Forum Activity for @dusty

It's about time someone made this statement.  I could not agree more with Rob and John.  First, no one has ever said, "I have long fingers, making the dulcimer easty to play!"  On the contrary, playing a musical instrument is a challenge, and rather than convince one another that we have some physical limitation that makes that challenger more . . . er . . . uh challenging, we should encourage one another to accept the challenge and patiently overcome it.

Yes, be patient.  As John says, take the time to discover what your comfort zone is, but at the same time realize the the more you play the stronger the muscles in your finger will be and the easier some of those stretches will be.  Over time, fingerings that seemed impossible will become possible, then comfortable, and then easy as pie!

And believe me, for every person who has trouble stretching into a 1-2-4 chord, there is someone having trouble scrunching into a 9-10-9 chord.  Dulcimers with long VSLs have their challenges, but so do those with short VSLs.  And the length of the VSL is not the only factor that affects comfort of playing.  I find some fretboards to be too narrow or two wide, although my preference depends on whether I'm fingerpicking or flatpicking.  And more than anything, low action makes left-hand fingering so much easier.  Low action enables me to stretch my fingers more because less strength is required to depress a string.

Rather than decide that you have some physical limitation that won't allow you to play dulcimers of certain designs, take the time to play a while, to develop the strength and finger independence good playing requires. Who knows? You might find not only that you can handle longer VSLs, but that you like the deeper tone, extra volume, and increased sustain such instruments bring.

Cindy and others, its clear there are lots of opinions on this.  The original question was whether to get a "possom board built on" the dulcimer.  That is usually called a Galax back or false back. I have one on my Modern Mountain Dulcimer.  The only "con" is that it makes the dulcimer a little bigger.  But it allows the back to vibrate and definitely provides greater volume. Mine is similar to the dulcimer Don Pedi is playing here .

But you don't necessarily need a possom board; you can just lay your dulcimer on any piece of wood.  Peter Tommerup just uses a piece of wooden shelving and places his dulcimer on it.  Check it out here .

There are basically two principles here. One is that when you place your dulcimer on your lap, the back cannot vibrate; lift it off your lap and it can, thus producing more volume.  The other principle is that the board the dulcimer sits on can vibrate as well (if it is not on your lap), which will increase sound. That is why putting the dulcimer on a table will increase volume so much.

I would also like to voice my vote against that tiny HoneyTone mini amp. Yes, it is inexpensive. Yes it runs on batteries and travels very well.  But it barely amplifies your sound at all and it is mainly intended for people who want to mimic electric guitar sounds, not those who want to amplify an acoustic sound. I bought one of them, played around with it, and sold it for the price of shipping to someone here at FOTMD. I was so disappointed with it that I would have felt guilty charging the next buyer for it, even at a discounted rate.

Perhaps this is it, Patty. It's Dulcimerica 194 "Getting the Bends."

I always thought Cajun music worked well on the dulcimer because so much of it was written for the diatonic accordion. But there was a droning tradition, too. Check out these fiddlesticks playing a rhythmic drone to one of the oldest Cajun tunes around.

It kind of fits what you do, Rob.

Rob, Skip has a point. You should probably work on two things simultaneously. One is a bio, which can be as short as a few sentences and as long as a few paragraphs.  The second is a short title for what you do so a list of acts could say "Rob N. Lackey, the dulcimer outlaw playing folk/roots music.  Where the coffeehouse meets the jailhouse!" or whatever you come up with.

I would work on the longer bio first along with a head shot or other image you want to use.  Perhaps in writing the longer bio, you'll find a few choice words to use for the shorter description.

roots/americana is a good one.

And Rob is kind of a living logo, isn't he?

Rob, I think your issue is different than Mary's.  

Mary puts poetry to music in the style of traditional English and Scottish song.  So her issue is how to describe that.  It is not exactly folk music, because the melodies are original. But it all sounds traditional, so the singer/songwriter label doesn't work either.

