Forum Activity for @flint-hill

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

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I really love this thread.

This might be a good place to mention "Creepalachian" music. It's contemporary, alternative Appalachian music, typically dark, moody and minor. Tom House's "Someone's Digging in the Underground" is a good dulcimable example. Except for the electric rhythm guitar, it could be something Alan Lomax recorded.

There's a badly recorded version HERE or get the studio track from Amazon for a buck.Scroll way down for the lyrics HERE .

I think of Tom House as reporting from Appalachian darkside in the amphetamine age. It ain't sweet, spiritual stuff, be advised.

See also Freakwater, another group in this genre.

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

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Hey, I"m still here too! I'll follow this thread as long as I can draw breath. :)

How about Dock Boggs's "Calvary" ? It's about the grimmest Easter song I know. Lyrics are here , The Carter Family and lots of others, Ralph Stanley among the, recorded it as "On a Hill Lone and Gray" with a different and far less spooky tune.

It's also out there in an earlier and greatly lengthened version as "There's a Hill Lone and Grey". Beverly Francis Carradine published it in 1896 with a tune that resembles the one that the Carters used later.

Dock's version reads like a classical murder ballad. In the first few bars, Dock's tune resembles the one he used for "Reuben's Train". I'd love to find out more about the tune if anyone knows.

Dock's tuning is supposed to bef#CGAD (according to Don Zepp).

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

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I sure am enjoying this thread. Hope it has a long and productive life, and many thanks to all who have posted so far.

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

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Pretty Polly -- Dock Boggs .

Wife of Usher's Well, either by Hedy West or M&E Carthy . Two different songs, really.

Jouhikko/Tagelharpa

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

John Henry..thought I'd share

OFF TOPIC discussions

Wow, John Henry, what a relief that you're home.

Turnup's Christmas Card

OFF TOPIC discussions

Nicely done. Love the internal rhymes, especially.

Show us your sound holes!

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I think this may be the geekiest discussion ever posted to FOTMD.That's why I'm clicking the "Follow" button.

Show us your sound holes!

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I like the sound holes on my Kudzu Patch Galax because they look like a lot like the ones on Jacob Ray Melton's dulcimer in Ralph Lee Smith's Appalachian Dulcimer Traditions .

 

***THREE CHEERS for Robin Thompson !!!***

OFF TOPIC discussions

Robin encouraged my playing here at EZF from day one. We had a long email discussion when I was trying to decide what kind of dulcimer to buy and have had several more since.Bout as good a citizen as I've ever met.Sign me up for the fan club.

"John the Balladeer" Stories

OFF TOPIC discussions


I stumbled on an online edition of "John the Balladeer" by Manly Wade Wellman.

Wellman loved the Appalachians. Born in Angola, Africa, he graduated from Columbia University and moved to North Carolina for the music and culture. His circle of friends included Obray Ramsay and Bascom Lamar Lunsford. Both appear as characters in his fiction.

Wellman was a prolific science fiction and fantasy writer who wove Appalachian music and folklore into his stories. To my mind he had as true an ear for Appalachian dialect as the best native writers, and not one of his characters is drawn as a stereotypical hillbilly boob.

Wellman's character John the Balladeer wandered through the remote mountains of 1950s North Carolina in search of old tunes and legends. The stories are full of music, magic, folklore and scary creatures, such as the "Ugly Bird" and "The Behinder". Each story line turns on one or two folk songs that John plays on his silver-strung guitar, often to supernatural or life-saving effect.

Wellman takes artistic liberties with his musical texts, changing a line or two to make a song match up with the tale he's spinning. Nothing about the book is literally true, but it's as true a portrayal of the region as I've ever read.

I read him at age 13 or 14 and learned a few new tunes by doing so. I first encountered "The Wife of Usher's Well" in one of Wellman's stories.

And best of all, you can read them online for free!

