Forum Activity for @dusty

No worries, @Diane-R. Looking back over my post I can see why you interpreted it the way you did. I really meant that members should post Events listings of their own events.  That's why I mentioned the Berkeley Dulcimer Gathering, since I've been involved in organizing and teaching workshops at that event for several years.

It also takes a lot of work to do this well. An Event listing ought to have active links to the event's webpage, links to the instructors' pages, information about how to register, costs, lodging, and more. There is no way a single person could maintain that information for more than a handful of events unless it was a full-time job.  That's part of the reason the festivals listing at the old Everything Dulcimer website was so outdated.

I should also add that there is a festivals list toward the back of each issue of Dulcimer Players News.

Could this have been it?

To get back to the original question, I've played two Ron Gibson dulcimers and they were both very nice.  The action is very low, making it easy on your left hand fingertips.  The sound is beautiful.  His standard 26" scale length is short enough for small hands but long enough for decent volume and sustain. One of the dulcimers I played was a baritone. The other was a standard-sized dulcimer and it must have been Kentucky model. It was for sale at a local music store and I didn't really need another dulcimer at the time, so I played it a bunch and left.  I went back the next day to buy it because I liked it so much and it was already gone. 

Ron's dulcimers are among the most affordable of the decent instruments out there, and honestly, other than a couple of student models, I would not recommend the dulcimers that you can find for less than what Ron charges.  He's also a member here, so feel free to check out his profile page and contact him. I'm sure he'd be happy to make you a dulcimer without a pickup installed with the wood and soundhole design of your choice.

I agree both that it would be nice to have a comprehensive list and also that such an effort would be very difficult and take a lot of work on someone's part. On ED there used to be lists of festivals, teachers, and dulcimer groups, but they got very outdated very quickly.  To create a list for a single year would take a lot of work. To maintain that list year after year when dates change, new festivals emerge, old ones disappear, and so forth, would be a herculean task.

What we can do is encourage members here to use the "Events" feature more often and list festivals as soon as dates are known.  (Perhaps you've noticed that I already created a listing for the Berkeley Dulcimer Gathering in May 2019!) When the date for an event passes, the event is removed from our general listing, but it still exists under the original creator's Events page and can be easily updated with new dates and guest artists each year.

Eventually, @Diane-R, you will need to experiment, develop your own preferences, and find the right strings for you.  Kusani has a preference for plain steel on the bass. I find plain steel does not have enough power for a bass string.  I also prefer heavier strings, so I use .026 wound on the bass, .016 on the middle and .014 on the melody. But I would not recommend that for others unless they've been playing for a while and specifically want to play in a flatpicking or other style that demands tighter strings and more volume.

My advice is to start with the kind of setup that was probably intended when the instrument was built, which was likely a wound .020, .022. or .024 on the bass, .012 or .014 on the middle, and .010 or .012 on the melody. 

Start there and then you can experiment with replacing the wound string or getting slightly heavier or slightly lighter strings or squeakless strings or whatever.

Diane, standard sized dulcimers usually use a wound bass string that's somewhere around .022 or .024.  .014 is way too light for a bass sting.  Secondly, how are you tuned?  If you are tuned DAA, then it makes sense that your middle and melody strings would be the same gauge.  If you are tuned DAd, you might want to use a melody string that's a bit lighter than your middle strings.  If you use .012 on the middle, try .010 on the melody.  Or you might use .014 on the middle and .012 on the melody.

Also, remember that new strings stretch a lot.  Whenever I put on new strings I play for a while, retuning every few minutes and also literally pulling on the strings to stretch them.  I figure this gets the stretching out so they'll stay in tune better.

And if you haven't played in a while, you should sound "choppy and sloppy."  I find I lose technique if I just take a day off.  So taking off a few years might require a bit more time before you're back into the swing of things.

Kavik, the YouTube videos you posted in your message below are of @Mark-Gilston, who is an active member here.  He is a professional musician who posts videos here regularly and also offers lessons, CDs, and books of tab.

