Forum Activity for @dusty

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.

Yeah, the Laurel Mountain website has been taken down.  I fear Mary has retired.

Thanks for all the work you put into the podcasts, Patricia.  You guys always do very good work.  Let me share two stories.

1) I attended one of Stephen Seifert's 3-day intensives last year in Berkeley.  As we went around introducing ourselves, Stephen said "You all have probably heard Dusty play and know that he's sometimes kinda fancy."  If I ever record a CD, I'll put that as a blurb on back "'Sometimes kinda fancy' according to Stephen Seifert."

2) I have to admit that I often listen to podcasts at a faster than normal speed.  Having grown up in the northeast, I'm just used to a faster pace of conversation than you find in most of the rest of the country.  But sometimes I forget that my default speed setting is x1.5 or x2. Once I listened to your podcast on Aaron O'Rourke while on a plane and had gotten used to the faster pace, until you played a clip of one of his faster songs.  I was in disbelief!  I knew that he can play very fast, but the lick I heard seemed impossible.  Only then did I realize that I was listening at twice the normal speed!

Keep doing what you do!  We appreciate it!

Steven Berger:I enjoy playing Stephen Foster songs, which was popular music back in the day.....way back.

@steven-berger, for a couple of years I played a gig here during Gold Rush Days, a kind of living history festival in which we dressed in clothing dating from the mid-nineteenth century and performed music and theater and stuff.  I played the character of someone from Appalachia who brought his dulcimer to the "diggins," sharing songs along the way. In one part of my act I asked the audience if they liked modern music or old traditional music.  Then when the younger in the audience thought they were being bratty and said they preferred modern music, I would tell them that I agreed and I especially liked that new songwriter Stephen Foster. I then launched into a few Foster tunes.

In the nineteenth century, both Foster and the dulcimer were modern and innovative.

I was also told by one doctor to avoid coffee because it aggravated my acid reflux problem. But that's another benefit of cold brew. Although it still has the caffeine, it has no acid!  Obviously, for those with acid reflux it would be best to avoid all coffee, but if you're like me, there are mental health benefits to coffee, and cold brew is a way to drink it while minimizing the acid reflux problems.

Well if you just want a chuckle . . .

At the jam after the Berkeley Dulcimer Gathering this past spring we played "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane. It was mostly barre chords.  I was cracking up the whole time.

I often play Prince's "Raspberry Beret" with a kind of honky tonk shuffle, and idea I got from a band called the Derailers.

And to please my daughter, I occasionally play Bruno Mars's "The Lazy Song."

A couple of years ago Stephen Seifert was the guest instructor at the Redwood Dulcimer Day in Santa Cruz.  I was invited to the after-party and was really excited to jam informally with Stephen, Neal Hellman, and others of my dulcimer heroes.  I had been learning so many fiddle tunes and Celtic tunes and I couldn't wait to show them. And what do you know? They all wanted to play 70s pop.  The same stuff I played guitar to my whole life.  Can we just put "Hotel California" away?  I wish I could stab that song with a steely knife!

The mason jar I use came with the conical filter. It holds 6 cups, so it's like a quart + a pint.  The cafe owner who turned me on to this stuff makes her cold brew with a big cheesecloth bag and a 5-gallon bucket.  If you search online you can find all sorts of devices for making cold brew, most much smaller than my 6-cup jar.  But you don't really need fancy equipment.  A container and some kind of filtering system is all you need.  You could even use one of those French press coffee makers.  The only question would then be the ratio of coffee grinds to water, and I'm sure that information is available online.

And remember to use coarsely ground beans.  Pre-ground beans are way too fine.  Also, apparently, those cheap coffee grinders that actually cut the beans up are no good. The beans have to be actually ground (don't ask me why), which is why I got a cheap hand-grinder.

How long will the coffee last in the fridge?  Good question.  I don't know for sure. I usually pour the coffee out of the big mason jar into smaller mason jars so that my wife can take one to work if she wishes.  My sense is that they could last a long time sealed in those jars in the fridge.  When I pour the coffee from the big mason jar there is some sediment at the bottom that makes the last 1/2 inch or so unusable.  I just dump that.

Acouple of weeks ago I was at a business meeting at a hotel whose bar advertised cold brew coffee.  Just after lunch I left the meeting to order some.  They poured a few ounces in the bottom of a large glass, filled the glass with ice, and then poured in a bunch of water.  They were treating the cold brew as a coffee concentrate.  That's probably a safe way to consume it, though you lose some of that strong flavor, obviously.

Hey @strumelia.

Yes, the grounds sit in the water for 48 hours.  The contraption that I have came with a recipe book that suggests 12 hours is enough, but the first 12-hour brew I made was not nearly as strong as the original stuff I had from that cafe, so the next batch I increased the "brewing" time.   I eventually settled on a minimum of 36 hours. The cafe owner that converted me claims that more than 24 hours will create a bitter taste, but that has not been my experience.  I think that dynamic is determined by how coarsely the beans are ground.  I hand grind my beans in a very unscientific manner so my exact method may not be reproducible. 

