Forum Activity for @dusty

Dana, my previous post didn't really explain what a key is, and maybe that's what your initial question is.

Most songs center around a single note, a key tone (often referred to as the "tonic").  You can think of that as the home base of the song.  Oh the song will meander to other notes, but it will always come back to that home base. But you can also play that song with a different key tone or a different home base.  The meandering will move to different notes, but they will maintain the same relationships to each other and to the key tone.  Think of that home base as the key.  If you play a song with your home base on one note and I play the same song with a home base on a different note, we will sound OK individually, but we will clash when we play together. Each key comes with a set of notes that are likely to be used in that song and a set of chords that are likely to be used to accompany those notes.

When you use DAd tab to play while you are tuned GDg, it works because the relationships between the notes are the same.  However, you will not actually be playing in the key of D (with D as your home base or key tone); you will be playing in the key of G (with G as your home base or key tone).  So you will clash with dulcimers playing that same tab tuned DAd.

I hope that helps. If you want more, we should probably move to the Music Theory Group and start looking at the Circle of Fifths and other fun stuff that scares people unnecessarily.

Dana, if you tune your Ginger to GDg, you can play everything you currently do in DAd.  You will sound great. You will be in a higher register and a different key.  Everything will be wonderful and you'll have fun. You can also tune to AEa and be in an even higher register.  

Unless you start to play with other dulcimers tuned DAd, that is, for then you will not be in the same key.  There are ways to play in G out of a DAd tuning and in D out of a GDg tuning, but that requires some more understanding of keys and the fretboard.

If you tune a Ginger to DAd you probably will need different gauge strings. McSpadden surely has recommendations for string gauges for a DAd Ginger and you can also use the Strothers String Gauge calculator , inputting the VSL and the desired tuning.  That calculator errs on the light side, so feel free to use strings slightly heavier than what it indicates.

When you buy a Ginger from McSpadden, they use a slightly different bridge for DAd or GDg tunings.  Can you switch tunings without a compensated bridge?  Yes, and you might find it plays perfectly well. If you have a sensitive ear, however, you might find the intonation slightly off.  If you want to tune your Ginger to DAd, then try it and see how it sounds.  If you notice an intonation problem, you will want to get a compensated bridge.

But you already have dulcimers tuned DAd.  Why not keep this one tuned GDg or AEa so that you can play in those keys and the higher register?  I think you'll find it a refreshing change.

Ann, I have to agree with Ken that if a given string only buzzes sometimes, then the problem is probably not the string gauge. 

You might ask for help with fingerpicking technique in the Fingerpicking Group here at FOTMD.

Yes, Rob, Red-Haired Boy and Salt Creek are usually played in A in bluegrass circles, and in A, the note in question would be a G.  You are correct.  If you play in D, it is a C, though.  If you tune AEa, you will get that note on the 1-1/2 fret of the middle string, just as you get the C note there when you play it in D.  The dulcimer players I've seen who play Red-Haired Boy in A capo at the fourth fret, in which case they get the note on the middle string with the 6-1/2 fret. (If you play Salt Creek in A tuned DAA or DAd, there is another note at the end of the first line that you can't get, but you might be able to get Red-Haired Boy in A out of a D tuning.  I think Gary Gallier has some tab for that in what he calls his "cross-key" method.)  

But the point is that it the melody requires a note you can't find easily on a diatonic fretboard.  Can you play either of those tunes with no extra frets?  I'd be interested to hear it.  As I said, Red-Haired Boy might be possible but not Salt Creek.

I've never heard that Salt Creek is copyrighted and can point to plenty of resources that refer to Salt Creek as traditional.  It was known as Salt River until Bill Monroe recorded it as Salt Creek, but it's the same tune.  According to the Library of Congress , Monroe was taught the tune by his banjo player Bill Keith, who had learned it from a West Virginia banjo player named Don Stover.

Don, a while back I wrote a short explanatory piece called " What are extra frets and do I need any? "  You might check it out.