Most of us refer to that style of playing the dulcimer as chord/melody.  Many of us play in that style, or a related style that involves more single notes and fewer block chords that we might call flatpicking.  In fact, there is a whole Group here devoted to Modern Chord Style Players .

I'm glad you had such a good time, @tumbleweed.  I've gone in previous years but wasn't able to make it this year.  I would have liked to meet Sarah Morgan.  I've done a couple of workshops with Leo (one at the Harvest Festival and one at Redwood Dulcimer Day) and definitely learned something useful in both.  Did you join the late afternoon jam?  It's always a good time. Usually @Leo-Kretzner and/or @Gregg-Schneeman lead. They do a great job of including everyone and keeping the tunes moving along.

I hope the move works out for you.  You should be at home among the . . . uh . . . tumbleweeds. 

Ron, I love that lighthouse/seabird design. Your soundholes have always been special and that new design is quite nice.

To post a picture you simply click that little icon that looks like a piece a piece of film (embed local media). It is the second-to-last icon in the toolbar, in between the eye (preview) and the happy face (smileys).  You can also use the "attach file" function just below the text box on the right to attach rather than embed an image.

Hi @Webb.  You might find David Beede's demonstration of his "decoupled" tailpiece to be interesting. I am not a builder myself, but I find the difference in tone that he gets to be truly dramatic.

Interesting, but no surprise, I suppose.

I am curious why Jim Woods states the change has not gone smoothly. Isn't the only difference which bridge they use? You would think they would have a bunch for DAA and a bunch for DAd, and they just have to switch which pile they grab from. I must be missing something here.

That's a tough one.  The standard "large" hardshell dulcimer case is about 40" long. You can probably get an extra inch or inch-and-a-half since the interior is plush lined, but I'm pretty sure 43" would be out of the question.

If you don't plan on traveling on an airplane with the instrument, you might try one of those gun cases with the adjustable foam.  The foam is pre-cut into small squares, and you remove the ones to fit your instrument.  (I think they call it "pluck to fit" or something like that.) They come in different sizes. One is exactly 43" wide, but if you put the dulcimer in at an angle it might fit.  I think they also come in 46" and 52" lengths.  Here is one at Amazon .

The air was still smokey from all the fires in Cali, and we even had ash falling onto our dulcimers, but a few of us from my local music group, River City Dulcimers, moved to the sidewalk in front of the Strum Shop where we meet monthly.  We tried to get video, but the noise from the street overpowered the dulcimers. I decided to play one of my octave dulcimers, just to expand the tonal range of our little band of dulciholics. We played five tunes: The Ash Grove, Holy Manna, Simple Gifts, Skye Boat Song, and Southwind.

My local dulcimer group meets tomorrow. Our plan is to practice a little bit and then move our chairs to the sidewalk in front of the music store where we meet and play 5 or 6 tunes.  I'll try to get a video or at least a still photo or two.

Once I get home I hope to play on my front lawn with neighbors who play fiddle and banjo.  I fear they're out of town and I'll be there all by my lonesome.

Good one, Ken. I think I have that on an old Doc Watson album.

It's funny to see this old thread resurrected.  I just decided to put together a bunch of murder ballads for a workshop next spring.

I've always thought "Long Black Veil" was creepy because the singer is dead. 

The scaffold rose high as eternity neared

She stood in the crowd but she shed not a tear

Often at night when the cold wind blows

In her long black veil she cries over my bones

Congrats on your new instrument, @greg-gunner!

I'm interested in responses here, too. I've never figured out on my own how to successfully dub several tracks together.  I use Audacity for single-track recording but must have a brain block when it comes to more complicated stuff.  That software is only for audio anyway, so I think Jennifer needs something for video as well.

However, let me point out that there is a whole group here devoted to Home Studio Recording .  That would probably be the best place to ask this question rather in this general forum.

Ken & Terry, I'm sure you will enjoy this soup.  Don't be afraid to fiddle toward the finish and get the flavor just the way you like it. My wife actually adds ketchup, something I was radically opposed to until we were dining in a Mexican seafood restaurant in San Francisco one day and I saw someone adding ketchup to their own. If I overdo to the lemon juice or clam juice I will sometimes add some tomato paste. My wife and I both enjoy spicy food, and if we are the only ones eating I'll sometimes cut up a fresh jalapeno into tiny pieces, but you have to be careful with that since hot peppers vary so much in strength.  Prepared hot sauces are easier to control.  You can play around and see what you like.  Bon appetit!

