with a noter, you might want to remove the inner string so that the melody string is separated a bit more from the drones.

Alex,  I'll just address your first question here and also encourage you to join the Modern Chord Style Players Group here.

When he performs, Steven Seifert rarely uses his thumb.  Aaron O'Rourke uses his more often, but still not a lot compared to the rest of us.  But importantly, both of them teach chording using the thumb.  And most of use all our fingers.

The reason Seifert and O'Rourke don't use their thumbs that much is that they use their ring finger (Seifert) or their pinky (O'Rourke) to barre across all the strings, allowing the other fingers to fret strings above the barre.  So in DAd, whereas I play the 335 G chord with my middle, ring, and thumb, Aaron just forms a barre with his pinky at 3 and then uses his index finger on the 5.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you don't use your thumb, the dulcimer can sit straight across your lap, kind of perpendicular to your legs. But if you use your thumb, you will want to angle the head of the dulcimer out over your knee more.  This is easy to demonstrate and harder to describe, but the basic idea is that you want a relaxed angle for you fretting hand.  I often change how far out the dulcimer is angled depending on how much I use my thumb in a given song.

Personally, I think the best approach is to be flexible, making sure you are able to use all five fingers, and then choosing the fretting hand attack that best fits a given arrangement.

For the record, I played the guitar for decades before discovering the mountain dulcimer.  I think of the right hand as playing the guitar and the left hand as playing the piano.  Maybe that helps. Maybe not.

The advice to loosen the strings is common for guitars.  But string tension on guitars is much greater than that on dulcimers, and dulcimers have the ultimate brace (meaning the fretboard) keeping things intact.  Tuning down a little bit, as John and Nate have suggested, is probably a good idea but may not be necessary unless environmental conditions are going to change drastically. If the instrument is just going to sit in your closet, I wouldn't worry about it.  If you are putting it in a storage unit in the desert with no climate control, you may run into problems that loosening the strings won't solve.

P.S. Congrats on your McCafferty dulcimer. I love mine, which is evidenced in how "used" it now looks.

Wow.  2009? I think that's around the time I joined.  How many are we now? 2000?  3000?

@davisjames, I can't speak for other people, but as I was learning the dulcimer I would post videos of standard old timey fare as I learned the repertoire: Bonaparte's Retreat, Mississippi Sawyer, Cripple Creek, Whiskey Before Breakfast, etc.  But as I've advanced in my playing, I tend to record only stuff that's a little different, meaning originals or pop tunes or lesser-known fiddle tunes or Celtic airs or whatever.

I still play traditional, old timey music in jams, but I tend to no longer record the well-known standard stuff.  So the video and audio that I post is not reflective of the music I play on a regular basis.

You should not normally have to do anything with those screws. Over time, however, the tuning pegs might get too stiff or loose and you adjust them with those screws.  You probably only need to adjust them once every ten years or so.  If you don't have a problem tuning your strings, don't mess with those screws.

Some tuning pegs have much tinier little screws, and sometimes they are on the other end of the post.

That's really beautiful, @robin-thompson.  Although I would not recognize the melody as one of yours, I can hear your delicate slides certainly.  Your niece is quite talented.  Hopefully you can forgive her for going to Indiana for school.  

Although it's been dormant for some time, the 6-String Dulcimers Group here still has a lot of members.  Perhaps you could join that group and resurrect a discussion or two on what those instruments offer.

Remember that you have to join the group to be able to see all the content.

Hey John.  I have a Ron Ewing baritone dulcimette made with 6 strings in three courses. Basically, each string is doubled.  I love the sound.  I has the pop of a good mandolin.  And it was great for strumming tunes, meaning tunes that involve a lot of just strumming across all the strings.  One day I restrung it without each of the double strings, so it was just a 3-stringed dulcimer.  That was about 10 years ago, and I have never gone back.  Without the double strings it is just much easier to play more nuanced music, sometimes picking a single string instead of strumming all the time.  And certain techniques such as bending strings or even just adding some vibrato are simply not possible with the double strings.

I guess that story is evidence that I prefer 3 strings to 6.  However, that double string dulcimer sounded great for certain tunes.  I think my playing has just gravitated to a different style.

I fixed the spelling in the title. And yes, John Stockard produced very elegant dulcimers with impeccable intonation.

Sometimes comments get embedded in forums on related topics.  Here was one place the video was posted , in a conversation on the popularity of the dulcimer.

There are a few other places around FOTMD where people discussed this video.  I am more impressed with Seyfried's singing than her dulcimer playing, but it's all pretty impressive.  And it's great to see the dulcimer get some mainstream attention.

Mike, I have one of the Hall brand pyrex glass noters that Amazon used to sell. Here is the listing explaining that it is no longer available: Hall dulcimer noter .  That is the exact model I have.  It was given to me when I bought my first dulcimer about 14 or 15 years ago.

It is well made and very pretty.  It produces a very bright tone and slides around like butter on a hot skillet, although my noter skills are pretty poor, so I can't do a good demo. I have trouble avoiding the fret wire.

