Forum Activity for @dusty

Other points in response to others:

@dan, isn't it interesting that even around the turn of the twentieth century, the dulcimer was viewed as a disappearing instrument that represented a romanticized past?  The dulcimer had only been invented a few decades earlier and was already seen as 1) very old; and 2) disappearing.  Both assumptions were wrong.

@sgarrity, your experience at Quarantune mirrors my experience when I first attended a dulcimer festival. I had only been playing a few months and could not wrap my head around the diatonic fretboard.  But because I had played other instruments, I did not need instruction on how to strum or how to fret the strings.  It was really frustrating to find a workshop that fit my abilities.  But those in-person festivals had something that Quarantune lacks: a chance for socialization. In between workshops, during lunch, and at the end of the day during the long jam circle, I was able to just meet other people, learn about their different playing styles, ask questions about the various instructors, and more.  Quarantune lacks the social networking that is usually the most fun part of in-person festivals.  There are ways to approximate that social experience at online festivals, though perhaps not at festivals as large as Quarantune.  Anyway, to your original point, now that I teach workshops on my own, I often attend workshops not expecting to learn some new technique, but to see how other people teach.  Most dulcimer players very quickly become informal teachers, as the many discussions here at FOTMD demonstrate.

@ken-longfiled, your experience is similar to mine. My monthly dulcimer club has grown online, but by picking up experienced players from around the country (and even a few from overseas) rather than gaining any newbies.

There are ways to approximate informal social interactions at online dulcimer festivals. Some of the smaller, regional ones have been doing this.  At the Berkeley Dulcimer Gathering we thought very hard about how to do this. We had a Zoom "homeroom" where everyone gathered in the morning for informal chitchat, and Erin Mae Lewis was the "homeroom teacher."  She broke us into smaller groups of 4 or 5 and let us interact a bit.  I think that happened three times, so everyone got a chance to meet some of the other attendees.  Then we also gathered in that same space at lunch time for an open forum when people could ask questions or just make comments.  And at the end of the day, we gathered in the homeroom for a "jam" which, because of the limits of distance technology, was more like an open mic song circle, with different people taking turns playing songs.  Others could play along, if they wished, and I certainly did.  That homeroom was also open all and each time I popped in there were a few people chatting.  At one point someone asked me a specific question about how I played a tune, and Erin Mae just moved us into a private room so we could have our conversation without forcing everyone else to listen to us.  It's certainly not the same as being able to sit down with someone with dulcimers on your laps and share music, but I found the social interactions--even online--to be the most gratifying part of the event.

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts on this.  Perhaps I should have specified more explicitly that my concern is about recruiting newbies while our festivals and club gatherings are online.  I agree with many of the suggestions about setting up booths at other kinds of musical events, and we should do that once social distancing guidelines are no longer needed.  But when we were able to meet in person, every festival I've ever attended had a decent crop of people who had never played before but were given a loaner instrument to use for the beginner workshops.  Some of those people became enamored (as are many of us, I assume), eventually buying their own instruments and joining the community.

When my local dulcimer club was meeting in person, I almost always had a least one newbie every month. I specifically offered the first hour for a free beginner lesson, which allowed us to incorporate new people. I would always bring an extra dulcimer for them to use, too.  Since we met at a music store there were often people who would see me setting up or playing a tune and ask about the instrument. I would sit them down, put an instrument in their lap, and show them a tune.

As my original post explains, similar spur-of-the-moment decisions could get newbies to come to festivals. I remember one newbie who borrowed a dulcimer I had brought as a loaner, completed her first workshop, and then asked me if she could buy it from me.  I didn't sell it to her, but pointed her to a table where there were indeed dulcimers for sale. She bought one and is now a regular at regional festivals.  That kind of experience could happen with in-person festivals, but it is not apparent how to replicate it online.

If we are all isolating at home and not interacting in music stores or town squares or the campus quad or the local coffeehouse, how can we reach people?