The simple answer to why you would use an extra fret is to get the note produced there.  For example, there is no F natural on a diatonic dulcimer tuned DAA or DAd.  So if a song has that note, you have to skip it, bend a string, or use an extra fret.  If the song is modal you can retune to get an F natural, but not all music is modal, and as Lois says, "accidentals happen."  An "accidental" is simply a note that is not in the scale.  But not all songs are limited to the 7 notes of a diatonic scale.  I am learning a French Canadian tune right now called "La Galope de la Balbaie" that necessitates the use of the 1-1/2 and 6-1/2 frets on the middle (A) string. 

The original reason, supposedly, for the 6-1/2 fret was to be able to play songs in the ionian mode out of a mixolydian tuning. Those are the two most common modes, so the extra fret obviated the need to retune.  And the 1-1/2 fret offers other possibilities.  As Jan suggests, it makes playing a C chord easy to do down by the nut since the 1-1/2 fret on the middle string gives you a C natural (also found on fret 6 of a D string). When I play the B part of Old Joe Clark I play a C chord, which all guitarists and mandolin players do as well, whereas dulcimer players are unable to do that and play a much less dramatic A chord.  That C chord also shows up in other traditional fiddle tunes such as Red-Haired Boy and Salt Creek. And as Jan explains, having an easy C chord near the nut allows you to play chords in the key of G very easily.

I also use the 1-1/2 fret to play the blues.  The most important "blue note" is the lowered third, which is an F natural in the key of D.  But importantly, that note gains its power from the fact that it is played over the major chord, so you still need an F# to play the blues. In other words, re-tuning won't help. But the 1-1/2 fret gives you the lowered third (F) on the melody string and the lowered 7th (C) on the middle string.  And since most pop, blues, and jazz melodies us the minor pentatonic scale, that comes easily with a 1-1/2 fret.  Starting on the bass string play 0, 1-1/2, 3 then on the middle 0, 1-1/2, 3, and you have your minor pentatonic scale to play over the major chords of a pop, blues, or jazz song.

My sense is that if you have to ask why anyone would want extra frets, you probably don't need them.  The 6-1/2 is pretty standard these days, so if you play with a dulcimer group, it will likely be expected that you have one.  Unless you specifically want to play non-diatonic music for which the dulcimer was never intended, you do not need a 1-1/2 fret.  Having said that, I love mine and won't give it up!

Marg, that little dulcimer was made by FOTMD member  Peter W . You might contact him if you have any questions.  Notice that in addition to the swivel possum board, he has a small box situated directly under the fretboard.  The purposes of a box are to 1) amplify the sound, and 2) improve the tone.  To achieve the second, cardboard won't do, which is why I suggested cedar cigar boxes.

Yes, you want at least one sound hole. Since your fretboard is already made and the dulcimer fretboard sits on top of the box (instead of recessed into it like a guitar), your project is much easier than most.

Check out FOTMD Randy Adams playing a fretless cigar box dulcimer .  You can see how he set up the soundholes and how he arranged the two boxes underneath his fretboard.  Randy used two cigar boxes, but check out this Tiny Guitars version with three (and frets, too, along with a pickup).

Leo, the issue you are dealing with now is simply a question of where to post a comment or question on a given topic. I wish more people here would think about that instead of just posting in whatever forum or group they find first.

Each of the last few years someone sent out email notifications about the Kindred Gathering, and I think there were announcements here and at ED.  For some reason none of that communication happened this year.

If you want to post somewhere that you are going and wondering who else may attend, I would suggest either the General Mountain Music Forum or the Group pages for the California Group and the Northwest Players Group.  However, I will warn you that the Groups have been a little inactive over the last few months. Maybe everyone's off at festivals.

Leo, just to follow up on Strumelia's explanation, the Activity Feed is not a space unto itself. It it just a list with hyperlinks to what's been going on anywhere on the site (not just Groups, but the Forum, Events, Videos, etc.) so that people can join hot conversations here or there.  When I stop by FOTMD, the first thing I do is check the Activity Feed on the main page (not the one on my home page which only lists MY activity) so that I can see what's new.  As your last comment did, when you post somewhere it will show up on the Activity Feed.