The water is not hot to begin with. In fact, the brewing process can take place in the refrigerator, but I start with cool water and leave it out on the counter, not refrigerating until after I remove the coffee grounds.

My headache yesterday was from a sleep deficit.  But you are right about watching out for the strength of the coffee.  I usually dole it out in very small doses, which is why I can say for certain that I had 2 ounces yesterday.  I never pour a whole bunch in a big glass as you would if you were serving iced tea. And it sometimes "hits" you as much as an hour after consumption, so it's easy to overdo it.

From left to right: a manual coffee grinder, an empty mason jar eager to start brewing, a conical strainer, and a batch of cold brew that will be ready this afternoon. In the foreground, a cold brew recipe book which I never use because almost all the recipes involve something sugary, and I just enjoy the taste of plain coffee.

Yes, I am well acquainted with that watery coffee every cafe and diner served us for decades.  It was not only the brewing method that made that coffee so bad; it was a different kind of coffee. For some reason, after WWII, Americans stopped using Arabica beans and switched to some other lesser coffee bean. The coffee renaissance that we associate with Starbucks has involved a return to the Arabica bean. Yum! 

Well, how healthy it is depends on what doctor you ask.  I read an article today that reported on a recent study concluding that four cups of coffee per day is ideal to keep an aging heart young.

That's my excuse to claim that this post relates to "healthy living."

I recently discovered cold brewed coffee.  Last summer I asked for an iced coffee at a new cafe across from the Strum Shop which hosts our monthly dulcimer gathering.  I was asked if I wanted regular iced coffee or cold brewed. When I asked what the difference was, I was told merely that cold brewed coffee is "a little stronger."  Yeah, and Everest is "a little" hard to climb.

I had a near religious experience with that first cup of cold brewed coffee, drinking only an inch or so off the top and feeling happy and energized for hours.   (That must be how Elvis felt when he first got hooked on liquid methamphetamine.)   I brought the rest home for my wife, who had a similar experience.

Now we make it ourselves. I have a cone-shaped mesh filter that sits in a large mason jar. I hand grind dark roast coffee beans, put them in the filter, and pour in water.  I then let that sit for 48 hours, remove the grounds, and refrigerate the coffee.  About every other day I make a batch.  The stuff is delicious.  And strong.  And it makes me happy.

Earlier this afternoon I had a headache. I took an ibuprofen and drank about 2 ounces of cold brewed coffee. I then sat in a dark room for about 15 minutes. And now I feel great.  Life is good.

@jp, I have two comments here which are kind of contradictory.  The first is why you should not need fret markers.  The second is what to do if you get them.

First, to get used to the 1-1/2 fret does take some time.  It took me about a year even though I'm used to chromatic instruments such as the guitar and mandolin.  When I finally "got" it, it was just a matter of mental focus.  I forced myself to think "fat, fat, skinny" as the beginning of the fretboard.  The first two frets are fat, then comes that skinny third fret.  Once I started imagining the space on the fretboard as indicating where the notes were rather than the fretwire itself, I stopped getting confused by the 1-1/2 fret.  If you put fret markers in those normal places (3, 5, 7, 10), which I strongly suggest so that you don't get confused by other dulcimers with fret markers, they will not necessarily help you get used to to the 1-1/2 fret. That's just a hurdle you have to overcome.

Second, I agree with you about what kind of markers to get. If you want something temporary, just use masking tape.  If you want something that you plan to leave on for a while, get nice inlay stickers.  The ones I got are easily removable and don't leave any trace that can't be wiped away easily. They are also so thin that you don't notice them at all when fingering the fretboard.  Until you look closely, they appear to by nice inlay, and you can choose a variety of different designs, so you can personalize your instrument pretty easily.  Be aware that most are made for guitars, which usually have a wider fretboard than dulcimers do.  And if the fret markers involve a design that connects several frets in a row, they won't work on the diatonic fretboard of the dulcimer.  I think the ones I got were made for a ukulele, so they're pretty small.  The website I linked to earlier has a range of shapes, sizes, colors, and designs, so take your time looking through the options and find something that will not detract from the look of your dulcimer.

My first comment, @jp, is that unlike chromatic instruments, dulcimers do not need fret markers because the pattern of skinny and fat frets serve as fret markers.  Some of my dulcimers have no fret markers at all and I get by fine.  

Still, some do, and I find them minimally helpful.  And I have to admit that for purely decorative purposes I put small sea turtle inlay stickers on one of my dulcimers:

I cannot remember for sure, but I might have purchased them from Jockomo:  https://www.inlaystickers.com/ .

I'm really envious of your screened porch, Strumelia.  It does seem to be a perfect place to eat or play music.

I get excited the first time I see English peas at the market. Usually they come towards the middle of summer, but they've already arrived this year.  I used to gather recipes for them, but I've realized that I like them raw better than prepared.  So put away the chips and popcorn. I'm gonna sit right back and shell a bunch of peas!  Yum!