My fear is that the large, successful dulcimer festivals like Quarantune are great for providing the professionals an opportunity to make some money, which they badly need given the lack of gigs, and for allowing the many existing dulcimer enthusiasts to share their love of this humble instrument. But they do not appear to be good vehicles for the recruitment of newbies. Only people who already know about the dulcimer and already have an instrument would even know to register.

I've got to go now to send out an email about my dulcimer club's meeting later this month.  No newbies will be getting my message.

@strumelia and @robin-thompson, you both may be correct that many small dulcimer festivals were struggling before the pandemic.  Especially if the organizers were growing older, it would be understandable that if no one else took over, the festivals would have to shut down. 

But the two annual dulcimer festivals that I had been a part of were growing slowly each year over the last 10 years.  And each year there were a certain number of people who showed up having never played a dulcimer before and needing a loaner.   Their new-found excitement really energized everyone.

But the online festivals mostly lack those newbies.  It is one thing to sit someone down, hand them a dulcimer that's already in tune, and show them how to play a few simple tunes.  It's another to convince them to get a dulcimer, find a comfortable spot in their home, turn on Zoom, and trust that you'll be able to teach them.  The online festivals require a level of planning that mitigates against the recruitment of newbies.  I recently heard from the Dulcimer Association of Albany, which is holding its annual festival online next month.  All the intermediate and advanced classes are full but there are plenty of openings in the beginner classes.  Hmm ...

My monthly dulcimer club used to start each month with a free, one-hour, beginner lesson.  Almost every month one or two people would show up who had never played before. And after the beginner lesson, our group play would start with more accessible tunes, so the beginners could play along, at least a little, and become part of the group. But now that we are online, I don't hear from beginners at all.

I wonder if we should start advertising dulcimer festivals on banjo and fiddle and native American flute sites or elsewhere online where we might start that spark in potential players. Then perhaps we could set up a network of people around the country willing to loan a dulcimer to people who want to give it a try.

At most dulcimer festivals, beginners--even those who had never held a dulcimer before--represented a decent minority of those in attendance.  I once convinced a stranger to come to a festival after she saw me walking down the street with a strange instrument and asked what it was.  On another occasion, I was driving to a festival with a friend who convinced her daughter to join us. When we picked up her daughter, we convinced her roommate to come, too. Both of those were spur-of-the-moment decisions the morning of a festival.

On a few occasions I've taught the rank beginner classes, what I call "Mountain Dulcimer 101" but what @steve-eulberg calls "String Side Up." (Steve is obviously far more clever and humorous than am I.)   At the Berkeley Dulcimer Gathering we always made sure to have a beginner track, so newbies would move from the rank beginner class into a second class on beginning repertoire and then perhaps an introduction to basic chords or something like that.  I always felt great pride in helping someone who had never played before realize the joy of making music.

But now that so many festivals have moved online, the presence of beginners has decreased enormously.  Are beginners the roadkill on the dulcimer's cyberspace highway?  A quaint relic of a pre-digital age?

Obvious obstacles exist.  Beginners have to plan ahead of time to register and get an instrument.  We can't just pull them off the street and put dulcimers in their laps.

It would be easy to assume that when the pandemic is over, dulcimer festivals will go back to the way they were, with everyone gathering in the same place at the same time.  But I doubt that is the case.  Smaller festivals have been able to reach a much larger audience by going online, and at the same time they've saved money by not having to pay travel expenses and rent venues. And many attendees at online festivals are not the same folk who attended live festivals, but because of location, mobility or other issues, they can only attend online.  I moved my local dulcimer club online, but now at least half of those attending live thousands of miles away and have urged me to continue with an online gathering even after we can meet in person again. We have found new dulcimer players in our move online, but we seem to have lost access to beginners.

Online festivals are here to stay. I see our biggest challenge to be recruiting beginners. 

So . . . what can we do to recruit beginners to dulcimer festivals and other online gatherings? 