If you want to create a listing for a new dulcimer festival such as the Harvest Festival of Dulcimers or the Kindred Gathering, start on your own page, click "Events," choose "Festivals" and then click "+" to add a new festival. When you do that, the activity feed will show that "Leo Kretzner has created a new event" and other people can click on that to see what you've been up to.  Once you have a festival listed once, it might be easier the next year to edit it by putting in the new dates, new guest artists, etc., rather than starting a whole new listing.  When you do that the Activity Feed will say "Leo Kretzner has updated an Event."

If any of this seems confusing, keep in mind that you asked your question in the right place, so you must know what you're doing, right?

Marg, if the fretboard is long holds the bridge and the nut, then it would be easy to take it off the cardboard and find some nice cedar cigar boxes.  Glue them together and glue the fretboard on top.  It should sound better than the cardboard.  But if the bridge is separate and not actually attached to the fretboard, then you have to know what you're doing to match the vibrating string length with the fret spacing.

Any cigar boxes will do, but those made of cedar will sound much better.

Sweet story, Dana. The animals howls when I play.  Nothing peaceful about it, I guess. I've been meaning to learn Larry's wonderful tune.

My monthly dulcimer group will be meeting on August 26, so I'll definitely be playing, though we'll be in a music shop, not a porch.

Hey @mascis, if you can drive to Blue Lion, you can drive to the Redwood Dulcimer Day in Santa Cruz in August. Perhaps I'll see you and your Ledford there!  I'd love to see this special dulcimer.

Dulcinina, about 5 years ago I started a dulcimer group from scratch. I had perhaps three or four email addresses that I collected at a dulcimer festival about three hours from where I lived. One of those original people agreed to host the event at her house.  Initially I recruited pretty heavily, looking through the member lists here and at Everything Dulcimer to find anyone within a few hours and invited them.  The first gathering we had perhaps 5 people, but we met every month and now the only times we've skipped a month has been when our meeting date was too close to a major holiday.

Towards the end of the first year I started a website to list tab for the songs we were playing and announce our meeting dates.  That website helped bring in a lot of people and I still get a new inquiry about every other month.  There are some tricks to building a website in order to get "hits" on search engines, so make sure you put the name of the town or at least a nearby city, the state you're in, the word "dulcimer" and any other obvious words on the home page of your website.

Eventually, a nearby music store heard about us and asked if we'd like to meet there instead. I thought people would prefer the privacy of a home, but moving to the store helped us get a lot more publicity, and we've been meeting there ever since.  We've had as many as 20 people show up (a lot for the west coast) but never less than 6.  For a while the music store was using the social site Meetup to announce our gatherings, and I'm sure we got some people that way, but we don't do that anymore.  I've thought about putting up flyers at other obvious spots, but we seem to have enough people so that kind of publicity hasn't been necessary.

One trick to keeping the group going is to make sure it appeals to people of all levels.  We begin our weekly gathering with a free beginners lesson. I think that's important if you want newbies to join.  Eventually people stop considering themselves beginners and skip that part, but it's good to keep it open. The second hour we devote to group play of our common tunes, a list that has been growing slowly.  Our third hour is a kind of song circle when people can play a song solo, call out a tune for group play, or just "pass" and sit and listen.  This third hour was created at the request of the beginners who wanted to hear what the more advanced players were playing, but it is a nice space for intermediate and advanced players to have an informal and friendly audience to work on new arrangements before they're fully ready for prime time. At the end we enjoy some finger food and friendly banter.  This organization, which evolved over time, has been key to keeping our gatherings interesting for people of different skill levels.

I personally try to use the heaviest gauge strings that sound OK on a particular instrument.  Sometimes it takes some experimentation to find out what that is.  Heavier strings sound less tinny rounder.  They might require heavier callouses, but I find the improved tone to be worth it. Also, if you like to bend strings, you have more control with heavier strings since there is more resistance.  Also, because heavier strings are louder, you can play more delicately and still get decent volume, so they allow a greater dynamic range.

It never occurred to me to swap out wound strings for plain steel. Maybe I'll give that a try.

That looks like fun! 