Just click HERE



updated by @flint-hill: 01/13/19 05:09:18PM

Jim, I agree with what everyone else said.I learned to play dulcimer just last year by playing melody-drone style using two fingers to fret the melody strings and letting the drones ring out freely.I started practicing with a noter from day one, but it took about six months for me to get a reasonable amount of control of that little stick. Using two fingers was a much easier way to start.So I would say start out by playing melody drone with one or two fingers. (Or with your thumb if that's easier.) Concentrate on learning one or two songs, and you'll get the hang of it very quickly.

FOTMD one year anniversary on July 29th, 2010 !

OFF TOPIC discussions

Lisa, you've really created a good thing in your efforts here at FOTMD.

A Mixolydian "Yankee Doodle"

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

It's funny, setting the speed aside, the Mixolydian version sounds pretty musical to me.Bronson was suggesting this as a general experiment in mode shifts, and I don't mean it to apply principally to dulcimers and the sixth-fret issue, though of course that issue arises incidentally.Bronson would have agreed with you that for the modern ear, substituting a flatted 7th "just doesn't work", but he suggests that this wasn't always the case.In the same chapter (of The Ballad as Song) he looks at six versions of "Henry Martin". I'll simplify it to five versions to shorten the explanation:Ionian (natural 7th)Ionian/Mixolydian hexatonic (missing 7th)Mixolydian (flatted 7th)Dorian (flatted 3rd)Dorian/Aeolian hexatonic (missing 6th)All were collected between 1904 and 1908. Four are from England and one from Minnesota.Bronson makes the case that this pattern of variation is pretty common. One point he makes is that when you see a tune with Ionian and Dorian versions, you very often find Io/Mixo and Mixolydian versions as well. It's as though the tune changed one step at time by dropping, adding, sharpening, or flatting a single tone. Tunes are seldom seen to make a two-or-three step jump without leaving intermediate forms behind.Another point he makes is that these changes may have sounded more musically acceptable than they do today. (Much as we would regard a V-I and a V7-I cadence as being somewhat interchangeable. Though they are different, one is not perceived as more or less musical than the other.)So that, I believe, was why Bronson suggested the exercise. The Ballad as Song a great book, BTW, though it's tough slogging in spots.Out of print, unfortunately, but there's always interlibrary loan.

A Mixolydian "Yankee Doodle"

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Thanks, Ken.I had no idea whether people would hear this as a sour or wrong note or whether people's ears would accept it as a reasonable variant.It might have been better to try it with a tune that is less familiar.

A Mixolydian "Yankee Doodle"

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Keigh, that seems like an entirely reasonable response.The Mix version sounded musical to me. To my ear, the flatted seventh gave it a Scotch or Irish sound, and made it sound more backwoods and ancient.

A Mixolydian "Yankee Doodle"

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions


Bertrand Bronson said in 1950:

"Let anyone try the experiment of singing "Yankee Doodle" with a flatted seventh wherever the leading note occurs and he will know what a folk-singer with an instinctive leading to the Mixolydian might do to antiquate a modern major tune."

(By "folk-singer" he means "traditional singer".)

At the end of the post, you'll find files for the familiar major-key (Ionian) version and for the Mixolydian version.

Both are in the key of G, and the two versions are identical except that the seventh is F# in the Ionian version and F in the Mixolydian version

I'd love to know what you think of the Mixolydian version in comparison to the familiar Ionian rendering. For example: What moods do the two versions convey?

updated by @flint-hill: 06/11/15 07:25:14AM

Round or Jethro Amburgey hearts . I like them because they look real old-timey.

800!?!!

OFF TOPIC discussions

We'll bring eggs. And goose quill noters as party favors. We've only got three geese. I'll tell 'em they better get to work.

Great discussion.Just bought a 60s Kay open-back. Pot looks like pressed-wood composite, not bakelite. It's not here yet. Neck's straight, guitar-type tuners, pretty basic. Has a steel tensioner, not a dowel rod.Do you think renaissance and nylgut ought to do the trick with a mix of down- and up-picking???Was intending to get a Bill Miller skin head, but reading what Lisa wrote makes me think I got enough trouble already. We live in humidity heaven here.