I am sure that people who can explain the difference between the aeolian and the ionian modes should be able to come up with some ideas.

I eat with unamplified spoons. Will that get me on TV? 

The solid body electric dulcimer played with a noter is a nice juxtaposition of tradition and modernity. Like talking on a cell phone while riding a horse-drawn buggy.

Interesting that they take a break from music to put some fretwire into a fretboard.  I can't imagine that on American TV.

It's too bad about the typo, David, but there would have probably been a mistake somewhere no matter how many times you edited it. 

I was really impressed with Ashley when I worked with her last year.  DPN is in good hands.

Perhaps the black stain makes it resemble the Thomas dulcimers, but according to the article, @Dan's 9-foot dulcimer is "partially patterned on John Mawhee's dulcimore."  One obvious modern element is the machine tuners, since wooden pegs would never be able to handle the tension of such long strings.  

Woops!  I see Ken beat me to a response. I guess his coffee is better than mine.

Great article in the February 2021 issue of Dulcimer Players News by @david-bennett about @dan's 9-foot long dulcimer.  Nice work, guys!  Everyone should give it a read.

Perhaps this metaphor will work.  Imagine your first time ordering a steak at a restaurant. The waiter asks how you'd like it cooked.  Obviously, the extremes won't work, for fully uncooked could get you sick and completely burned will be a bunch of charred carbon with no meat.  But in between there is an acceptable range from rare to medium rare to medium to medium well to well done, with variations in between.  Maybe you ask what most people choose and you are told "medium" is the most common choice, but just to be safe, you should ask for it a little more rare, since you can always put the meat back on the grill.  That advice is like the string gauge calculator, which errs on the light side.  But then you have to develop and identify your own preferences in relation to that.  So you experiment.  You try a steak medium rare or a string a bit lighter than the gauge indicates, and you see how it fits.  Then you try a steak medium well or a string a bit heavier than the gauge indicates, and you see how it fits.  You have to experiment and decide how you like your steak, or how you like your dulcimer to sound and to play.

Like @susie, I find the string gauge calculator significantly lighter than my preferences.  Tuned DAd on my main dulcimer, I use .026 wound on the bass, .016 on the middle, and .014 on the melody.  And that's for a dulcimer with a pretty short (25") VSL.  I like the heavier gauges for the increased volume, clearer tone, and ease of controlling techniques such as bending strings.

Sometimes, such as when I fingerpick, I like a little extra give in the strings, but instead of changing strings, I just tune down a half step or whole step to C# or C. And when I play fast flatpicking tunes, I want the strings really taught so they are more responsive to the pick, so I tune up to Eb or E.

These are my preferences, and as @ken-hulme explains, you will have to develop your own.  And I make some adjustments depending on the dulcimer I am playing as well.  Some instruments seem to do better with heavier or lighter gauges.  Over time you will figure this stuff out for your instruments and your playing style.

I would suggest buying a whole bunch of strings and playing around.  Once you know how you want to set up your dulcimers, then you can buy strings in bulk and you never have to think about it again.

My heart as well.  I think sheltering at home has decreased the influence of her peers relative to her parents and opened a little doorway for me to sneak Joni in there.  And I gained a little stature in her eyes when I told her the woman who made Joni's dulcimer and I attend each other's online dulcimer gatherings.

I heard my teenage daughter listening to a female pop singer with a really melodic voice, and I said, "If you like this, you'll really love Joni Mitchell."  We listened to "Chelsea Morning" together, and then I told her to check out the Blue album. A few days later she told me with a smile on her face that she loves it!

I'm just delighted Robin refers to a dulcimer as  "tool." That makes it so much easier to justify buying another one.  I must have a dozen hammers in my garage, so I should have at least that many dulcimers.

Don Pedi is an American treasure, that's for sure.  He both collects and plays the old music.  He's like the Seegers and the Lomaxes all rolled into one. 