You have a broad repertoire, and I think how you describe yourself should be determined by what you plan on playing. You play a lot of traditional music but you also do covers of country tunes.  You play fiddle tunes but also sing. You flatpick but also fingerpick.  Heck, you do some drone tunes and also add really cool chording to others.  I think you could call yourself the "dulcimer outlaw" if indeed you were going to play mainly outlaw country on the dulcimer.  But if you would include a range of other tunes, perhaps something else would be better.

Last Labor Day I played at the Gold Rush Days in Old Sacramento, and needed a few words to describe my act. I simply called myself "dulcimer player and songcatcher."  Then my "character" was someone who had traveled from the Shenandoah Valley out to the "diggins" in California, picking up songs along the way.  That gave me the ability to play songs from different areas of the country and even from different countries, since people from all over the world came to the Gold Rush.

Maybe that notion of "songcatcher" is something you can use given your broad repertoire.

Mary, it is possible that the issue you detect here is not male/female but professional/amateur.  Most people here are amateur musicians with no plans to "take their act on the road" or record a CD.  In that light, how you define what you do is less important than just doing it and enjoying it.  Several years ago I posted a question on Everything Dulcimer asking for exercises to help develop my left hand technique.  The first dozen or so responses told me "not to worry my little head about it" but just to play and enjoy playing.  Those were not the exact words, but that patronizing tenor colored nearly all the responses.  People were encouraging me to just play and have fun and not take seriously what I was doing.  I was offended, but obviously not because of any gender issues.  It felt as though people were telling me that I would never be good enough to be a professional, so I should just smile and play and not care if I got any better.  Eventually, Stephen Seifert chimed in, mentioned some exercises that he does regularly, and then recommended a technique book.

And my guess is that yes, Steve has indeed told men to enjoy what they are playing and not worry about it.  In fact, I think he has told me that in response to my own obsessive comments about mistakes in my playing.

Mary, I think you have to be careful here. There is nothing in copyright laws that makes poems available after 50 years.  Except for special cases, anything before 1923 in is the public domain. But published and even unpublished works written after that date--whether or not they were registered with the copyright office--are most likely still under copyright.  You could certainly put a copyrighted poem to music and share it with your friends, but you couldn't post it here in an open forum online, for that would constitute illegal distribution.

Attached you can find some guidelines about copyright law.

copyrightterm and pd in the US January 2016.pdf - 525KB

Hi Inkdork (do you have a lot of tattoos or something?) and welcome to FOTMD.  I think you'll find that you can play simple tunes on the dulcimer pretty quickly.  But it is also capable of very complicated music, so there are plenty of challenges ahead.  There are lots of resources here, so poke around the site, explore, and pose any questions you may have.

"A moment to learn and a lifetime to master"

Yeah, jazz is a different beast, and usually the band will play the tune straight once or twice and then improvise over the chord changes, stretching and bending the boundaries of those changes but still retaining the harmonic structure of the tune.  In bluegrass, too, the focus of the playing is not the repetition of the melody but improvisation over the chord changes.

In my mind, as long as those chordal structure of the tune remains, the melody can meander.  But if you change the chords, then the the song no longer has the same structure.  What would Woody Guthrie think of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings ? I love that tune (gotta love the bass and those funky horns), but it is not the tune Woody wrote.  The words were borrowed, but the song ain't the same.    A better-known example is Stevie Ray Vaughan's Mary Had a Little Lamb .  Taking the words of a nursery rhyme and playing them over a blues structure just makes a blues tune; it is not the same nursery rhyme.

Kandee,

First, congratulations on getting your dream dulcimer.  My dream dulcimer is always the next one!

Second, you might want to join the Dulcimer Care and Maintenance group here.  I'm sure you will get better advice than I can offer.