I am not even sure the design in question is usually considered a "bleeding" or "weeping" heart, both of which imply loss and sadness.  What about a "trailing" heart?  I have definitely heard that term used.  I think Ron Ewing refers to trailing hearts as a soundhole option for his dulcimers.  It might even be a reference to a rosary vine, which is sometimes called a string of hearts or trailing hearts plant.

Of course, it is very likely that there is no one stable meaning to a single image, but that different luthiers think it means different things or even nothing at all but just looks cool.

Bob, your dulcimers are indeed beautiful.  I like that heart inlay in the end block.  And I've always been in awe of the delicate work evidenced in nice rosette. How pretty!

This is a cool discussion topic in which I participated back when I was a newbie, could barely play a few tunes, and only had one dulcimer. Ah, those simple days of yore!  I still have that first dulcimer, by the way.

My most recent purchase is a McCafferty dulcimer.  The inlay on the fretboard centers on the fifth fret with a wolf silhouetted against a full moon. And then for position markers (on frets 1, 3, 5, 7, 10, 12) there are little stars positioned in such a way as to appear random but still mark the appropriate frets.  The four soundholes are quarter moons, with one little star, as you see in this picture.  My daughter insists that only one name is appropriate for this dulcimer: Luna.  So be it.

marg, here is Pristine2's homepage here at FOTMD.  He clearly has not been active recently.

As you can see from the ED discussion, even the explanations for the hearts differ among different luthiers, and those explanations may indeed be particular to those individuals rather than representing some broad folk tradition.  My uncle makes autoharps with a dog footprint as the soundhole. Why?  Because the autoharp is man's best friend?  Because music has left its imprint on his soul?  No. Because he likes dogs.  According to Ralph Lee Smith, Homer Ledford began making dulcimers with diamond-shaped soundholes for two reasons: to be different than other luthiers who were using hearts, and because they were easier to cut with a simple chisel.  Practical, rather than symbolic reasons.  But he received so many requests for hearts that he went back to making hearts instead (see Appalachian Dulcimer Traditions , 2nd edition, page 116).

It would be nice to find some interesting symbolic meaning to the trailing hearts, but it might be that we have to make something up.  If that's the case, don't worry; we have enough "tall tale tellers" at FOTMD!

 Cool!  Now that your famous, don't forget us little people who knew back when . . .

 marg, Pristine2 is a member here as well, though he is not as active as he used to be.  You might consider contacting him to see if he has any information.

As an old psychology professor used to say, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.  I think those weeping hearts look really cool.  Maybe that's all there is to it.

I can't answer your question, Marg, about the meaning behind the weeping or bleeding hearts.  Someone asked that same question a few year ago on Everything Dulcimer and got no answer.

But I thought you might be interested in this discussion a few years back about the different sound holes on peoples' dulcimers.  I joined that discussion when I only had one dulcimer. I think I'll have to post again since I now have several and several others have passed through my hands.

Patty's right on this, Trevor. You want to keep the three remaining three strings as equidistant as possible. On most dulcimers that will mean you remove the outer string.

Marg, it appears you are talking about your fretting hand and not your strumming/picking hand, correct?

I have not used a thumb pick for that purpose, but when I slide with my thumb I tend to bend my thumb over a little and use the edge of my nail. It takes the pressure off the skin and slides a lot easier.  I learned that trick from Linda Brockinton at my first ever dulcimer festival (Redwood Dulcimer Day) about 6 years ago.

I just sent a message to Mel Bay via the website.  I just asked where the Dulcimer Sessions were. I'll post here when I get a response.

 Say it ain't so!

And I learned that song from your videos, John! Thanks so much!  It is indeed a fun one to play; the rhythmic possibilities alone are remarkable.

I've had fun with lots of tunes, but one I keep coming back to on the dulcimer, both individually and with my local group, is Southwind.  Something about it just fits the dulcimer so well.

Dulcinina, any hardware or home improvement store will have plenty of plywood.  They might even cut it for you.

Here is Jean Ritchie with her limberjack:

Dulcinina, the board has to be super thin, so that it bounces easily. I am sure the ceiling fan blade is way too thick.