In the 2012 picture to which Strumelia links, he is holding a Modern Mountain Dulcimer, which he seems to have been using for his main dulcimer for several years now.  It does indeed have both a 1+ and a 6+ fret.  Most of the still photos he uses for media stuff show trad dulcimers with friction tuners and no extra frets, but he makes practical use of modern innovations like geared tuners and extra frets.

What impresses me consistently in Don's playing is not the speed of his fingering-as impressive as it is--but his rhythmic strumming.  He never relies on a rote pattern but keeps tunes moving in a danceable and yet varied rhythm.

Don's playing is always stellar, and this clip is no exception.  Thanks for sharing this, Robin.

And for those players out there who fret with their thumbs, note the angle with which Don holds the dulcimer on his lap.  The strumming end is tight against his body, but the fretting end sticks way out over his knee. The instrument is not parallel on his lap. He needs that angle to be able to fret comfortably, especially up the fretboard.  You can see that angle best during the first 1:20 of the video.

So glad to hear from you, Ken.  You just need to tell the docs that it's not "an irregular beat."  You're a musician; it's called "syncopation."

I'm sure the residue from the stickers will come off eventually using any of the remedies suggested here.   Just be patient.  My concern would be if the wood underneath where the stickers were is a slightly different color than the rest of the fretboard.  If that's not the case, you're probably lucky.

Once you have the residue off, you might try a light rub down with Howard Feen-n-Wax. I use it periodically on all my dulcimers, including the fretboards.

I attended an online funeral service today.  It would be more accurate to say I "viewed" a funeral service.  It was livestreamed on YouTube.  Only the immediate family was live in attendance.  It was so sad to see the enormous church with only a handful of people up front.  And what a sad occasion for me to learn what a phenomenal flautist my cousin is as she played a piece by Bach as part of the service.

Most of the time the camera just looked down from the back, but when the organist played we got a close up looking over his shoulder, and at times the camera panned over the artwork in the ceiling, which was nice to see.  But otherwise, the inability to physically comfort family and friends was sorely missed.  Typing condolences in a text chat is a poor replacement for a hug.

Wild looking instrument.  Thanks for sharing that, Robin.

John, I just created a couple of screenshots to demonstrate the process.  There are only 5 easy steps.  Check out the discussion I just created in the Site Questions Forum .

There are 5 steps to creating a new discussion with a Group.

1) Join the Group.

2) Click the "+" sign at the far right of the Discussion Forum banner.

3) Choose a brief but descriptive title for your Discussion.  Try to imagine someone scanning through discussions a year from now and make sure you title would adequately convey the content.

4) Write a more complete description of the discussion.

5) Click "Create New Discussion."

See the two screenshots below.

Hey just an idea, people, but we have the Call the Tune Group which was intended for people to share different versions of the same tune.  Someone (John? Gordon?) could start a thread on music for Lent and have people contribute different tunes.  That way all those tunes could be found in one convenient place.

It's indeed a striking collaboration.  Thanks for sharing this, Robin.

For those who like enjoy this kind of east-west mashup, you might be interested in the recent Smithsonian Folkways album by Wu Fei and Abigail Washburn and produced by Bela Fleck.  Here is a live performance of one of the tunes, which has no dulcimer, unfortunately, but some wonderful singing as well as soothing banjo and guzheng:

@Traildad, you are making a false assumption that a note using an upper case letter always refers to a note below middle C.  I tune my baritone dulcimer GDg. All of those notes are below middle C.  I use the lower case g to indicate that the string is an octave above the bass string. I also have an octave baritone dulcimer, meaning it is tuned an octave above that baritone, and I still indicate the tuning as GDg even though only the low G is below middle C and the D and high g are above it.  I also have octave dulcimers that I often tune DAd, but all those notes are above middle C.

In other words, the use of the upper and lower case letters shows how the notes relate to each other, not how they relate to some objective standard like a piano.

There are ways to indicate exactly which octave on the piano a given tone is from, but almost none of us bother with that.

