Forum Activity for @dusty

That's a beautiful dulcimer and you got it for a very fair price.  If your buyer's remorse is strong enough, just send the dulcimer to me and ease your discomfort.

I can understand wanting the original tuners, if indeed it originally had tuning pegs.  But the problem is that you don't have those tuning pegs, so replacing the mechanical tuners would represent another modification. And mechanical tuners are indeed much easier to use.

Perhaps @Dwain-Wilder of Bear Meadow would know what kind of tuners the 1975 Sunhearth originally had.

Very sad news.  Thanks for letting us know, Ken.  I just posted on the funeral home website and I encourage others to do so.  I only knew Rob from FOTMD and YouTube, but I will miss our interactions greatly.

@tonyg, if you are tuned Ddd (or DAd for that matter) and play a song in the ionian mode, you should be using the 6-1/2 fret.  The 6 fret would be mixolydian.

If you did not have a 6-1/2 fret, you would have to tune your melody string to A to get the ionian mode, and your base or tonic would be the 3rd fret.

The reason is simply that the songs you have chosen employ the major scale or ionian mode.  Other songs--most obviously Old Joe Clark--employ the mixolydian mode.  Some songs are actually pentatonic, and only involve a 5-note scale. Those can usually be played in either the ionian or the mixolydian modes.  But truly modal melodies can only be played in one mode.

In the key of D, the ionian mode makes use of the C# (the 6+ fret on a D string) and the mixolydian mode makes use of the C natural (the 6 fret on a D string).

To play modal music, dulcimer players get accustomed to changing tunings.  Or, they add frets.  The main reason for the popularity of the 6+ fret is that it lets dulcimer players play in both the ionian and mixolydian modes without changing tunings.

I hope that clarifies more than it muddies.

Nice to hear from @Doug-Jones and @Jeannie-in-Paradise. l consider both of you local friends.  And Jeannie, you are the reason I am here. You found me at the original Everything Dulcimer site and encouraged me to join here. I will be forever grateful.

It's certainly sad for the dulcimer community that David is no longer making dulcimers.

I have a MMD made entirely of lacewood that I got from Aaron O'Rourke.  It has the lowest action of any dulcimer I've ever played.  That's the instrument that helped me develop what passes for my flatpicking technique.

Hey folks. I just want to resurrect this fun Discussion that has been dormant for a couple of years.  Please share what you're working on: a new song? a new build? a new technique?

@Rachel, yes, on a lot of social media platforms such as Instragram, Facebook, and YouTube, and even business software such as Teams, the @ symbol is a way to express that your comment is specifically a response to one individual. At FOTMD, if they allow notifications, members will receive an email when someone identifies them in a discussion.  You may receive one when I post this comment. But if you have subscribed to the discussion, then you would get one anyway.

@Rachel, I'll do my best to respond here, but for the most part, I think you got it.  And I certainly appreciate you making the effort to learn how the site is organized rather than just posting willy nilly all over the place.  Thank you!

Groups, as you say, pertain to specific interests.  Importantly, you have to join a group to see all the posts. There is no cost to join nor a vetting process, but the idea is that group conversations are more intimate in that they only involve those with that special interest.

Forums are available to all members of FOTMD and address more general issues than those handled in Groups.

Inside a given Forum and inside a given Group are Discussions on specific topics.  In either a Group or a Forum, if you find a Discussion on a topic you wish to engage in, you can post in that Discussion thread.  If you look around and there is no Discussion on a topic you wish to talk about, you can create a new one.

In fact, this Discussion thread is specifically about how to create a new Discussion in a Forum, so if you scroll to the beginning you will see efforts by Strumelia and me to answer that question.

Admittedly, there is some overlap between the Forums and the Groups.  Beginner questions, for example, seem to pop up everywhere.  But in general, keeping things organized with clear titles for Discussion topics organized in the appropriate Group or Forum makes it easy to find old conversations.  When I first joined as a beginner, I had dozens of questions, but most of them had already been asked and answered in Forums or Groups, so scrolling around the site allowed me to find those answers right away rather than post a question and then wait for someone to read my post and answer.

I will also admit that some of the Groups are pretty quiet.  You can see tumbleweed and hear crickets when you pop in there.  We could probably weed some out, to be honest, but sometimes all it takes is one person to pose a question or make a comment and activity starts percolating again.

@austinpmckenzie, that's an interesting piece on functional ear training. Having just skimmed it once, I don't know for sure that I fully understand it, but I do think that the way my ear hears music is similar.  I know what a I chord sounds like or means in a song. I know what a V chord means.  So I can hear in a piece of music when that chord is being played by the function it plays in the song.  The V chord creates tension that wants to resolve to the I chord, for example.  The same can be said of a melody.  Certain notes of the scale function as resting places, other notes as passing tones, and some create tension that needs to be resolved.  There are only 12 notes in a chromatic octave and 7 in a diatonic octave, so it isn't too difficult to get to know the notes from which you can choose to play a melody.  

