Almeda Riddle

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I have a great book by Almeda Riddle.  It's called 

A Singer and Her Songs; Almeda Riddle's Book of Ballads

There are currently several copies on Amazon.com at good prices.  

classical guitars?

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

I've played classical guitar since about 1970.  The Goyas made through 1973 were handmade in Sweden and can be great.  They were owned by Martin from 1974 to their production end in th 90s.  The Martin variants were made in Asia.  I'd play the Goya - if you like it, it could be a really nice instrucment.  The Oscar Schmidts are mostly plywood with too much finish - they are basically Washburn's low end brand.  Washburn classicials are much bertter - but if I was going to buy a cheap classical, I'd get a Yamaha, if I wanted to spend a little more, I'd get an all solid wood Cordoba.  But, if it has been well preserved, the Goya may be the best of the lot!

I looked up the material by Ehukai Teves (the name was transposed to Ekuhai in Dinah's post.)  The best article was on dulicmer sessions .  If you click on the printable version link at the bottom of the article, it produces a nice pdf.  I don't play that way, but the article is a nice resource to have at hand.

updated by @stephen-addison: 07/07/15 09:17:17PM

I've played old ones, I have two newer ones (DAD and AEA).  Jim Woods is a great owner - I prefer the new all solid ones to the older ones with a plywood back.  The acoustic spectrum they produce (I have a PhD in acoustics and have measured many of them) is remarkably consistent over time.  Just make sure that you are getting a McSpadden built one - there are kit built ones as well - some are as good as the shop built ones - most aren't.  The best way to tell the difference is by the label.  You can find a good account of the company here .

I use banjo strings on my dulcimer all the time - they are easier to find - and it gives me extra wound strings for the banjo - I change the wound strings far more often than the wire strings on my banjos.

electronic tuners people use

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I use the Snark SN-4 for my dulcimer - it will sit on the soundboard for tuning and is a little more convenient. It also has a built in metronome - it often sells at the same price as the red clip-on Snark.

Tenor guitar players?

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

I was looking around for any recent things on tenor guitar - I found this Youtube lesson - it's a good introduction. The playing is not always legato - but the information is good. It should get you started.

Tenor guitar players?

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Not many resources out there - but tenor banjo and manual are tuned the same (CGDA) you can find chords for them. Mel Bay has some tenor banjo resources. You can find some Youtube video of Wayland Holyfield playing the tenor guitar. I'd played a mandolin and fiddle which I'd viewed as an upside down guitar - when I got a manual, I just transposed. You can actually tune it as DGBE and treat it as baritone ukulele - I currently have my mandola tuned as a tiple - I could play in mandola/tenor guitar tuning but I didn't find it useful to sing with. It depends on your voice though - clearly Wayland Holyfield has made great use of a tenor guitar accompanying his singing,

Your best bet for finding things online is to look for tenor banjo material - there is a lot of it - including methods - some of them are on the internet archive. Good luck and have fun!

What's your favorite mournful, spooky, or lonesome song to play?

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

The songwriter( of When the Mountains cry) has posted a lead sheet on his web page, its fairly easy to play from it - I've used this for banjo and dulcimer versions as well as guitar versions. Here is a link to David Mansfield's lead sheet. You can make it sound just like the movie - it's also easy to make it too pretty.

Ellen Rice said:

Any chance of the TAB being posted some place ?