Strumelia's blog was not specifically about string gauge, but she does mention that she stopped using a wound bass string and only used string gauges around .10 or .11.  The blog post is about how she gets to the main 4 keys of C, D, G, and A with two dulcimers, one that can tune to C and D and one that can tune to G and A.

If all you want to know is what octaves one uses for 1-5-5 tunings in those four keys . . .

C-G-G would usually be C3-G3-G3

D-A-A would usually be D3-A3-A3

G-D-D would be either G2-D3-D3 (as a baritone) or G3-D4-D4 (as a 3/4-size instrument like a Ginger)

A-E-E would be either A2-E3-E3 (as a baritone) or A3-E4-E4 (as a 3/4-size instrument)

Of all those notes, only the D4 and E4 are above middle C.

The Strothers String Gauge Calculator suggests strings of .023 for A and .016 for E on a dulcimer with a 30 inch VSL and .026 and .018 for G and D.  You might try .024 and .017 and feel comfortable tuning to both.  You will be tuning to the G and A below the standard D tuning.

@Traildad, you are looking for a standard dulcimer (tuned D or C) and a baritone dulcimer (tuned G or A).  This is not a complicated proposition and there is no trouble changing tunings in the 1 or 2 note range that you discuss as long as you have the right string gauge. I have dulcimers in those two tonal ranges and switch between those keys all the time.  Not a problem.

I am not sure what you mean by a "specialty noter drone dulcimer" unless you mean one with partial frets that only sit underneath the melody string.  

You have the 1-5-5 tunings correct.  If you are tuned to A,  a 1-5-5 tuning is A-E-E.  In G, it would be G-D-D.  I am sure you can find the right string gauge to be able to go back and forth between those two keys.  

In D, a 1-5-5 tuning is D-A-A and in C it is C-G-G.  Again, you can find the right string gauges that will allow you to switch back and forth.  That will not be a problem.

However, you will not be able to move between A-E-E and D-A-A on the same set of strings.  I assume you understand this and that is why you want two dulcimers in two tonal ranges.

If you have the right gauge string to start with, you should be able to go up or down a note with no problem.  On my standard dulcimer I often tune down to C and occasionally up to E, so all three strings are moving between two whole steps.

For a high D string and a 30" VSL, the Strothers String Gauge calculator suggests a .009, and for the C below that, a .010.  That gauge errs on the light side, so a .010 should easily work for either.  For the A, it recommends a .012 and for the G a .013.  Again, you could use either, but I would go with the .013.

It's wonderful that this has been preserved.  Notice that the dulcimer is not repeating the melody as Jon sings but playing a counter melody/harmony part to accompany the singing.  It is not easy to play like that since it's carrying two melodies at once.

Thanks for sharing this, Ken.

@dan, I was wondering the same thing, but I don't think it is the same instrument.  The one that was auctioned off had a flat head, not a scroll head.  You can see the listing here .

Cool!

Sorry to hear about your friend, @lisavb.

Glad to hear about your house.  We had a similar accident a few years ago.  A massive limb from a 75-year-old oak tree fell down, only barely grazing the gutter on the corner of our house.  I couldn't even tell that the roof had not been damaged until the next day when I was able to remove all the branches from up there.  But the front yard was completely filled with branches and leaves. From the street, you couldn't even see the house.  It just looked like a chimney sticking out of a massive piles of green leaves and brown wood. I was so lucky that my neighbor was a gardener who had just retired.  He showed up with his chain saws and the two of us worked for a couple of days until the yard was clear.  Then it took another year for the lawn to come back since it was entirely covered in saw dust. But at least the house was OK.

A major bright side for me is extra time with my teenage daughter.  In normal times the last thing she would want to do is hang out with her parents, especially now that she and her friends are getting their drivers licenses.  But we spend lots of time together every day; I'm grateful for that.

I've also gotten to know dulcimer players from around the country in Zoom gatherings of various sorts.  My "local" dulcimer group is no longer local as about half of the attendees each month are from all over the country.