Third, I am no expert, and I don't even play one on TV, but my sense is that extreme temperatures, extremes in humidity, and quick changes in both of those are all potentially harmful to any wooden instrument.  I would not leave an instrument in your car all day in the Indiana summer unless you can ensure that it not get too hot.

I've hesitated joining the fray here for a while, but I think I've finally "percolated" on it enough to be able to explain my thoughts.  There are a few issues intertwined here.

One is whether we should try to replicate some supposedly "authentic" version of a song or reinterpret it.  Obviously, opinions differ.  Some people still play Dixieland jazz more or less as it was played in the 1920s.  In the dulcimer world, we are lucky to have people doing their best to preserve traditional styles of play as well.  My own opinion is that we should study traditional sources of our music, but if we do nothing but replicate slavishly those traditions, then the tradition would be dead. However, even in trying to copy those traditions, we necessarily re-interpret them, don't we?  When I was trying to play blues guitar and copied note-for-note what Robert Johnson played, I knew I did not sound like him and had to make the tunes "my own."

If we accept that copying exactly what some earlier performer has done is worthwhile to try but ultimately impossible to accomplish, then we should be freed up to study those earlier versions but make our own music.  

A second issue is how precisely we should play on beat.  I would suggest that we should all be able to play on beat, but that once we have that ability we need to free our creativity to pause in between lines, hold some notes or chords longer than others, play some sections louder than others, and so forth.  I would only insist that those variations should be done on purpose rather than the result of an inability to stay on beat.  A couple of years ago I arranged a version of "Ashokan Farewell" and was kind of proud of myself.  I posted it at Stephen Seifert's Dulcimer School, and his feedback was eye opening. He praised some of the chords I chose but also suggested that I vary the tempo and the dynamics to create a more expressive piece.  He was basically telling me that I was playing on beat but sounded like a robot.  If you're playing a contradance, you obviously have to stay on beat.  But if you are playing solo, especially if you're singing, then the dynamics and tempo should follow the emotional expression of the song and vary accordingly. At our family reunions for years we would gather around a campfire in the evening and sing songs. My mother was the main singer, and from the age of 10 or 11 I began to accompany her on the guitar. One year I had been trying to play with some really cool rhythms and I got frustrated that my mom would pause in her delivery, or hold some notes way too long, or whatever.  My uncle saw my frustration and whispered in my ear that my job was to accompany the singer and not impose any kind of speed or rhythm on her.  That comment changed my perspective about what I was doing and how to add creativity to a rendition of a song.

I, too, hear Barbara Allen as in 4/4 time, even though this discussion led me to seek sheet music and several versions on YouTube in 3/4 time.  I don't know if anyone could prove that one is more "authentic" than another.  But I would suggest singing it however it feels right to you.  A big part of maturing as musicians is learning how to play within ourselves.  If a rhythm or chord or note or word does not feel right, don't play it.  Find what feels right to you.

Finally, I have to confess that I can't hear Joan Baez's voice without crying.   The lyrics don't even matter.  There is something in her voice that is too pure for this world.

I've often used the same end wire cutters that Ken does. But I also have a string winder by Planet Waves that works as a wire cutter. I put it in my dulcimer case and take it whenever I'm playing somewhere.  I've seen prices as high as $15 but I'm sure you can find it for $5-$7 if you dig around.  It's actually 2-3 tools in one, although most dulcimer players don't need the little part that pops out end pins.

Here is is from Musician's Friend .

Edit: The one I have is exactly like the one in the picture above. But I read some of the customer comments and it appears there is also a cheaper, plastic version out there that might not work as well.  The one I have is very sturdy and works great.  I use it on my guitars, dulcimers, and mandolin.

Marg, when you say "finish the string off neatly," do you mean what to do with the excess string that sticks out of the tuners?  Butch's method of twisting the strings until they break will indeed work, though sometimes you have to be patient. It might take several "back and forths" before you succeed.  I have a metal string winder that includes a wire cutter on it.  I just cut the excess string as close as I can and then push the end (not with a finger!) so that it bends back and can't cut you.  

