Forum Activity for @dusty

Just a few thoughts here.  

First, thinner picks have a lot more pick clack than stiffer/heavier picks.  In general, beginners start with thinner picks and as they get more experience and control they move to heavier picks. Anyone annoyed with pick clack might simply try heavier picks. Your playing will become a bit more precise in the process.

Second, you can minimize pick clack (but not get rid of it entirely) with a different technique. Hold the pick loosely, not tightly in your hand, and think of it as gliding over the top of the strings rather than getting into each one and really plucking it.

Third, some folks claim that pick clack always sounds louder to the player than it does to the audience. I supposed you could test this by making a series of recordings with the mic in different places, but I've never tried myself.

Fourth, a leather pick (or those felt picks that some uke players use or even rubber picks that I use for an acoustic bass) would all have less pick clack than a plastic pick, but that doesn't mean they are equally versatile. Although I think you could probably strum OK with a leather pick, I am not sure you would have the control to flatpick, meaning playing long single-note runs.  So if you always strum across all the strings it might work OK, but if you want to play a fiddle tune or a filler lick the leather might not provide enough precision.

I encourage everyone to experiment with as many different types of picks as possible.  Eventually you will find the one for you.  I use a standard guitar pick (the Dunlop Tortex picks) and the only ones that I prefer more than those are way too expensive (like the BlueChip picks that range between $35 and $75 for a single pick!    ).

Erin, I am not sure about apps or downloads or even iPads, but there are plenty of free audio conversion websites where you upload an audio file and specify what format you want the file in.  IF you just Google something like "online audio converter" you will get several options.  One I have used is available here , which allows you to specify the format you want the file converted to and also the quality (which equates to size) of that file.

Hey Ozarklady.

I can't explain why, but the Seagull is made with one full octave, meaning it goes to the 7th fret. However, it has no 6th fret. Instead, it has only a 6-1/2.

Seagull is a fine guitar company. They make very good and affordable instruments. I have a 12-string Seagull that I like a lot. I've also heard that many Merlin owners love that instrument as well. Think of it as a stick dulcimer like the McNally Strumstick, which only goes up to the 10th fret or something. If I were going to get a Merlin, though, I would have a 6 fret installed.

You might consider poking around in the Stick Dulcimer Group here at FOTMD. I'm sure some folks there are more familiar than I with the Merlin.

Jim, that's a good point. Basically, there is a slightly different VSL for each string.  On some bridges that difference is accounted for not in the angle of the bridge at the bottom where it meets the soundboard, but at the top where slight differences are created for each string.  And some of David Beede's dulcimers, for example, don't actually have a single bridge at all, but three distinct nubs placed in the perfect place for each string.

John P embodied what is best about the dulcimer community: an interest in helping others, the joy in sharing music, a general kindness and willingness to take time explaining things to newbies.  He was always eager to share his knowledge of modes and never seemed to get irritated by those like me who never could quite grasp them.

It may seem odd to be so saddened to hear of the passing of someone I've never met, but such is our community. I feel as though I've lost a friend.

Just a day or two ago I was perusing the photos John had posted and was struck by a couple of potted flowers.  I am not sure why I was so taken by them, but I think they reveal a joy in simple things. The flowers themselves--though quite pretty--were nothing special, but John's interest in them and sense that they deserved to be photographed reveals, I think, a sense of the wonder in our everyday lives.  John clearly enjoyed those flowers, and he clearly enjoyed explaining modes over and over to those of us a bit slow on the uptake.

Rest in Peace, John P., the dear friend I never met.

The original question was how to play grace notes.   I am not sure it is helpful to bring in accidentals, since grace notes may or may not be accidentals. 

As Ken notes, grace notes are often ornamental in nature and not an essential part of the melody. As Robin explains they are usually written much smaller than regular notes in standard musical notation.

Grace notes always appear just before a note and they receive no counted value. The note just after the grace note sounds on beat, so the grace note actually takes away some of the duration of the note preceding it.

On a stringed instrument, a grace note would be plucked with the right hand, but the left hand would employ a slide, a hammer-on, or a pull-off to play the main note after the grace note. I do not think many of us could actually pick both notes fast or smoothly enough. But the important point, again, is that the note following the grace note falls exactly on the beat, so the grace note precedes it without itself receiving any counted value.