In my opinion, the best (meaning accurate and short) history of the dulcimer is the piece written by Dr. Lucy Long and available at the Bear Meadow website: https://www.bearmeadow.com/smi/histof.htm .  Most of us know this story by now.  Dr. Long explains what @robin-thompson notes, the variety of playing styles that characterized the dulcimer from its origins:

The traditional repertoire of the dulcimer included the full range of repertoires found in the mountains, including traditional British balladry and hymnody, dance tunes, and play/party songs [ . . .]  Because of its soft volume, the dulcimer is thought to have been used either as accompaniment to singing or for instrumental solos, but it was also used in string bands and instrumental duets where it functioned as a melody instrument and also provided harmony and a rhythmic background through the slapping of the pick against the strings.

And @nate's point about innovation characterizing the dulcimer from its very origin is spot on.  Both the construction of the instrument and its use was still evolving in the early 20th century when, as @ken-longfield explains, it emerged from isolated Appalachian communities and gained some degree of commercial exposure.  At that time, interestingly, it was already being romanticized as an "old" instrument associated with an imagined Anglo-American past, even though the instrument was very new and was still evolving.

Hi @matthewlyon and welcome to FOTMD.  Glad to hear you've come back to the mountain dulcimer again.  And certainly, playing a dulcimer with really high action would be more comfortable in a noter style.

You do indeed see lots of dulcimers made entirely of a single hard tonewood, most commonly walnut, but cherry and maple as well.  They are not as common as dulcimers with  one of those woods for the back and sides and soft tonewood such as spruce, cedar or redwood for the top.  The top plays a bigger part in the sound than do the back and sides, so an all-maple dulcimer would, as Strumelia says, have a bright, crisp tone. Additionally, it would likely have exceptional sustain. I believe Linda Brockinton mainly plays an all-maple McSpadden specifically for the extra sustain to enhance her soft, fingerstyle play.

I think there are two questions there, Brad. The first is why tuning to D became standard and the second is why DAd (or 1-5-8 or the mixolydian tuning) is so common.

I'm pretty sure that once upon a time, people would tune a dulcimer to whatever tone resonated most saliently in that given dulcimer.  They would "hoo in the hole," literally hum into the soundhole, find a tone that sounded really special, and tune to that.  Later on, I think tuning to C was most common, and to be honest, I wish we still tuned to C because it would make explaining music theory so much easier.  But I think around the time of the dulcimer renaissance in the late 60s or early 70s, people began tuning to D to play with fiddles, since there are so many fiddle tunes in D (and A -- It's those pesky guitar and banjo players who like playing in G).

In traditional drone play, you have to change the tuning of your melody string depending on the mode or scale of the melody you are playing.  In the key of D, the four most common tunings are DAA, DAd, DAC, and DAG.  The first two sound major and the latter two sound kind of minor.

When the 6+ fret became common--and it's pretty standard these days--a player could play in the mixolydian (DAd) or ionian (DAA) modes without re-tuning. How convenient!

You will often hear that chording is easier in DAd than in DAA.  I do not believe that the simple act of playing a chord is easier in one tuning than the other. And I actually prefer the sound of chords in DAA better than in DAd. They are more compact and more coherent.

This is only a theory, but I think playing melody & chords together is easier in DAd because out of one chord position you can reach a greater range of notes, basically three frets' worth.  The whole trick to chord/melody style is to be able to capture the melody out of chord positions with a minimum of hand movement.  And DAd simply gives us a greater tonal range out of any one hand position.  Anyway, that's my theory.

I happen to play in DAd 90 percent of the time because that was the most common tuning when I first started playing and I want to be able to play by instinct as much as possible, so that a musical idea goes from my head (or my heart) to my fingers with no hesitation, something that is much easier if you stick to one tuning. I also have a 1+ fret on my main playing dulcimers and find that with the 1+ and 6+, there is rarely a melody I can't get.

But I would never say that one tuning is superior to another.  DAd happens to be the most common these days, and that's why I started with it.  Now it's comfortable.  When I tune to other tunings, I have to think about what I'm doing, and who wants to do that?!

Brad, I would suggest not using a chromatic template to map chords for the diatonic fretboard.  It might suffice for now as a quick reference to find a specific chord, but it will hinder your long-term understanding of the fretboard.  As I mentioned early on in this discussion, one of the challenges with chord shapes on the dulcimer is that they change from major chords to minor chords as you move up and down the fretboard. In order to begin understanding why that happens, you have to see where those fat and skinny frets are.  Using a chromatic template will make it harder to learn the layout of the fretboard and how those chord shapes work more generally.