There are lots of solutions to this common problem.  One is simply to punch a hole in the pick so that your fingers actually touch each other. You are absolutely right, Kusani, that you don't want to hold the pick too tight.

Personally, I use Dunlop Tortex picks and I find a tiny bit of moisture is all I need on my fingers to get the pick to stick.  It might look gross, but I constantly lick my fingers and then wipe them on my jeans just before grabbing my pick to play a song.   

I figure if Steph Curry can lick his fingers before hitting a foul shot, I can do so before banging out Napoleon's Retreat.

For folks who are still nervous about changing strings, there are several video demos out there about how to do it.  Just a few months ago on the first and second Dulcimer Road videocasts, Butch Ross demonstrated how he changes strings.  Note how he uses a capo to help hold the string in place while he winds it. (Now why didn't I think of that?)

Here is his demonstration on a flat head dulcimer: https://youtu.be/AyqayWugB9w?t=1m22s

And here is his demonstration on a scroll head dulcimer: https://youtu.be/sSwOjjhI_8Q?t=57s

Also note how Butch makes a loop end string out of a ball end string without removing the ball but by pushing the other end of the string through it.  (Now why didn't I think of that either?)

For a bass string in the 27"-29" range I would go with a .024 or .026 wound string tuned to the D or C below middle C.  It should not be flappy at all, if by "flappy" you mean loose.

Heidi Muller also has a duet book out called Dulcimer Duos.

You could also just use regular tab with chords and one of you can play the melody while the other chords.  Then you switch around.  If you start adding different voicings of chords (for example, in DAD you play 0-0-2 for D the first verse but then move to 2-3-4 for the second verse and 4-5-7 for the third, etc.) and playing the melody on the bass string for a spell, you can create pretty interesting arrangements that don't take a whole lot of planning.

Michael, what you are referring to is called pick clack. It is more pronounced with thinner picks, so you might try heavier picks.  Heavier strings, and a softer strum. 

And make sure you are not hitting the fretboard with your pick.  Just strum or pick across the top of the strings.

When you strum you don't want the pick to get down into the strings but merely skim the top of them.  Angle the pick ever so slightly so that the tip points toward you when you strum out and away from you when you strum in.  Also, angle the pick ever so slightly so that it is the edge of the pick that hits the strings. Assuming you are right-handed, the left edge should hit the strings when you strum out and the right edge should do so when you strum in.  These techniques minimize the amount of the pick that comes into contact with the strings.

One final question.  Where was the microphone when you recorded yourself?  Conventional wisdom is that pick clack sounds louder to the performer than it does the listener.  You can test that by putting the mic right in front of the dulcimer and recording yourself, then moving the mic progressively further away and seeing what happens. Presumably, the notes will ring out louder than the pick clack, so that the further from the instrument the listener is the less noticeable is the pick clack.

Chuck, first remember that there is a difference between single-instructor events and larger festivals and gatherings.  To add an Event, you start from your home page and click on "Events."

Once you are on your Events page, you click the "+" sign to add a new event.

Then you will get to a screen where you can put in all the information for your event. When you are done, don't forget to click "Create Event."

 Thanks, Brian, for that link to the Great Canadian Tunebook. There are loads of great tunes there.

Kristi, "Four Strong Winds" was written by Ian Tyson in the 1960s and is surely copyrighted, so Ken cannot post his tab here.

You can easily find lyrics and chords for it on the internet, though.  And just noodling around I was able to find the melody pretty easily. In DAA the melody ranges from the open A string to the 6th fret.  You can also play it in DAd on the melody string if you have a 6+ fret.

As Ken suggests, FOTMD member Marc Mathieu  is the one to contact here.  Check this out:

I think I remember him sharing some information, including tablature, for this song somewhere.