"Ironwood" noter, from a slab collected in East Texas, ca. 1960, by A.L Vawter.

Approximately 6 1/4 x 3/8 x 1/4 in. (15 x 1 x 0.6 cm). "D" cross section.Dense, extremely hard wood. It sinks in water and is difficult to work.It made a nice, slick noter that sounds a bit softer than a goose quill.Probably Big Bend or Eastern Hophornbeam. (Ostrya virginiana var. chisosensis or Ostrya virginiana var. virginiana, 2007)

Challenges?

OFF TOPIC discussions

OK, I just posted the upload/linking HOW-TO as a discussion on the Home Studio Recording Group. I'll create the group tonight or tomorrow.I would be grateful for any edits to the HOW-TO document.

Challenges?

OFF TOPIC discussions

Here's an edit. I will need to create a HOW-TO document for posting links. I'll post that document here this weekend.How does this sound?---------Call the Tune is a place to post songs or tunes in which youre the performer (or at least one of the performers).Our goal is to provide an inviting atmosphere in which people of ALL skill levels can post songs for their and others' enjoyment. You don't have to be a pro or hot-shot player to post here.Please dont post copyrighted material to the group. If you do, well have to delete it immediately to protect FOTMD from legal action. If we have to delete something that you posted, well leave a note on the comment wall saying why we deleted it. If you don't know whether your song is copyrighted, just post a question to the comment wall before posting the song. If you see copyrighted material here, let us know and we'll remove it promptly.If you're posting a new song that has never been posted to Call the Tune, post it as a new discussion.If you're posting your version of a song that has already been posted, please post it on the discussion for that song.For example, if you're the first person to post a version of "Shady Grove", start a discussion named "Shady Grove". If someone else has already posted a "Shady Grove" discussion, post your version of Shady Grove to that discussion.The idea is to have one discussion per song with many versions by many people posted to that discussion.It's best to keep discussion titles simple. The name of the song is usually all you need.It's important that you post songs to discussions rather than to the comment wall. Songs posted to the comment wall tend to sink without a trace and there goes your 15 minutes of fame!Always post a link to an audio or video clip when you post your song. See the HOW-TO document [ hot-linked ] for information on posting a link to your song. If you have trouble posting a link, please post a question to the comment wall.It's not required, but you can be certain that listeners will want to know the key and tuning in which you're playing. Feel free to post additional information that you think is interesting. (Whose version influenced yours, song history, meanings of lyrics, what kind of instrument you're playing, etc.)Always give credit where credit is due. It's perfectly OK to post a version of your favorite Jean Ritchie song (so long as its in the public domain), but if you learned your version from someone else, it's good form to credit them.Positive, constructive comments are welcome on any discussion. Let's keep the atmosphere friendly and welcoming to people of all interests and skill levels.

Challenges?

OFF TOPIC discussions

REALLY useful feedback. I think that given the projected traffic, any time invested in ironing out wrinkles is apt to be repaid many times over.I'll work on this some more tomorrow. It's going to rain frogs and ducks, so I have a day off from farming.

Challenges?