Brad, I'm having trouble with your chord chart since you appear to be using a guitar template.  I can get past the 6 strings, but that chart shows chromatic frets.  Are you playing a dulcimer with chromatic frets?  That changes everything.

You might just Google "dulcimer chord chart DGd" and see what you get.  Here is one chart and here is another. I'm sure there are others out there.

And remember that the easiest way to get your I - IV - V chords on a dulcimer in an open tuning is to use the bar chords.  So if you are tuned DGD, then 000 is G,  333 is C and 444 is D.  Of course, those are only partial chords, but they can help when you're in a jam. (Like that pun? )

@shanonmilan, try playing the banjo on your porch.  That will have the neighbors begging you to play the concertina!

Brad, if you are tuned DGD, you are in what is basically an open G tuning.  It will be pretty easy to play common tunes in G.

You can also play common tunes in G in a DAd tuning, but you have to pay attention.  If you don't have a 1+ fret, you can't play a C chord down by the nut and will have to play 3-4-6 or 6-6-8 or something like that.

However, I regularly play in G out of a DAd tuning with a capo on the 3rd fret.  You can also put the capo at the 4th fret to play in A. And if you have to play in C, you can quickly tune down to CGc (another reason to play with 3 strings and not 6 is the ease of tuning!)  This approach allows you to play in the 4 common keys (C, D, G, A) at folk, old timey, and bluegrass jams.

A few years ago I made this video demonstrating how to play in G and A with a capo tuned DAd.

Brad, the short answer is that in traditional drone play, there are no chords.  The first and fifth notes of the scale of whatever key you are in ring out throughout (or drone) on the bass and middle strings and you play the melody on the melody string.

Take a look at Robin Clark playing "Coleman's March" .  In DAA tuning, he starts the song going from the 3rd fret to the 5th fret.  At that point he is actually playing a D major chord (D on the bass, A on the middle, F# on the melody).  But then he moves to the 6th fret (G note).  If you were chording, you would switch to a G major chord there, but in drone style, there is no chord change.  The bass and middle are still D and A even though there is no A in a G major chord, and yet the song sounds sweet, doesn't it?

Brad, I have a six-string dulcimer that I only play with three strings now.  I much prefer the clarity of sound with the single courses. And certain techniques (like bending strings) just can't be done with those double courses.

If you are used to other chromatic instruments, you may get frustrated with the way chord shapes work on the dulcimer since they switch from major to minor depending on where on the fretboard you are.

They way I taught myself chords, and the way I encourage students to do so now, is to find some 3-chord songs.  Don't worry about playing the melody, but just strum to accompany yourself singing or humming or whistling.  Figure out those 3 chords by the nut, perhaps sticking to the first 3 frets.  When you have those down and can play them without having to concentrate on where to put you fingers, find different versions of those chords around frets 2-5 or so.  Do the same thing, strumming chords there until you get them down. When you fingers are comfortable there, find those same three chords around frets 5-8.

In the end, you've just been strumming chords and singing songs, but you've learned where to find the main chords you need up and down the first octave of the fretboard.

Paula, I moved your post to the For Sale: Instruments/Music Items/Wanted to Buy Forum.  

I have a Probst Dulcimer strung as a baritone, but I'd be lonely without it.

Good luck hunting.  You don't see either Probst or Gallier dulcimers on the used market very much.

Such a wonderful development in this 6 months-long drama! Thanks for joining, @rtemplin!

@lily-pad, I just responded to this question in the other forum you posted in.  I would suggest you start a new discussion in the Specific Features, Luthiers, Instruments Forum .

Hi @lilley-pad, and welcome to FOTMD.  My main, go-to dulcimer is a McCafferty.  (It's an older one with a standard piezo pickup but without the humbucker and MIDI interface he uses on the new Seifert model.)  I love it.  Great sustain. Great volume.  Big round tone. The fingerboard is very responsive to your left hand.  When I first got it a few years ago, I found the strings to be too far apart for comfortable flatpicking and had to make some custom adjustments, but Terry now uses a special bridge that allows you to adjust the distance between the strings.

However, if you want to continue this conversation, perhaps you could start a new discussion on McCafferty dulcimers in the Discuss Specific Features, Luthiers and Instruments Forum .

How exciting, @Lorillee! 

I hear you Wally . I had an aunt who had perfect pitch (and a Steinway piano worth about as much as my house!).  When my uncle was learning a right-hand picking pattern for the banjo, she didn't mind the repetition of the picking, but she couldn't stand that he was always practicing in the same key.  So he used a capo and would just change keys every few minutes.

@wally-venable, you are right that learning perfect pitch is not a reasonable goal, but to learn relative pitch should be. 