There are also plenty of fiddle tunes of Canadian origin that have entered into the standard old timey and bluegrass traditions.  " Saint Anne's Reel " is one that comes to mind.

And it shouldn't be hard to create tab for the Ian and Sylvia Tyson classic "Four Strong Winds," a tune I would consider the Canadian "This Land is Your Land."

Thanks for reminding us all of this date, Patricia.

Folks who have listened to the Hearts of the Dulcimer podcast on Neal Hellman know that when he was still in New York he prepared a book of tablature of Richard Fariña's music.  A few year's back, he made that book available free online as a pdf.  You can read Neal's blog and download the pdf here .

Rod was the first one who welcomed a lot of us to FOTMD.  He was a true gentleman.  I remember fondly playing with him as well on the Tuesday Dulcimer Club on Paltalk.  After his passing I just found it too sad to continue joining that online gathering.

Patricia and Wayne, I finally had a chance to listen to the Neal episode. Even though I've seen your film countless times and enjoyed innumerable conversations with Neal directly, I still found the podcast both informative and entertaining. You managed to get some details out of him that he doesn't often reveal.  Your choice of music is also impeccable.  Although I have all of Neal's CDs and many of the Gourd Music titles (including the Shaker trilogy) I still came away from your podcast with a renewed respect for the "sometimes folk, sometimes classical, always acoustic" or "folk baroque" vision with which Neal infuses all the Gourd Music recordings. 

I haven't seen you guys in a while but I hope our paths cross again soon.

 Look out, Dana's gone electric!  She's gonna be playing Pete Townshend power chords soon and rockin' the neighborhood.

Thanks for posting that Molineaux piece, Rob.  That's superb playing.    I can't count high enough to play anything in 9/8 time!  But those partial frets are surely interesting.

One possibility if you want the option of extra frets but don't always want them on your dulcimer is the flexi-frets that Dwain Wilder at Bear Meadow has developed.  I have a friend here in Cali who has all the extra frets installed as flexi-frets, so he can go from a purely diatonic to a fully chromatic dulcimer or anything in between.  I was skeptical that they would work at all, but they actually do.

George, I write from the perspective of someone who uses a 1+ fret regularly in my own playing. I have dulcimers without it, but I use them mainly for teaching, since beginners get confused when my fretboard does not look like theirs.

If you have vintage dulcimers of any monetary or historic value, I would not add the extra fret.  But feel free to add it to modern dulcimers or those whose values you don't er . . . uh . . . value.

You ask what notes you get. Obviously the answer to that question depends on the tuning. In a DAd tuning, you get the lowered (or minor) third (meaning an F natural) on the bass and melody string and you get the 7th (meaning a C natural) on the middle string.  Just being able to play a 7th chord down low without jumping up to the 6th fret is really nice. And the lowered third of the D chord is also the 7th of the G chord, so you get D7 and G7 very easily.  With that C natural, you can also play a C chord, which is found not only in modern music but also traditional tunes such as Old Joe Clark, Red-Haired Boy, Salt Creek, and more. I often use the 1+ fret on the melody and bass string just to add a little bluesy sumpin in the middle of a short solo, but it also allows you to play the minor pentatonic scale, so you really can play the blues in D without a capo and without retuning. And of course, you get the entire D minor scale as well.

We should really create a discussion in the Extra Frets group about why people like the 1+ fret.

I have to admit that I'm jealous of those of you who can attend week-long festivals in general and KMW in particular. Between work and family I just can't get away for that long.  Someday . . . when I retire . . .

You may want to record the instructor playing the pieces you are working on.  Usually, he or she will demonstrate each piece once before going over it section by section. It can be really helpful to know what things should sound like at full speed.

Did Aaron show you the spider exercise where he moves the fingers of his left hand two-at-a-time?  That's pretty tough at first.  The only person I've met who could do it perfectly the first time is my daughter's piano teacher, and she could do it with both hands.