Below is the first line of my arrangement of the old Quaker hymn Beech Spring.  Notice the three grace notes.  In each case, I suggest playing it as a hammer-on.  If this were arranged for noter/drone play in DAA, I would suggest a slide in the first case and a hammer-on in the second and third since the grace note would be the open string.  And note that none of these grace notes are accidentals.

Thanks, Dana.  "Lee's Waltz" is a pretty special tune. 

Actually, Bing Futch's "Rosin the Beau," which he says he learned from Stephen Seifert's CD, was the first tune I learned on the dulcimer.  Even before I had my own dulcimer, I watched Bing's video so much that when I first got a dulcimer I was able to play the tune almost right away.

Fascinating indeed. I showed the video to my daughter, and the more we watched it and understood the variety of sounds the machine was making the more impressed we became. Aside from the detail that went into construction, it is the original vision of this thing that astounds me.  How do you even come up with this idea?

It's great to hear of the "go-to" songs people rely on.  Many of them are standard fare for dulcimer players, meaning songs that would be commonly heard at dulcimer jams. Others are more idiosyncratic.  Several are on my "to learn" list.

Maybe I could change the original question a bit?  Originally I asked what your "pocket tune" was, meaning the song you play when someone asks, "Oh, you play the dulcimer?  Play a song for us!"  What if the person asking the question is her or himself a dulcimer player?  Does that change your choice of song? I mean, if another dulcimer player requests a song you don't play Bile Dem Cabbage, do you?

The reason for my question is that I will be playing a very short set at a dulcimer festival later this spring, so the audience will be other dulcimer players.  While I want to stay within my "comfort zone" to reduce performance anxiety, I also want to play something other than the same tunes everyone else plays.

That thing is insane. I am going to have to watch about a dozen more times to figure it out.  How someone could envision this is just beyond me.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that for those who chord a lot and have smaller hands, a shorter VSL around 26" is better than a more standard VSL around 28". And although 2 inches in total VSL might not seem like much, it makes a significant difference in fret spacing.

I would just make two points here to qualify that conventional wisdom.

First, our hands stretch. It might seem at first that playing a 1-2-4 chord on an instrument with a 28" or 29" VSL is a bit of a stretch, but remember that that is probably the hardest chord to finger and also that as you play more your hands will stretch. Even after 40 years of playing the guitar and 6 years on the dulcimer I started doing an exercise last month that was a real stretch for me.  My fingers and the spaces between them were sore from playing it so much. At first I didn't think I'd ever be able to make those stretches cleanly and without pain. But now I can do both.  The muscles in our hands need to stretch and exercise just like the other muscles in our bodies.  Don't jump to a shorter VSL without actually working on your fingering and stretching your hand muscles first. You might surprise yourself.

Second, in addition to the decreased sustain that Joy mentions, a shorter VSL means smaller frets. That may seem like an advantage down low toward the nut, but as you play up the neck, some of those frets will get awfully small, and playing there will be a real challenge.  Most beginners don't find themselves playing up that high, but as we progress and feel more comfortable with the fretboard, we do indeed jump over those hurdles and start fingering the fretboard well into the second octave.  Watch Guy Babusek, for example. He often plays high up the fretboard, and I would bet that he would not be able to do so as successfully on an instrument with a shorter VSL.

What about you, Strumelia? What do you aspire to with your music?

I've played music my whole life, and not once did it occur to me to ask why. I just assumed that people play music.  My grandmother growing up in Brooklyn used to buy the sheet music to the top hits as soon as they were released and she and her sisters would sing the songs on the streets for spare change.  My mom and her two brothers play guitar and other instruments, and at all the family gatherings, after a day of swimming and eating and catching up with relatives, we would sing around the campfire.  It never occurred to me to play music for a reason; making music is just something you do, like hugging your children or telling stories or sharing delicious recipes or complaining about the political process.