I have two limberjacks that came with boards. Both are rectangular pieces of plywood about two feet in length, 3 or 3-1/2 inches wide, and only about 1/8 of an inch thick.  

Mascis, you got a deal!  Homer Ledford dulcimers are collector items.  That was the case even before he passed away.  Check out this discussion from a few years back on Everything Dulcimer .

Depending on the condition of the dulcimer, I would think a reasonable price would be $500 to $800.  But that's just a guess; others might know better.  It's possible it's worth more than that.

Way to go, Gail!

Hi Tom,

First, please note that there is a group here called Help Me Learn This Song that is specifically devoted to members helping one another learn specific songs.  You might consider joining that group and posting your question there.

However, I can give an initial response here.  If you are only playing the chords,  you don't have to tune to DGD.  In DAd, your G chord is 3-1-0, your C chord is 3-4-6, and your D chord is 0-0-2.  There are other versions of those chords, but that will get you started.

You can also learn the song in DAd in the key of D and put a capo on the third fret.  Play the song as you learned it in D and you will magically be in the key of G.  Check out this demo I did for another FOTMD discussion where I use this very song to demonstrate how to use a capo:

But if you are in DGD, your basic G chord would be 3-2-0, your basic C would be 3-1-1, and your basic D would be 2-1-0 .

I hope that helps. 

Giddykitty, most of us check out the Audio and Video sections on a regular basis to hear what music members are playing. Also, when you post there, we can always find it even years later by going to your homepage and clicking "audio" or "video." If you post your music in discussions it will get buried as new discussions are created.  Here is a screen shot showing you how to get started.  IF you still need help, let me know.

Cool tune, giddykitty.  Are you playing or singing on that track?

If you want your music to be easily found by others, use the Audio feature to link from SoundCloud or the Video feature to link to YouTube or Vimeo.  Most of us regularly check those spaces rather than Forum discussions to see the new music that members are playing. You start from your home page and then click "audio" or "video" from there to see the "+" button to add a file.

Also, remember that there is a whole group dedicated to " Composing and Songwriting " and another one on " Arranging for Dulcimers ." You may want to join those groups and and share the ups and downs of the process.

Skip has it right. Check out Get Tuned for a visual depiction of the tuning of the dulcimer relative to the piano.

A couple of things to remember:

1) The suggestions you've received so far for string gauge are reasonable, but without knowing the VSL (vibrating string length, or the distance between nut and bridge), no one can really know for sure what gauge strings would be appropriate.

2) Your mileage may vary.  Play around a little to find your personal preferences.  I have discovered that I like slightly heavier strings than most, at least for flatpicking.  But I often tune down to C for fingerpicking because I like a little give in the strings, something I definitely don't want when flatpicking.

3) Steel is steel and strings are strings.  Don't worry about brands.  Just figure out what gauge you want for each string and buy single strings, avoiding sets which might not have exactly the right gauge for each string and also cost more per string.  Once you know what gauges you want you can buy in bulk and save even more.

3a) The exception to the statement above is that wound strings come in a few different varieties.   The most common are nickel wound and bronze wound.  Take the time to discover your preferences.  Personally, I like the bronze-wound strings because the tone is more mellow.  The nickel-wound strings have a brighter sound, and that might be more appropriate for some dulcimers than others and for some pairs of ears than others.  Also, if you find you get a lot of squeaking on the wound strings, you can get "squeakless" strings (which aren't actually squeakless, but the squeaking is reduced).  I won't go into the options there, but just know they exist in several different varieties but some people think they produce a more muted tone.

Dana, the longer VSL should not be a problem if you play in a drone style. Consider using this dulcimer (and others with VSLs too long for comfortable chording) specifically for tunes played on the melody string with the drones . . . uh . . . droning.

Lisa, that's a great idea.  The song has a straightforward but uncommon melody.  I did a workshop with Neal Hellman a few years ago and he gave us tab to that tune. My memory is that the crowd wanted a faster tune, so Neal didn't spend too much time on it.  It's a really nice, old tune, though.  And if my memory serves me well, Mark Gilston recently posted a video of his version on dulcimer.

I learned the tune years ago from an album by Trapezoid, the hammered dulcimer group.