A tuner and a capo.  Maybe some clothespins or something to clip music onto your stand.  And bring some kind of recording device; a smartphone will do.  I would also bring something to write with and on in case you want to take notes.  

Bring some cash so you can buy CDs and books and stuff.

And I would agree with your dulcimer group leader. Challenge yourself. I lead a free beginner's workshop every month and too many people have been coming for a long time, refusing to accept the fact that they are really intermediate players now. The beginner material is comfortable to them but no longer challenges them.  A good workshop should be just beyond your reach, so that you have to go home and work on the stuff for a while.

You might see what folks in the Music Therapy group have to say about this.

I would stick with instrumentals, myself.

And we'll be able to say "I knew him when . . ."

You are a find ambassador for the dulcimer, Kevin.

Wow! We're up to 14 already?  We just had Neal up here in Sacramento for a workshop and concert this past weekend.  I look forward to taking a break from work and checking out the latest episode.

Thanks for all you do!

 Sheryl, the place to start is the page of the song you want to add to a playlist.  There you will see two eighth notes.  If you hover your cursor over them, it will say "Add to Playlist." 

When you click that, you will see the Playlists you already have or it will ask you to create one.

I notice that a lot of Dana's "rookie mistakes" involved the instrument itself and not necessarily how to play it.  It would be nice if every newbie had an experienced player or two to help them find their first instrument.  How could a newbie know about VSL or action or anything like that?  As some of you have noticed, perhaps, I've been advising people to get a good student or beginner dulcimer to start with and not even think about a fancier instrument for a couple of years. It takes a while playing to know what your preferences are. As Ken says, "the journey matters," and I would go further and say it is all there is. There is no final resting place where we cease to evolve as musicians.

Bryan, sorry I couldn't get back to you earlier; I was out-of-town on a business trip.

You are right that picks are a personal choice and what works for one person may not work for another.  When I first got a dulcimer I bought a bunch of those triangular Herdim picks but didn't like them at all (too thin, too big, too pointy).  So I eventually went back to the Dunlop Tortex picks that I settled on after years of guitar playing. They come in various shapes and thicknesses.  I prefer the standard shape.  I use the blue 1.0 mm picks when I've been playing a lot but sometimes use the green .88 mm picks when I haven't played in a while. When I first started on the dulcimer I think I used a lighter pick, but as I've gotten more comfortable with my technique I've moved to slightly heavier picks.

Part of the trick to my style of play--which is admittedly a guitar style and not a traditional dulcimer style--is to hold the pick between my thumb and the side of my index finger such that only the very tip of the pick sticks out.  That way a lot of the pick is in contact with my skin, making it steadier in my hand.  If I am only strumming and not playing single notes, I might let more of the pick stick out, but to play careful single-note runs as in fiddle tunes, I find I need the control that comes with allowing only a bit of the pick to stick out.

Heavier picks require a softer, more controlled touch, so most beginners have trouble with them. But they are also more precise. Just imagine the pick as it hits a string.  The very tip of the pick will bend, so that it strikes the note slightly after you have made the picking motion with your hand.  The thinner the pick the more the delay between your intended strum and the sounding of the note, since the pick bends more.  So not only does the note sound after the beat, but the snap-back of that bend produces a more pronounced pick clack.  For these reasons I prefer the thicker picks, in particular the blue and green versions.

Play around with this stuff and with different picks for different styles of play. I would never tell anyone to play like I do unless you purposefully want to play in a guitar style. I did a flatpicking workshop with FOTMD member Erin Mae (formerly Rogers) and she dumped a whole bunch of different picks out for us to play with, including one made of genuine turtle shell and one that was one of the $75 BlueChip picks.  Each one had a different feel and a different tone. But at one point she did admit that before she got serious enough to spend on those expensive picks, the Dunlop Tortex was also her choice (sorry, I don't know what style or thickness she preferred).

Of course, if you get tired of all this, you can always just play with your bare fingers!