Still haven't learned to sew, though.

Here in California, vaccines are available (in theory) to anyone 65 and over.  But I think that's group 1B, whereas 1A are the frontline healthcare workers and those in assisted living facilities, and they haven't even gotten to all of them yet.  But the next group is those over 50, so I'm hopeful that within a couple of months both my wife and I will be able to get the vaccine.  Plans are already being made for mass vaccination sites in the parking lots of sports arenas, where you'll drive in and get the shot right in your car.  Like drive-through fast food.

And I won't brag that we have two orange trees bursting with fruit here.  The biggest one is a navel orange tree on my neighbor's property, but it's about 30 feet tall and he can't possibly eat all its fruit. Every week or so we go over with a ladder and pick a bunch.  We have a smaller tree of valencia oranges, which are harder to peel and better for juicing. We also have tons of meyers lemons this time of year.  Those are a cross between lemons and mandarin oranges, and have an almost tangerine-like sweetness.  They make the best lemonade.  For some reason, my lime tree fruits earlier, so there's nothing left now, although all three trees flower at the same time.  

Welcome to FOTMD, @nateprentice.  You might try using a strap on your dulcimer. If you keep the strap tight enough, you have a lot more control over the positioning of the instrument on your lap and don't rely on your lap as much.

John, you're right that since tab has the lower notes up higher and the higher notes down lower it can be confusing for those of us who learned to read standard music notation. When I teach newbies I remind them that if you just lay tab flat in front of you, the three lines are in the same order as the strings on your dulcimer, so it's not as unintuitive as you might think at first. What's reversed is the dulcimer itself.

Most of the tab these days has both standard music notation and dulcimer tablature, so you can see the relationships between them.  I try to envision that kind of tab as bookmatched wood, as though they are mirrors of each other.

Yes, TablEdit does automatically what you are talking about.  When you put the tab into TablEdit, the software automatically identifies the corresponding notes in standard music notation.  If you don't care about saving files, you could download the free version of TablEdit.  The free versions just limits you to 16 measures or something like that.  BUt you could always print out a song and then start over, using the free version forever.

But I'm not the best person to answer your question. I can use tab or standard music notation as a reminder of how a song goes, but when I play I can't follow either one. I have to look at the fretboard and play by ear.  I can't really sight read very well at all, though that's a skill I greatly admire.

Indeed, I have treasured FOTMD since I discovered this site as a friendly, encouraging oasis in the social media desert of mean-spirited ridicule.  This is a place where all are welcome, where we can share our love of this oddly-shaped instrument with too few strings and too few frets, and where, by eschewing anger and aggression, we implicitly celebrate our shared humanity. We are, as the name of the site explains, friends.

That's pretty cool, James. And if you take it rafting, you can always use it as an oar, too!

I have a couple of ukes, but I have to confess that I rarely play them.

Check out the capo FOTMD member @martin-oesterle made to play this fun tune.

There are at least a couple of builders who do not glue the fretboard to the soundboard at all. My octave dulcimer by David Beede has the fretboard screwed into the dulcimer with three metal dowels, but it sits entirely about 1/4 inch above the soundboard. His logic is that the top is free to vibrate that way. And I think FOTMD member @bob-stephens also makes dulcimers with floating fretboards.  In this discussion he specifically says that his "fretboards don't touch the top."  I think he also uses metal bolts to attach the fretboard to the dulcimer and allow it to sit above the soundboard.

Terry's capo is a modification of the Spider capo. And he offers a version with a D'Addario tuner attached to it.  It's a nice idea, especially if you have room left of the nut to leave it attached when you're not using it.  That way you have a tuner and capo always available.  If I didn't already have a bunch of capos and a bunch of tuners I would probably get one.

I've heard of tactile position markers on the back or top of the neck on guitars, so that you can feel with your hand where you are on the fretboard, but I've never seen anything like that on the fingerboard itself.