But later in life, I did get a bit more ambitious. At one point I tried to play bluegrass mandolin and bluegrass guitar.  My goal was just to improve my technique enough to be able to play at those bluegrass jams.  That effort led directly to my discovery of the dulcimer, and although I abandoned the bluegrass obsession with speed, I have continued to try to actually work on my playing, to practice enough to actually play songs without really obvious mistakes, to develop a steadier right hand and a more flexible left hand and to slowly understand the fingerboard. Until recently, my goal as a dulcimer player was just to continue to improve, something measured by my own ears, not someone else's.

But those goals may be changing again.  I started a dulcimer group a few years ago, hoping to lure out or the woodwork as many dulcimer players as I could who would be able to share their knowledge with me. Instead, although I do indeed have a group to play with on a monthly basis, the people that I've gathered are all beginners.  Our monthly gatherings have turned into my teaching them, and I started arranging tunes not for me to play, but in order to share with others. I am now on the precipice of becoming an actual dulcimer teacher and have several beginning students lined up.  So I guess my immediate goal is to continue playing the dulcimer and improving as a player while also devoting some time to refining how to teach others.

Every now and then someone asks me where they can find my CDs or books and I have to giggle. I am just an amateur musician. I have a day job. Still, I fantasize about someday putting together enough tunes for a CD to share with my friends and family or an instructional book (I do have one good idea, in fact) that might interest other dulcimer players.  But with a job, a family, and now a slowly growing number of dulcimer students, I don't know if I'll have time for any of that.  I am just glad that music is an integral part of my life. My life continues to be enriched immeasurably by music, and I have FOTMD to thank in that regard.

Wayne, I love the podcasts you guys have produced and I hope they keep coming.  

If I remember correctly, and earlier version of Hearts of the Dulcimer included a clip of the video I posted above when Joni mentions the "dynamite gal from California" who made her dulcimer.  I think it was on a small TV and you used it as an intro to talk with Joellen.

Hey Blissness, I don't use Finale personally, but I do use Tabledit. It is incredibly powerful but also not very intuitive.  I have gotten to the point where I can tab out an arrangement pretty quickly, but when I try to create multiple endings to songs or indicate chords above the tab or use a capo, it is not obvious how to do all that. I have stopped trying to figure it out on my own and just go online for help. Several of us have begun to use the Arranging for Dulcimers Group  to ask questions about that kind of thing.  There is a free trial version of Tabledit that allows you to arrange pieces up to 16 or 24 measures. You might try it out and see how you like it.

Anne, I am not sure what "reasonably priced" means. I used a Blue Snowflake mic for a long time. It worked great with my PC.  I think it cost about $50 new, but you might be able to find it on Ebay for less than that.  A quick internet search showed me that the slightly larger Blue Snowball is now selling for about that same price.  

I also used a Samson Go Mic  which is a bit more versatile, since you can change the setting from unidirectional to omnidirectional (in case you want to record a group playing) as well a setting that dampens the sound a bit for when it is directly in front of you.  I think that retails for just under $40. Either of those choices will work a lot better than the mic built into your computer or webcam.  The Samson Go can clip onto the top of your monitor but it also comes with a little case. It is remarkably small for its recording power.  (I no longer use it for recording music, but I use it at work when we have to broadcast meetings over the internet. I just put it in the middle of the table and it picks up soft-spoken people 20 feet away.)

Thanks, Ken.  I think I'm going to have to get one of those gun cases. 

Dan, that case looks really interesting since it would basically be a custom-fitted case for whatever dulcimer you have. And the price is cheaper than most hard shell cases around.

However, I am concerned about the foam padding staying in contact with the wood for such extended periods.  Have you had any problems in that regard?  I know bubble pack can very quickly leave a semi-permanent mark on dulcimer finishes.

Just last night I gave a private lesson to a brand new player, and towards the end I explained what a "pocket tune" is.  I then gave her some tablature for a version of Beech Spring that I worked up for my dulcimer group. I explained that it stresses certain left-hand techniques such as hammer-ons, but otherwise is pretty accessible, and sounds better the slower it is played. I played it for her and she got really excited. So we have our first goal: to learn Beech Spring as her first pocket tune.