My wife has a big birthday tomorrow--the half century kind--but she and our kid are at Lake Tahoe kayaking and paddle boarding in the Sierra sun.  So in anticipation of their return later today, I whipped up (little cooking involved) one of our favorite summertime dishes: coctel de camaron , Mexican shrimp cocktail.  This is a cold soup, and the genius is that the base is spicy V-8 juice!  The only cooking is the optional stage of boiling the shrimp.  You can used pre-cooked shrimp, in which case there is no cooking involved, but I like to add some of the water the shrimp was boiled in to add extra flavor.  This is a super tasty, super easy, very low-carb dish that takes a lot of prep only because of the time it takes to chop vegetables.

Ingredients (portions are flexible):

Spicy V-8 juice -- clam juice -- lemon juice -- shrimp, bay shrimp, or prawns -- chopped tomatoes -- chopped cucumbers -- chopped onions -- chopped avocado-- chopped fresh cilantro -- whatever spices you like (I use onion powder, garlic powder, lemon pepper, and salt).  

If the Spicy V-8 is too spicy for you, use regular V-8 (or mix the two together).  You can always add hot sauce such as Tabasco at the end, or offer it to be added to each bowl individually.  It can stay in the fridge for a few days, so you can make a big batch to last, or serve it in small cups as a great appetizer for a barbecue or other warm weather soirée.

Excuse me . . . I'm gonna have some now . . . 

That's a great perspective, @john-keane. Instead of worrying about whether you have the skills for a workshop, consider whether the workshop has the skills you seek.

The key part of @terry-wilson's comment below is the practice part.  The fact is that if you can sing (not well, necessarily, but hitting something close to the right notes) then you can play by ear.  If your brain can make the connection between the interval between two notes and the right amount to open or stretch your vocal chords, then it can certain make the connection between intervals between notes and distance on the fretboard. After all, on the fretboard, you have not only your brain making a theoretical connection, but the feel of your fingers and the vision of your eyes.  So playing an instrument by ear should be three times easier than singing.  The only difference? Most of us have been singing our whole lives, so we have decades of experience.  Too few of us practice playing by ear.

And one problem with tablature is that it forces you to look at it instead of looking at the instrument.  So it actively sabotages your ability to play by ear.

I have no doubt that there are a lot of people who right now are unable to play by ear. But that doesn't mean they can't do it. They just haven't tried enough and practiced it.  Perhaps because I am self taught on most of the instruments I play (I took some guitar lessons the summer after third grade and piano lessons around that same time) I am amazed that people are afraid to play without tablature, without someone else telling them exactly what to do.  Just put the instrument on your lap.  Play something.  If it sounds good, do it again. If it doesn't, try something else.  Don't be too ambitious, just try to find the melody for all those nursery rhymes we learned as kids.  You'll get those melodies in a short amount of time and will be able to figure out more complex ones later on.  

On Monday I was teaching a student a song that she requested to learn.  So I wrote up tablature for her. But she was struggling so much looking at the tablature that at one point I took the tab away and forced her to look at the fretboard.  She protested that she can only play with tablature.  But the problem was that although she knew the melody, she was getting distracted by all the information on the tab.  When I forced her to stop thinking about fret numbers and note duration and just to play the song she had in her head, she was able to learn it much faster.  In this case the tab was a hindrance to her learning the song. But even when that's not the case, using tab does not aid in the development of our ability to play by ear and may even sabotage it by forcing us to look at the music instead of our instrument.

Musicians (including dulcimer players) make mistakes all the time. I'm sure Yo Yo Ma makes mistakes daily.  How often you make mistakes does not differentiate a beginner from an advanced player.

