Forum Activity for @dusty

It's a tastefully done video. My daughter and I watched it together a few times yesterday.  We both appreciate how it moves to the exact beat of the song, doesn't try to do too much by adding meaning that is not there in the audio, and how it captures the sad tenor of the lyrics.  It's so nice.

My understanding is that Graham Nash had proposed to her and she declined ("I made my baby cry") leading to an end to their relationship ("I made my baby say 'Goodbye.").

Several songs on the Blue album are just so honest and personal.  It feels a little awkward to know those emotional details about someone I've never met.

Lucky Dave, that's really wrong of UPS.  Very disturbing.

And I'm not in North Carolina, but Northern California.  Only about 3000 miles away! 

Sad story, @dulcimer-dave.  What a shame.  It's a good lesson in why we should always insure our dulcimers when we ship them.

I saw a video once which I can't seem to find now that showed the boxes the New Harmony Dulcimer Company builds to ship their instruments. They use a wood frame inside the box, and in the video, someone stood on top of the box with the dulcimer inside, demonstrating how strong it was.  The box design was similar to but less bulky than @bob-stephens's very carefully designed boxes.

That's a Ukrainian tune called Фриендс оф тхе Моунтаин Дулкимер.

No not at all. I'm joking. It sounds Celtic to me, too, but Ken may be right that there are pieces of a couple of tunes there.  Part of it is a melody I know, and I may pop in in the middle of the night when I remember it's name.  But I don't recognize that descending ending/turnaround.

By the way, that Cyrillic up above just says Friends of the Mountain Dulcimer.

This red fox positively loves clawhammer banjo music:

Sunhearth dulcimers are indeed special.  They were the direct ancestors of the Bear Meadow dulcimers and are known for their exquisite intonation and warm tone.  Although my personal preference is an instrument with geared tuners and a 6+ fret, I would not suggest making any major changes to that beautiful dulcimer.  It looks to be in great shape.

Hooray!!!

Ken, maybe I am misunderstanding something.  @studentofrhythm appears to be tuning to a G ionian, which would either put him in the baritone range or in the ginger range.  Ken H concluded that studentofrhythm was tuning to a "high Gdd," meaning the G below middle C and the D above middle C.  I could obviously be wrong.  It has happened before. 

In any case, it appears you and I don't really disagree on the appropriate string gauges; we are just not sure how  studentofrhythm has his dulcimer set up.

@ken-longfield, I think you mean .012 and not .022 for the D strings. Is that correct?

Hey @studentofrhythm, the first thing I would ask is what gauge strings you are using and what the scale length (measurement of the bridge to the nut) is.  Tuning GDD is common for baritones and some 3/4-size instruments such as the Ginger.  But it's not common for standard dulcimers.  So let's make sure the string gauges are right for the scale length and tuning. Longer brad nails might be OK, but let's figure out string gauges first.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I am so grateful that I have mountain dulcimers, mountain dulcimer music, and friends of the mountain dulcimer in my life.

Someone with mild arthritis shared with me a trick she does before she plays.  She heats up a towel and then slowly kneads it with her hands.  The movement and the heat loosen up her fingers quite nicely.

Calvin, I assume this is the song you're referring to.  It was made famous by Glen Campbell, but Carl Jackson wrote it.

The bad news? The song is under copyright, so you won't find free tab anywhere.

The good news?  The song is definitely do-able on a dulcimer with a diatonic fretboard.

The version I link to above is played in the key of E.  My advice would be to tune your dulcimer to EBe.  You will still be in a 1-5-8 tuning, so all the chords and fingerings you know for DAd will still work.  Then you can play along with the song.  Once you have the basics of the song down, you can tune back to DAd and play it just the way you had been.

You can probably find chords and lyrics by searching the internet.  I just did a quick listen and the chords in the key of D are D, G, Bm, and A.  The structure of the song is simple, with a verse and a chorus.  The melody seems to have no accidentals, so you'll be able to get it on the dulcimer.

If we could meet down at the pub, I'm sure we could figure it out together.

A beautiful fall day.  Sunshine. Crisp wind.  It was a joy to spend a few hours raking leaves.

There might be two kinds of "soreness" we're talking about here. One is a function of the friction of the metal wire against your skin.  The second is muscle soreness from having to push down on the string.

For the first kind of soreness, I would suggest first that you use new strings.  New strings are softer and less like hard wire.  Second, I would suggest turning your thumb sideways a bit to use the edge of your nail.  Using your nail will allow you to slide up and down the string much like a noter and won't cause any pain.