I think we overcome a major hurdle and reach a new, more proficient place in our abilities as a musician when we can make a mistake and keep playing.  I know I saw something similar with my daughter, who used to just stop playing the piano when she made a mistake. But now she has learned how to keep playing--even making something up--until she gets back on course.  It can be a great confidence boost to know we can make a mistake and not fall flat on our face but keep the music moving along. I was recently asked to play something on the dulcimer at the end of a ukulele workshop that I attended, and afterwards a woman commented that it was nice to see someone really enjoy playing.  What she was referring to was the fact that I smiled and even chuckled at one point. But I did that in reaction to a mistake I had made!  Happily, she misinterpreted my amusement entirely, so a liability became an asset.

I now have a list of about 30 "backpack" tunes. I consider these the tunes from which I would choose to put together a set of music.  I am going to make an effort to play through the whole list on a regular basis to keep rust from accumulating.  

How many of you have a "pocket" tune?  You known, the one song you know well that you can pull out whenever someone says, "Oh, you play the dulcimer?  Well let's hear a song!"

When I was a kid playing guitar, my uncle asked me to play him something, and when he saw that I only had pieces of tunes he taught me the four chords to "Rocky Raccoon," which is something you can sing even if you can't sing, if you know what I mean.  That was my pocket tune for years until I was a bit older and more proficient and that tune got replaced with a Cat Stevens tune.

On the dulcimer, the first song I learned was "Rosin the Bow."  Even before I laid my hands on my first dulcimer I had watched Bing Futch's video demo of that song so much that I pretty much knew how to play the song already.  For a long time that was my "pocket song," the song I would play when someone asked for something and eventually the first song I would play if I had to play several, since I knew it well and it put me at ease.

Do any of you have a pocket tune?  What is it?

As my dulcimer repertoire has grown, I now have not only a pocket tune, but a long list of tunes that I supposedly know.  I am calling these my backpack tunes, songs that I supposedly know and should be able to perform at any given moment.  However, I seem to concentrate on a few at any given time and play those pretty often, but not playing the others  just means I get a bit rusty when I do play them.  I've already forgotten songs that I once played well and want to avoid that in the future.  

Do any of you keep lists of songs that you know?  Do you practice them regularly? How do you keep up-to-speed on all of them?

A = 440 is merely for calibrating your tuner.  But that A is actually an octave above the middle string A of a dulcimer tuned DAd.

For a standard dulcimer tuned DAd, the bass D should be 146.8, the middle A should be 220, and the melody D should be 293.7.

Ellozz, for a 27" dulcimer the string gauges you are using seem very reasonable to me. Just put on some glasses before you tune and hope for the best.

Glad to hear of your success, Maria.  When you perform, I would suggest a new piece of that window decal stuff since it loses a bit of its stickiness every time you move it.

I'm all for getting a better dulcimer if you think it will encourage you to play more and if it will help you sound better.

Whether that new dulcimer is a banjammer is a different question.  The banjammers are louder than regular dulcimers, but one trick would be to shove a towel in the back and mute the sound a bit. Lots of banjo players do that anyway.

People must love their banjammers. You hardly ever see used ones for sale.

Thanks for the pictures, Tom. I'm glad to hear you're happy with the pickup.  My Myers pickup does not have the soundhole mic; it just works off vibrations from the wood, I guess.

Maria,

First, how to remove the suction cup.  Yes, you have to unscrew the two little screws to open up the box.  Once you get the screws off, carefully open the box, keeping in mind that wires connect the two sides and you don't want to dislodge them.  Once it's open you will see that the suction cup screws into a small hex nut.  At first I thought that nut was part of the plastic casing, but it is not.  I used needle-nosed pliers to start turning the nut, but once it started I was able to unscrew the suction cup by hand. Once you get them detached, put the nut back onto the end of the suction cup post for safekeeping.

Second, no, I did not use the adhesive squares that came with the pickup.  I plan to follow Ken H's advice and never leave the pickup attached for too long, so I will need far more than two of whatever I end up using.  I experimented with things called removable mounting squares and restickable mounting dots but found the command poster strips got the most volume.  I am probably going to try again with even thinner two-sided tape.