I never use it.  If you pay for shipping plus make a $10 donation to FOTMD, it is yours.  Send me a personal message if you're interested.  I would package it up and get some estimates on shipping before you have to commit.

Hi @mdwannabe.  First, strings get stiff and stale just from exposure to air.  They also get grimy from being played, but strings age even if they are not played at all.  And wound strings age much faster than do plain steel strings.  So you might consider just changing your string.  Try that before anything else.

I am not sure what exactly you mean by "tinny."  Is there perhaps a buzz?  If you fret the string, does the "tinny" sound remain?  Try fretting at each fret and see if sound gets better.  If it is equally tinny up and down the fretboard, perhaps it is not sitting cleanly in the nut or bridge and a small adjustment might be necessary.

I'm sure one of the builders here at FOTMD will have better ideas than I do.

We did all embrace the word "international."  The reason it was even a discussion was because of my initial question, which stemmed from having learned of National Guitar Day (probably from a Sweetwater ad) and wondering whether we should have a National Dulcimer Day.  I don't recall any resistance to Robin's suggestion of "international."  It is both more inclusive and also appropriately celebratory regarding the dulcimer's spread beyond the hills and hollows of Appalachia.  (And I personally love the juxtaposition of "international" and "Appalachian.")

@nate, the discussion did indeed start on the Positive Thread, but my memory is that once we decided on a date and a name, I started this discussion here.

This year was year 4.  But remember that year 1 was not at the end of the year (like a birthday) but at the beginning. So one year in was year 2, etc.  Next year will be year 5.

Earlier in this thread I shared the image of a sticker I had made.  I just got some more, so if anyone wants a couple, send me a PM.  I also made the banner that Robin used to advertise the day here at FOTMD back when we had those banner ads. I'd be happy to offer those images for a DPN article if we want to go that route.

Here is the sticker:

And here is the banner:

It's good to chronicle this stuff for the historical record.  Thanks, @robin-thompson.  So next year will be the 5th year! Maybe we can plan something special for then.

At the heart of this day are the sentiments Robin shared a few posts back: "it's a grassroots celebration of the spread of the Appalachian dulcimer from the Appalachians to countries around the world.  And no one is in charge.  Any creative endeavor featuring mountain dulcimer is welcome for sharing."

Well, everybody, it appears our efforts to create International Appalachian Dulcimer Day has been a success, if we define success as the growing awareness of others of this special day to honor a special instrument.  People who know nothing about our efforts here are now referring to this day and it is becoming part of dulcimer lore.

The question before us now is whether we want the origin of IADD to remain "an unofficial holiday of obscure origin," much like the instrument itself, or whether we want to assert the role of FOTMD in creating the day.

One of us (I would volunteer) could easily write up a few sentences on the creation of IADD here at FOTMD and insert those lines into the Wikipedia entry on the mountain dulcimer.  The evidence (first in the Positive Thread and then here) is clear.

Should we assert our role as the originators or is it best to leave things "obscure"?

Thanks so much, John for that explanation.  Basically, you are defining purity of tone as a minimum of overtones.  That seems logical.

But it also raises a question which I asked earlier, which is how the mathematical definition of purity of tone corresponds to what we subjectively hear.  It certainly seems to our ears that the brighter sound of notes plucked closer to the bridge is more accurate or pure than the warmer sound of notes plucked closer to the center.

My question about fingers and pick was, well, kind of stupid honestly, since clearly those are variables you would want to hold constant if you did a physical experiment and something you would not choose to address in a theoretical simulation.

But there are real-world issues that muddy the cleanliness of your mathematical model.  In your first diagram of the inverted V, h represents the extent of the pluck, or how much the string is pulled before being plucked.  But there is a lot less tension on the string in the middle than there is on the ends.  To pull that string to the same extent by the bridge would result in a much more violent release, increasing the volume, certainly, but also, I assume, changing the nature of the string's vibrations.  I think you might need to add another factor--string tension--to this study and adjust h in that diagram to keep tension constant. Does that make sense?

If I understand you, @johnr, by "middle" you mean at half the string's length, or the octave (7th fret on a dulcimer, 12th fret on all those chromatic instruments).  We would normally say you get a "warmer" or "softer" tone there than you do towards the bridge, where the tone is usually described as "brighter."  So the warmer tone corresponds to what you describe as "purer" based on the sound waves.  By "purer" do you mean that there are fewer waves that bunch together to make a note?

How did you pluck or strum the string?  Whether you use a plectrum or bare fingers also affects the tone in ways that I assume you could measure.

@sam-edelston is a rock star, for sure! 

I like the title they give him on TV: "musician and dulcimer expert."  I want that on my business card.

Robin Thompson: It's IADD!  

https://youtu.be/bWp82g_V59o?si=EvOWqAbxDgE1YAUU

That's beautiful playing, Robin. Your sensitive approach to the noter is second to none.  Peace and goodwill to you, too.