Students in most formal music education programs develop tricks to learn intervals.  The first two notes of "Happy Birthday" represent a 2nd.  The first two notes of "When the Saints Go Marching In" represent a 3rd. The first two notes of "Here Comes the Bride" represent a 4th.  The first two notes of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" represent a fifth.  The first two notes of "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" represent a 6th. I can't think of one for either the minor or major 7th, but I'm sure you can look one up since there must be lists like this all over the Internet.  And the octave is "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

I've stuck with the major scale (Ionian mode) here, but you could do this for the chromatic scale.  The minor 2nd is the dangerous shark music from Jaws.  The minor third is the first two notes of "Greensleeves."  And the list goes on.

Put on some music and grab an instrument.  Try to play along.  Your first task will be to determine the key.  Then you will pay attention to the structure of the music. Then you either start figuring out the chord progression or you start working on key melodic phrases. Eventually, you get the whole song.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I played guitar (not very well) for years.  I started at family sing-a-longs, and I learned pretty quickly how to hear chord changes in a song. I also used to watch a lot of sports, and I would do so with a guitar on my lap. When the commercials came on, I would try to play along with the jingles.  That forced me to work through those steps above (determine the key, identify the melodic hook, etc.) super fast because each commercial might only last 30 seconds.  But by the third or so time a given commercial aired, I could usually play along.

If you want to train your ear, I strongly suggest not looking at tab while you play.  Look at your dulcimer and think.  Think about the relationships between the frets and the notes they represent.  Think about the relationships between the strings in the same way.  And I would advise not thinking about absolute tones, but about intervals.  For example, the distance from an open string and the second fret is a third.  From the open string to the fourth fret is a fifth.  To the seventh is an octave.  And so forth.

Eventually, you'll be able to hum a song in your head and imagine how to play it on the dulcimer. And that's a pretty cool skill to have.

Hi @austinpmckenzie and welcome to FOTMD. Make sure you get in touch with the Southern California Dulcimer Heritage Folks .  In fact, they are running a series of concerts, jams, and workshops this month.

Whenever I change steel strings I manually stretch each one repeatedly over the first few hours of play, re-tuning with each stretch.  It helps them "settle" faster.  I assume the same technique would work with nylon.

I'm curious how this goes, @grysbok.  A woman who comes to my local dulcimer club also has a metal allergy. I have encouraged her to try nylon strings, but so far she just plays wearing gloves and a face mask.

Please keep us posted.  I fear the dulcimer will not sound as nice with nylon strings (those octave dulcimers can chime like little bells!), but given your allergy you don't really have a choice.  My hope is that it will still sound decent.

The piano is easy. Push a button and a nice, clean tone comes out.  The fiddle is tough. You have to practice for a year just to be bad at it.

Good luck!

I don't own a Ron Gibson dulcimer, but I've played two.  One was a Barbara Allen baritone of which I posted a video fingerpicking a quick medley .  The other was a used Jenny Lind model that I encountered in a music store. I played a couple of tunes on it and went back the next day to buy it but was too late; it was gone.

Ron's dulcimers look and sound great.  His prices are very reasonable for the quality of instrument.

What poetic lyrics. And what a nice reminder of the purity of Garfunkel's voice. 

Looks like a really nice dulcimer; I hope it finds a loving and appreciative home.  I've played two Ron Gibson dulcimers, and both were exceptional.

At the risk of coming off like a dulcimer nerd, I feel obliged to point out that what you indicate as the 9th fret is actually the 8-1/2 fret, the octave of the 1-1/2 fret.  Any time you see three consecutive skinny frets on a dulcimer, there is an extra fret involved.

Nate's the only person in the world who can play Bile Dem Cabbage and make a jello mold with the same instrument.

@kendra-ward, are you referring to the discussion within Groups?  Make sure you have joined the group first. Then you should be able to see everything.

Nate, I just did the test and got 29/32.  All my mistakes were 1/64 of a note.  There were four such questions, and I got the last one correct, which makes me think you could get better if you practiced and trained your ear to hear such minute differences in pitch.

Edit: I did the test again and got 31/32.  Still, the one I missed was a 1/64, and I was kinda sorta guessing on the other 1/64 questions.

So I can clearly hear the 1/32 interval, but the 1/64 is still giving me trouble.

Any idea how the quarter tones relate to cents?  My understanding is that when we measure pitch in cents, each of the 12 half-notes of the chromatic scale measures 100 cents.  So is the 1/64 equivalent to 1.5625 cents (1/64 x 100)? I'm trying to figure out how accurate an electronic tuner has to be for it to be better than my ears.

Regardless of the veracity of the story, there is wisdom therein.

That's about what I know as well (see Chicago Chorale info here ). Niles claims to have heard a North Carolina girl sing a couple of lines, which he then enhanced and expanded into the song we know.  Regardless of how honest he was, if he only heard an individual voice, there was no "original" harmonic structure, so any chords he added represent his own "embellishment," as @strumelia says.  There is no way to know whether the original was major or minor.  And if it was modal, it was neither!