For that second kind of soreness, lower the strings as @ken-hulme has suggested and rest assured that the muscles in your fingers will get stronger over time.

If you are playing mainly in a drone style, though, I would suggest using either a noter or your fingers.  Either of those techniques will allow you to play faster and also avoid the soreness that seems to be a hurdle for you now.  (I sometimes use my thumb like a noter in the way it appears you are trying to, but I am a chord player who sometimes just breaks into drone style for a verse or two. It is not my primary playing style.)

"Buzzy Strings" would be a good name for a musical act.

P.S. I also have a 12-string guitar with a cedar top and it sounds great.

Hey Paula.  Traditionally, dulcimers were usually made entirely of local hardwoods and there was no difference between the sides, bottom, and the top. A lot of people still prefer dulcimers made entirely of walnut or other woods.  But more modern makers began using soft tone woods such as spruce, cedar, and redwood on the top to produce a softer, more guitar-like sound.

Most guitars have a spruce top.  Spruce is a little harder than cedar and resists scratches and nicks a little better.  But cedar produces a similar sound and usually much quicker. What I mean by that is that it sometimes takes a while for spruce to fully open up, which is a main reason guitars getter better with age.  Cedar usually gets that sound much earlier in an instrument's life.

I have dulcimers with spruce, redwood, and cedar tops and they are all great.  The sound differences between them are due more to other aspects of instrument design.  Don't shy away from a cedar top if the rest of the dulcimer has what you're looking for. It's a highly respected tonewood.

Sally is a tough one to get on diatonic fretboard. It's a haunting melody, though.

Some years ago I learned a version arranged by Steve Eulberg.  He uses a DAA tuning with a capo at 1, but the 8+ fret is still necessary. I couldn't even tell you if that was aeolian or dorian.

At the last Quarantune 5 concert yesterday, there was a nice tribute to Bill.  Tull Glazener changed his avatar screen so it was a picture of Bill and then when the concerts were over Stephen Seifert led a short jam that centered on Bill's arrangement of Rock the Cradle Joe.

The Knoxville Area Dulcimer Club has a whole page dedicated to tab donated by Bill and his wife Barbara.  You can find it here .

Here is a 2005 interview with Bill in Dulcimer Players News .

Well you how they say if you give someone a hammer everything looks like a nail.  Dulcimer players want to tickle strings with their fingers.  Drummers want to hit stuff with sticks.

That's so sad.  I know Bill was not only a great luthier but also an important part of the dulcimer scene in Tennessee and generously shared tablature arrangements.

I have a stunningly beautiful Bill Taylor dulcimer. It's not my main playing dulcimer, so I periodically think I should sell it. But then I take it out of the case and fall in love again.

Positive?  Maybe not.  Mildly funny?  Perhaps.

I recently bought matching stands for my dulcimer and guitar.  The instructions for how to attach the base to the arm read:

"Do not overtighten.  You can crack the wood.  Maybe not a job for a drummer."

And similarly, the instructions for attaching the hanger to the arm read:

"Do not overtighten.  You can strip out the insert.  Keep the drummer away from this."

For the record, the assembly went very well.  Clearly dulcimer players are more gentle creatures than are percussionists.

For what it's worth, @art-s, position dots are not really necessary on a diatonic fretboard.  The pattern of fat and skinny frets tells you everything you need to know. It's very different than a guitar or mandolin where all the frets look the same.

The Folkcraft kits are very good.  Even their cardboard kits make pretty darn good dulcimers.

Thanks for those lyrics, John.  It's amazing to see how many songs have used that melody.

I never heard of that tune, @john-gribble.  Interesting. It's another for the list, certainly.  Do you know where we might find some lyrics?

I am pretty sure, however, that George Washington was a drinker.  I had read somewhere that well into the revolutionary war he used to drink a toast to George III, and I don't really know if that's true or not, but when I looked into it I found a lot about old George's drinking habits.  Check out this website , which explains that he was partial to madeira wine and porter beer.

Hey @celtic-cowboy, I see that you have in fact posted a "thanks" to people who commented on your East Virginia video, so clearly you know how to post.

There is no option called a "comment back" but there are two ways to accomplish the same thing.  This is how things work on a pc. It may be slightly different on a mobile device.

One is what I did above. I just wrote your username complete with the @ symbol, which does two things. One, it creates a hyperlink so anyone can click it and get to your homepage. Two, it sends you a notification that someone has mentioned you.  Of course, it also indicates clearly to whom you are responding.