How adorable!  But I can feel my allergies acting up . . . 

I realize in reading this discussion that seven years ago I promised to post a picture of the dolphin soundholes on my Eedy Beede octave dulcimer.

Since David makes his dulcimers in Florida, the Atlantic dolphin soundholes seem appropriate.  What you can't tell in the photo is how small they are.  Each is smaller than my thumb.

A while back I was playing around in a music store and had an acoustic bass guitar on my lap.  I don't play the bass but can fake it after decades of guitar playing.  I was playing the bass line to Taj Majal's version of "She Caught the Katy" and was trying to sing, too.  But I couldn't do it. When I expressed frustration, explaining that I can play guitar and sing with no problem, the owner of the store replied that I had to "own the bass" before I'd be able to sing along to it.  I thought at first that he was trying to sell me the instrument, but what he meant was that before I'd be able to accompany myself singing I had to really know the bass line perfectly without having to think about it at all.

I think that's right. You can only work on one thing at a time. So if you have to think about where to fret the fingerboard or how you want to vary your vocal line, you can't also be thinking about strumming or picking with your right hand. You have to know one part so well that it's automatic, allowing you to think about the other part.

I don't know if there are any shortcuts.  Just repetition.  I developed a steady, back-and-forth strumming pattern on the guitar many years ago.  It enabled me to become a passable mandolin player pretty quickly and also sped up dramatically my improvement on the dulcimer.  I sometimes mess up my right hand in that I don't play the exact rhythm I had intended, but I never get off beat. My right hand just goes back and forth, out, in, out, in.  Sometimes I strum all three strings, sometimes just two, sometimes I pick a single string, and sometimes I skip a beat and don't hit any strings, but my hand feels that back-and-forth movement anyway.  In fact, if you see me play a half note you will often see an extra little jerk in my hand as I move just to keep the beat even though I am not playing a note.  Before you will be really comfortable singing, your strumming hand has to become automatic.  Not robotic, for you can still swing and play with feeling, but it has to be something you don't have to think about at all.

And think of how quickly you could learn new tunes if you only have to think about your left hand!

I would suggest muting the strings of your dulcimer with your left hand so that when you strum them you just hear that vamping scratch. Then put on your favorite CD or turn on the radio.  Strum along.  Find the beat and just strum out once per beat.  Once you're comfortable, add the in strum, counting 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & and strumming out-in-out-in-out-in-out-in. (You can reverse those outs and ins, but you have to reverse them all; be consistent!)  Do that over and over and over.  Once you're comfortable strumming in both directions, then try to replicate the rhythms you hear.  It might involve skipping, accenting, or muting strums, but when you can hear a rhythm and replicate it with your right hand (always maintaining that steady, back-and-forth motion), then I think you'll be ready to sing or play and not worry about that right hand at all.  By then you'll "own" it.

Yes, I, too am very grateful for the time and energy Ron and Ken put into ED.  I'm glad you are both here, though, so we can continue to share our passion for the humble folk instrument we love so much.

Bruce's explanation for why he chose not to hand off ED to someone new makes a lot of sense. The platform was indeed dated and vulnerable for that reason.  It's sad to see the site go , but the music plays on. 

That's a bit of an exaggeration. New Warren May dulcimers start at $400 while the Blue Lion IW goes for $550.  In both cases you can order fancier models and fancier woods and and go over $1000.

I haven't been playing for that long, but I, too, find my preferences have changed.  Another reason not to overspend on your "dream" dulcimer until you're really sure what you are looking for.

What those three dulcimers have in common is that they are all high quality instruments that retain their value well.  But they are all very different. I've not played a Warren May dulcimer, but his instruments probably have a more traditional sound than the other two.  McSpaddens are very well balanced and are famously easy to play.  Blue Lions have a bigger bass sound than McSpaddens.  But there are other small differences, too.  The McSpadden fretboard is a bit smaller than the Blue Lion fretboard, and Blue Lion strings are a bit further apart.  The VSLs on standard models are also different.

If you have lots of money, buy a dulcimer by each of those builders, play them for a while, and then send me the ones you don't love.

If that's not an option, wait.  There are so many variables in dulcimer builds that unless you've been playing for a while and know exactly what you want, you don't know what your preferences are.  It took me a few years of playing to determine exactly what kind of dulcimer I wanted (and I want different ones for fingerpicking and flatpicking!).  Take your time.   If you can visit Warren May, play some of his dulcimers.  If you are at a festival and see a McSpadden or Blue Lion vendor, play some of their dulcimers.  Whenever you hear someone play a dulcimer that sounds especially nice to your ears, ask if you can play it, and ask what the player likes about it.  Eventually you won't have to post the question with which you started this forum because you'll already know what kind of dulcimer or dulcimers you want.

I just want to let everyone know that all the tablature from ED has already found a new home:  http://dulcimertab.com/ .  The site owner is hosting everything for free and may create a database of dulcimer groups and dulcimer teachers.