Third, when I strum fast, my fingers touch the top of my dulcimer. On my Ewing dulcimette, the cedar top has a clear grain, and my fingers cross that grain, leaving tiny but sometimes noticeable scratches.  So I cut a piece of a clear window decal sheet to fit the part of the soundboard where my hand might touch.  It is transparent and not always visible, but it offers some little bit of protection. You can see it on this video   if you look closely. Look at the the top of the dulcimer near where my hand is strumming and you'll see that part of the dulcimer is shinier than the rest.  That is the decal sheet.  Yes, you can get it at Staples; in fact that's where I got mine. It is called "Staples repositionable clear window decals" and is intended for you to print pictures and then stick them on windows or mirrors.  You can find it in the specialty paper section of the store.  You could conceivable just use a square under your microphone, I supposed, and then take it off when you take off the mic. In fact, when you take the adhesive strip off it will pull the decal sheet off with it.  I have left the decal sheet on my dulcimer for several months at a time.  There is no real adhesive on it, but it can get a little sticky and require some clean-up with a damp sponge.  If you never leave it on for more than a week or two you won't even have to do that.  I would suggest that anyone concerned with damaging their instrument with puddy or tape should use a small piece of this plastic stuff to protect the surface of their instrument.

Skip, I did finally get the suction cup off. What confused me was simply the instructions to open up the mic and unscrew it, but inside there is no screw head.  I thought it was screwed directly into the mic box, but eventually realized there was a small hex nut there. Once I loosened the hex nut, the suction cup unscrewed with no problem. 

I used one of those command strips and it seems to be working pretty well. I think it is in between the thin double-sided tape and the foam.  I'll certainly experiment with other methods of adhering the mic to the dulcimer.  Maybe we can continue this thread and report our different results.

I have another suggestion that others might follow, especially if you are afraid of putting tape or puddy directly onto your dulcimer.  The top of my Ewing baritone dulcimette is very pretty red cedar, but my over-aggressive strumming sometimes hits the top, so to protect the wood I put on a small piece of plastic. It is cut from repositionable, transparent window decal sheets, which you can find in the specialty paper section of any office supply store. There is no adhesive actually involved, but it works as a simple pick-guard. Right now I have the Myers pickup attached to that rather than directly to wood.  I haven't really experimented enough to know if it affects the tone, but it is very thin, so any effect would be minimal, I think.

It would also be nice to do a side-by-side comparison of the Schatten Dualie and the Myers pickups. I like the fact that the Myers has a volume control knob, but the real issue is the sound.  Someday I'll buy a Dualie and do the comparison.  But if someone beats me to it . . .

I just picked up (yuk) one of the Myers Pickups, too.  The suction cup works on my guitar and my ukulele, which have a shiny, laquer finishes, but not on the two dulcimers I bought if for.  Mine came with a couple of squares of double-sided tape and I also bought a few other similar products, but the problem I have is getting the suction cup off. It is screwed in and I can't seem to unscrew it for the life of me. The seller told me to unscrew the two screws that hold the box together and unscrew the suction cup from the inside, but that doesn't seem to work either.  I am at a total loss about how to get the suction cup off.

It would be a useful experiment for someone with a few pieces of spare tonewood to test the variety of products that one might use to adhere a pickup temporarily to the wood and see which ones work best.  Considering the pickup will be attached to 1/4" instrument cable, it has to be pretty strong, but we don't want anything that will permanently mark an instrument's finish.

For the record, the video I posted above is not by me but by FOTMD member Pristine2.  Some stuff I deserve credit for, but not that.

If you are looking for a specific sound, I would suggest asking what builders make dulcimers that sound like that rather than what woods to use. Although the type of wood clearly has some effect on the sound of a dulcimer, other aspects of instrument design have a far greater influence. A Blue Lion will always sound more mellow than a Pritchard replica no matter what woods are chosen. If you have an all walnut Folkcraft, a Folkcraft with a spruce top, and an all walnut Warren May, the two Folkcrafts would sound closer to one another than the two walnut dulcimers would.

Having said that, in general, instruments that have soft tonewood like spruce or cedar for the top will have a warmer, more mellow sound than instruments that have hardwood such as walnut or cherry for the top.  That is why spruce is traditionally chosen for the tops of guitars and violins, for example.