The second way is to directly quote someone:

To quote someone, hover your cursor over their comment and you will see an icon appear in the upper right of that box that looks like the speech bubble from a cartoon.  Click that and their entire comment will appear in quotation marks in a new comment box.  You rarely need to quote an entire post, so most of us then edit the quotation to include only what is necessary.

I hope that helps.  If you need further instruction, ask your limberjack.

Here's one on Ebay with an asking price of $700 . Of course, that's just the asking price.  No one has bought it yet.

I would laugh at those "rules," but they hit a little too close to home.

I am (very slowly) working on an arrangement of the Irish Gaelic air "Song of the Books" or " Amhrán na Leabha."  It's a haunting melody. I found some sheet music for the penny whistle, which provides the basic melody.  But I've been listening to this vocal version and altering the basic melody to capture a small fraction of the nuances of the singer's voice.  The big task will be deciding on the harmonic accompaniment. Lots of minor chords, obviously, but beyond that I've yet to figure it out.

Once I've tabbed out the melody and decided on the chording, then I'll have to actually sit down and play it a bunch to see how it all fits under the fingers. More revisions to follow then.

You can rest assured I'll be listening to this tune non-stop for many days to come.

Hi Tom,

First, I took the liberty of moving your question to the Forum on specific luthiers, since it seemed more appropriate.

Second, I would guess from the model and serial number that the instrument was pre-Folkcraft, but to be sure, why not contact @howard-rugg directly?  He is a member here and usually has very good records about the instruments made by Capritaurus and FolkRoots.

My first dulcimer had no fret markers, and I managed fine. The diatonic fretboard IS your fret marker. The first skinny fret is 3. The last fat fret before the three skinnies (assuming you have a 6+) is 5. The last of the three skinnies is 7.

Since then I've bought instruments that have fret markers, and you do get accustomed to them. But unlike the banjo, the dulcimer does not need them.

I think now the main reasons to mark at 3, 5, and 7--even if you don't play only on the melody string--is because that's standard and you want to get used to the way most dulcimers are designed so you won't get confused if you switch dulcimers. And yes, those fret mark stickers look great and come off very easily.

Unless it specifically says "loop end," the strings will be ball end since that is the standard for guitars.  (Notice their mandolin sets specify "loop end.")  But they sell single loop-end strings, so it seems that would be the way to go.  A single phosphor bronze loop-end string only costs a couple of bucks.  Why not buy one and check it out?

Hey @carolynf,

The easiest way to play in G might be to tune the middle string to G so you would be in DGd.  Then the drones would be "right" but "reversed," meaning the root or key tone would be on the middle string and the 5th would be on the bass string. Your home base on the melody string would no longer be the open D, but the G on the third fret.

If you don't want to retune, you could put a capo at the third fret.  If you are tuned DAd and capo at 3, your notes would now be GDg, so you could play in G exactly the same way you were playing in D before.

You can play in G without using either of those methods, but as you have discovered, you can't rely on the open strings as much. You would also likely have to move up the fretboard to get the C natural that falls on the 6th fret of the bass and middle strings.  (In fact, I've been working on a series of intermediate-level arrangements of tunes played first in D and then in G, all out of the DAd tuning. The challenge for the G parts though, is that we move up the fretboard where we are often less comfortable and have to use more fingers to play chords.)

EDIT: Woops! I see @ken-longfield is a faster typist than I am and offered the same advice already.

I put new strings on my dulcimer today, and she loves me again.

I often play dulcimers with radically different VSLs, ranging from a tiny octave dulcimer to standard dulcimers of 25" and 27" and a baritone of 28".  I suppose I have to look more regularly at the fretboard until I get situated, but only once that I remember was I playing a tune I had arranged on one dulcimer and ran into difficulty playing it on a different one. The fingering had to change slightly and I was caught off guard. 

I used to switch between guitar and mandolin, too.  We humans are adaptable creatures.

That's a lot of tomatillos!

It's so nice to see and hear about folks playing music outdoors.  Thanks for sharing, everyone!

I shared music with others in my monthly dulcimer club on zoom today (mostly English country dances), but nothing outdoors.  The smoke from the wildfires up the Sierras has blown down into the valley and the air quality is unhealthy.  No outdoor music today or outdoor anything for me.  I put on an N95 respirator mask just to turn on the sprinklers.

I hope others have been able to share music with their communities.