But an important skill to learn is how to make a mistake and keep going, keeping the flow of the music.  If you make a mistake but skip right over and keep going, the mistake is gone, off into the ether, and even if anyone noticed, they forget about it right away. But if you make a mistake and then stop and start over, or utter some choice exclamations (as I am wont to do) or pause for a moment with an unhappy face, then you really look like a beginner who can't carry a tune.  And what's more, once you learn how to continue playing after making a mistake, then the fear of making mistakes goes away.  Magic!

Those tomatoes look wonderful.    The woman across the street from us has a huge garden and no one to feed, so we get all hers.

Never heard of taxi, though.

I prefer some fresh mozzarella and basil to sour cream any day.

If any of you are Patreon supporters of Bing Futch, you see that he has just posted materials from his 3-Day Intensive workshops at Evart.  He is doing separate workshops for the beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels.

I just glanced at the material and haven't watched the videos yet, but so far I don't really see much difference between the intermediate and advanced stuff.  He teaches chords in the intermediate level, but he also teaches crosspicking technique there, which in my mind is more challenging than the scales he teaches at the advanced level.  In the arrangements themselves, it appears the advanced stuff is played faster and has more eighth notes, but the intermediate arrangements looked pretty advanced to me.

It's interesting to see his take on these categories. At some point when my work lightens up I'll take a harder look at that material.

I've said before that I don't see any use for these categories other than providing guidance at festivals about what workshops might be appropriate for individual attendees. Perhaps a more useful discussion would be what skills or techniques people have found useful and encourage others to develop.  Maybe an idea for a different discussion . . . 

Ken, I'm not ready now to get a new dulcimer with the flexi-frets, but I would like to someday.  I did play one once, though.  I think you are probably right that inserting and removing the frets is not so easy that you'd be putting them in and taking them off in the middle of a jam session.  But it's not that hard either, at least not with the little tool Dwain supplies. I was surprised that the slots were not really noticeable by feel when the frets were not there.  But I only play with my fingers. I wonder if the "empty" slots would affect a noter sliding up and down.  Maybe we can have @elvensong answer these questions when he gets his.

Lucky you! That'll be quite an instrument.

I'm joining this conversation late, but I do have one suggestion: flexifrets . Flexifrets are frets that can be inserted and taken out by the player.  I might not want to buy a dulcimer with a 4+ fret, but if it were a flexifret, I might be curious. I would still, however, want a 1+, so if you install a flexifret for the 4+, you should also do it for the 1+

Incidentally, Paul Furnas only plays Renaissance and early music, and he claims that even in DAd, a 4+ would be more useful for him than a 1+ or even a 6+.  He brought a diatonic dulcimer to a luthier to add the 4+ fret, but the luthier assumed he misspoke and put on a 6+ instead! (Paul ended up selling that dulcimer.)

Anyway, I've been thinking about getting a dulcimer with a true diatonic fretboard but then adding a flexifret for every half fret, so the dulcimer could function as truly diatonic, fully chromatic, or anything in between.

I would have no idea how to rank myself or anyone else and I think it's important to point out that there is no perfect way to define dulcimer abilities.  I am sure I know a whole lot more chords than does Ken, but he understands modes in ways I never will.  The skills and knowledge for different styles of play are simply not comparable. Linda Brockinton one of the best fingerpicking dulcimer players around, yet her prowess with a flat pick or quill is pretty limited.

I don't think it is worth working on a skill just because you think you want to advance to some other level of dulcimer playing. Just watch and listen to the people who play in the style that most interests you and keep trying to improve.  That's all that any of us can do.

The only purpose for formal definitions of levels is at festivals to help attendees find the right workshops for their interests and skill levels.  But that's it.  They do not really define objective, measurable skills that everyone develops over time.

Folks, I didn't provide the criteria from the Berkeley Dulcimer Gathering because I agree with the descriptions there or think of it as the standard we should all adopt.  I just wanted people to see an example of descriptions that list some specific techniques, since the original question was about "skills" that would be considered intermediate.

I agree, @banjimer.  However, a lot of workshops don't actually teach skills but teach repertoire.  There are tons of workshops, for example, on Irish jigs or English country dance tunes or whatever.  In those cases, people need to understand the skills they should already have to benefit from the workshops.