Get a Roland, as Ken, Skip, and Kristi suggest.  It's on my wish list, too. I had a chance to use one for a spell this summer and was really impressed.  The MicroCube sells for around $150 new and the bigger MobileCube for about $180.

I also have a Fishman Loudbox Mini that I love. I used to have one of the little Honeytone amps that Marg mentions.  It was fun for creating classic rock guitar sounds and stuff, but as Kristi says, it doesn't really have enough power if you want to play a small room. I ended up selling it to someone here at FOTMD for the price of shipping.

Mark, I play in a modern chording style and what I would do is put a capo on the third fret. Then you can pretend you are playing in D but you will actually be in G.  You can also put the capo on the fourth fret to play in A. For me that's easier than learning DGd tuning, which requires new fingering for the chords.

Most bluegrass tunes have a standard key. Billy in the Lowground is always played in C.  Saint Anne's Reel is always played in D.  Blackberry Blossom is always played in G.  Red-haired Boy is always played in A.  When I practice songs that I expect to play in bluegrass jams I always try to practice them in the standard key.  And since I am one of those unimaginative people who mainly plays in DAd, I can get all those keys pretty easily.  I tune down to CGc for the key of C, but the other three keys I can get out of DAd with a handy capo.

The lower case d in DGd just indicates that the melody string is an octave above the bass string.

Barre chords are a good idea, especially if you are playing the role of the mandolin, where you want that fast percussive chop.  You get that chop from lifting up your fingers right after striking the chord to stop the notes from ringing. You don't actually take your fingers off the strings, but merely stop pressing them onto the fretboard so that your fingers mute the sound. And if you don't know a chord or two, just mute the strings and strum anyway. If you stay on beat no one will mind.

Good for you, Kusani.  Your dulcimer voyage begins . . . 

I was going to make the same point.  There are many ways to work around a melody for which the dulcimer does not contain a note.  You can skip the note, you can play an alternative note such a harmony note, you can play a chord instead, etc. But there are also ways of finding notes other than those that the frets themselves provide.

With a noter, there is a method of getting any note you want, as Robin Clark demonstrates in this video .  What he calls his "angle noter technique" allows you to get a note in between frets.  And if you play with your fingers, you can bend strings, thus also getting notes in between the frets.  Both of those techniques take some practice, but they open up a whole range of melodic and harmonic possibilities.

 Marg, a while back I posted a discussion entitled " What are 1/2 frets and do I need any ." Although you've clearly gotten very good advice here, you might find that post helpful.  My thoghts on this topic can be found there, so I won't repeat myself.

Ken and I are clearly opposites here. He plays  strictly noter/drone on a true diatonic fretboard.  I play across all the strings on dulcimers with one and increasingly two extra frets.  However, we agree on one thing: if you have an older instrument without the 6+ fret, keep it as is in its traditional form rather than butcher it for modern usage.

It looks like your efforts have paid off well. Good job!

Patricia, make sure you talk to Steve Eulberg. His first dulcimer was a Capritaurus kit.

Congrats on your two very special acquisitions, Brian.

And I really like your sensitive playing of La Mort de Coucy.  That is an original tune Neal wrote after reading Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror on 14th-century Europe.

Happy New Year to all my friends here.  My wish for each of you is whatever you wish for yourselves.  

Howard Rugg, who has started building again and even has a website  now, is a member here at FOTMD . You might consider contacting him directly with any questions.

The History page of Howard's website provides a broad outline.  He and his brother Michael formed Capritaurus dulcimers in 1969 and Steve Jackel started working for them in 1972. Over the next few years, they developed a second line of dulcimers called Folkroots which were produced more efficiently (I won't say mass produced since they were still handmade by a small number of people) whereas Capritaurus concentrated on custom builds. In 1975, Howard and Steve formed Rugg and Jackel Music and made the Folkroots dulcimers while Michael stuck with Capritaurus.  By the late 1980s, it all came apart.  Howard and Steve sold the Folkroots brand to Folkcraft Instruments and all three of them moved on to different professional and personal endeavors, but about three years ago Howard began building dulcimers again and has incorporated some new innovations into his craft.