Yes, there are plenty of great musicians who can't read music.  But some degree of music literacy is necessary if we are going to talk about how we're playing, to teach and learn from one another.  I give dulcimer lessons at a music store and they get a constant stream of young guitar players who want to teach there.  But many of them have no understanding of the basic concepts of music literacy, so they can't explain how to construct a chord or how long to hold a given note. All they want to do is show people how they play.  That approach is of limited helpfulness.

I agree, Ken.  That's why I asked the question in an earler discussion about when people know they are no longer beginners.  A lot of people hold onto that "beginner" label as a crutch, as a way to lower people's expectations of their playing.  But in my mind if you can follow simple tablature or follow by ear and eyes someone playing a simple song, then you are no longer a beginner.  You've reached a basic level of proficiency that deserves the term "intermediate."

BUT . . . at the risk of upsetting many of my dulcimer friends . . . I do think that dulcimer players have two main limitations which impede our progress as musicians.  One is the inability to do anything with the right hand other than strum across all the strings all the time.  The second is the inability to play in keys other than D.

Just because we have three strings doesn't mean we have to play all of them all the time.  We should be willing to sometimes play a single note or sometimes just two. And yes, that might mean working on the right-hand techniques to strum two strings or pluck one-at-a-time.

And if you ever want to join a jam that is not limited to dulcimer players tuned to the key of D, you need to understand how to use your instrument to accompany others playing in other keys.  Without this ability--which requires some basic music literacy--even intermediate and advanced dulcimer players would be considered beginning musicians.  I'm not suggesting that I can jam with a saxophone player in Bb, and I admit to "cheating" by retuning and/or using a capo when I can, but the old timey music scene includes fiddle players who want to play in A and banjo players who want to play in G and so forth.  We should all aspire to being able to join them.

@notsothoreau, my personal opinion is that if you can play basic tunes reading tablature then you are no longer a beginner.  To some extent, that is a confidence and proficiency issue. If I tell you to play me a 3-3-5 chord, do you have to count frets to figure out where your third and fifth frets are?  If so, you are probably still a beginner.  But if you know the first octave of your fretboard, you are probably an intermediate player. Most festivals might refer to left-hand techniques such as hammer-ons and pull-offs as intermediate-level skills.  And among those of us who chord, we might point to the ability to play a certain number of chords, to be able to play more than one voicing of basic chords, and perhaps to understand some basic chord substitutions.  The ability to play in more than one tuning would probably be considered an intermediate skill as well.

But there is clearly no criteria that will fit everyone. I came to the dulcimer from the guitar and mandolin, and my right hand technique was advanced before I ever touched a dulcimer. Once I learned three or four chords, which I did the first 20 minutes I had a dulcimer, most people would have no longer considered me a beginner ,even though I had no understanding of the fretboard and was horrible at reading tab. (I'm still pretty bad at it today; I need to look at my instrument!)

The Berkeley Dulcimer Gathering posted the following criteria to help festival attendees identify the best workshops for them. It is admittedly centered on chord/melody play, which will not fit traditional gatherings at all.  (Although I regularly teach at that event, I had no hand in writing these descriptions.)

Absolute Beginner: You do not need previous dulcimer experience or musical background.

Beginner: You know how to hold your instrument, and can strum and play some simple tunes. You may not feel confident yet, but you love the music that your instrument can make! These classes will help you learn some chords, gain more comfort with your instrument and your ability to find and play tunes by ear and from music and tablature. You do not need previous dulcimer experience or musical background.

Intermediate: You have the skills of the previous levels and you’ve learned the basics of strumming and reading tablature, you need to expand your playing techniques and musical theory. You are learning to embellish your basic music with hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides; to adapt an arrangement with different chord positions; to play in and modulate to different keys with and without a capo or retuning; to flat-pick and fingerpick a tune. You can play in different tunings.

Advanced: You have the skills of the other levels plus the ability to play at least 4 chords in DAd or DAA tuning, to use 2-3 fingers (left hand), and be comfortable with at least 2-3 basic rhythms, utilize melody runs on all the strings using scales, then adding arpeggios and patterns from within chords, as well as a strummed chordal melody.

Very generous.  The dulcimer community is just wonderful, isn't it?

Right now I'm thinking the fiddle tune "Liberty."

I've heard old timey versions , superfast bluegrass versions , a classic Cajun version , and a beautiful, slow version on the autoharp by Bryan Bowers that has a hymn-like quality to it and ever so slowly picks up momentum.  So I'm thinking the song could suffice for any mood.  

There are no words to it, so I could spend my time on that proverbial desert island writing lyrics!

Terry, I once played guitar backup to a woman singing "River" at a small community arts festival.  I was given a lyrics sheet with chords to play, but when we rehearsed I broke out in tears as I followed the lyrics.  I had to just learn the song and play without looking at the lyrics so that I could smile at the audience instead of balling like a baby.

You are not alone.

How many times can I answer this question?  If it's only once, I would have to find a tune that sounds as good fast as it does slow.  Something with words but whose melody is meaningful without the words.

I'm gonna have to percolate on this one for a spell.

If I am not mistaken, the original post here was written in verse.  My guess is that the formatting got lost when we moved from the old site to the new one.  It would be wonderful if Linda could edit that post so that we can see her original poetic intent more clearly.

@yeahsureok, you've gotten great advice so far, and I'm going to do my best not to repeat it.  I just have two points to add.

First, bending strings is very difficult if not impossible with a double string.  There is a reason guitarists bend strings all the time and mandolin players almost never do.  You might consider playing with a single melody string. It makes bending strings as well as hammer-ons and pull-offs much easier.  And I think you get a cleaner sound all around.

But keep in mind that you don't always have to play the string as you are bending it.  As you improve your touch, you can bend a string and then pluck it, so you don't hear that bend up but merely the note you are trying to get.  That technique takes some practice, but you can get good enough that no one would know you are bending a string to get a particular accidental.

Second, accidentals are not, . . . uh, . . . accidental.  That is, they are notes purposely included in a melody.  Not all music is diatonic.  If you can retune to get a song, then the song might still be diatonic but in a different mode.  In that case, we are not talking about accidentals at all.  But some music does indeed have more than the seven notes of the diatonic scale.  If there are only one or two chromatic notes that appear occasionally in a song, you can employ the techniques others have laid out here.  But if there are a lot of accidentals, perhaps that song is not really good for the dulcimer.  I tried to learn a tune from a Carolina Chocolate Drops album a while back and realized that there were 4 half tones in a row in an important part of the melody.  That was my clue that my dulcimer efforts were better spent on a different piece.  Right now I am arranging tunes for a tab book on lullabies of the world.   I found a few tunes from Israel and Russia that I really wanted to include, but there were too many accidentals, so I just left them out. In another case, a tune had a single accidental, which I get by bending the melody string at the 4th fret. That one I included, with a note that the melody works fine with the straight 4th fret, but adding that bend gets closer to the original melody.  So a little extra effort might be worth it, but if a tune is defined by too many chromatic notes, perhaps its better to leave that one for chromatic instruments.

Having said all that, let me add that I now use dulcimers with the 1+ and 6+ frets, and I find that with those two extra frets, I can get almost all the tunes I want to play.  It took some time to get used to the 1+ fret, but I wouldn't want to go without it now.

@jp. there are two main areas for discussion at FOTMD. One are the Forums, which are open to everyone.  But there are also special interest Groups. 

If you look at the tool bar on the very top of your screen, you will see "Forums" as the second item from the left and " Groups " as the sixth.  I encourage you to peruse the Groups and join those you are interested in.  There is a group dedicated to traditional noter/drone players, a group for players from Indiana, a group for builders, a group on dulcimer history, a group for fingerpickers, and so forth. 

If you are not a member of a group, you will be able to see the most recent or sometimes the very first post in a discussion, but you will not see all the other posts.  However, if you simply click the big green button that says "Join Group to Access Discussions" which can be found to the right of the group's name, then you will see all the activity.

@jp, you might be clicking into a discussion within a group. You have to join the group to see all the content, or to post in that group's discussions.  In the example you provided, that is the Beginner's Group.