OFF TOPIC discussions

"Call the Tune" rules and suggestions.Please comment and critique. Can some rules be eliminated? Are additional rules needed? Is the language clear really clear too forceful, not forceful enough? Are the rules in the right order? Feel free to give this a stern edit!Are they too verbose? I think they're too verbose.Eventually these should be numbered. I'll do these as RTF with emphasis on key words. I'm writing them as plain text now so they can be cut and pasted easily.---------------Call the Tune is a place to post songs or tunes in which youre the performer (or at least one of the performers).Our goal is to provide an inviting atmosphere in which people of ALL skill levels can post songs for their and others' enjoyment. You don't have to be a pro or hot-shot player to post here.Please dont post copyrighted material to the group. If you do, well have to delete it immediately to protect FOTMD from legal action. If we have to delete something that you posted, well leave a note on the comment wall saying why we deleted it. If you don't know whether your song is copyrighted, please post a question to the comment wall before posting the song. If you see copyrighted material here, let us know and we'll remove it promptly.If you're posting a new song that has never been posted to Call the Tune, please post it as a new discussion.If you're posting your version of a song that has already been posted, please post it as a comment on the discussion for that song. (For example, if you're the first person to post a version of "Shady Grove", start a discussion named "Shady Grove". If someone else has already posted a "Shady Grove" discussion, post your version of Shady Grove to that discussion.The idea is to have one discussion per song with many versions by many people posted to that discussion.It's best to keep discussion titles simple. The name of the song is usually all you need.Please post songs to discussions rather than to the comment wall. Songs posted to the comment wall tend to sink without a trace and there goes your 15 minutes of fame!Please post a link to an audio or video clip when you post your song. See the HOW-TO document [ hot-linked ] for information on posting a link to your song. If you have trouble posting a link, please post a question to the comment wall.It's not required, but you can be certain that listeners will want to know the key and tuning in which you're playing. Feel free to post additional information that you think is interesting. (Whose version influenced yours, song history, meanings of lyrics, what kind of instrument you're playing, etc.)Always give credit where credit is due. It's perfectly OK to post a version of your favorite Jean Ritchie song, but if you learned your version from someone else, it's good form to credit them.Positive, constructive comments are welcome on any discussion. Let's keep the atmosphere friendly and welcoming to people of all interests and skill levels.

Challenges?

OFF TOPIC discussions

Dangit, I just posted a list of rules/suggestions, and they didn't post.Back to the drawing board.Should have done it in a text editor first.

Challenges?

OFF TOPIC discussions

Agree, no voting or contest-like atmosphere.Regarding how to get a permalink: Doh! I never thought of that.I'll agree to do it for a year, barring unforeseen illness or whatever. I don't mind policing it for copyrighted material.I'll post some suggested header material (suggestions, rules, whatever) to this thread in the morning, and ask for comments.

Challenges?

OFF TOPIC discussions

I have still been confoozled about what would be the best way to go, not for lack of puzzled over it this weekend.I think a group is probably the way to go, but maybe it should be broader than a collection of "challenges". I also think that "challenge" is freighted or easily conflated with "contest", and I'm in agreement with others that this is not something we want. Not to mention the name collision with "challenged players".This might leave us with a "Sound Off" kind of group in which one flavor of discussion might be a "Turkey-in-the-Straw, post yours?", or going back to the original post, something like "Post your Jean Ritchie Song?".If that's an agreeable way to go, then we need a name for it:"You call the tune"."Sound Off"I am really lousy at thinking up names like this.One peripheral but significant question is this: Is it possible to obtain a permalink to an individual song that has been posted to FOTMD? The best I have been able to do is to get a permalink to a player showing all of my songs, so someone would have to pop the player and then scroll down to find the song. It would eliminate a lot of potential confusion if it's possible to get a direct link to an individual song.

Challenges?

OFF TOPIC discussions

I wanted to say thanks to all who replied. I am feeling sort of stumped and stupid right now -- just got in from a long day working in a pasture.It does seem like "challenge" is the wrong word, and maybe the wrong concept, even. I'll post again after I've gotten some rest. :)

Challenges?

OFF TOPIC discussions


"Challenges" are some of the most popular activities on Flickr, a photography-sharing site that I visit every day, and I wonder if doing song/tune challenges might be fun on FOTMD?

A Flickr challenge is a discussion topic in which someone invites other photographers to submit a photograph on a particular topic or using a particular technique.

An example of an FOTMD challenge might look like this.


Flickr experience suggests that it is best to get an administrator's approval before posting challenges to a subject-oriented group.

Most challenges don't have a contest format with voting, winners and losers. People just post their own efforts and comment on those of other posters.

Flickr people describe challenges as being a lot of fun and as great motivators.

I wonder if there would be interest in challenges here on FOTMD?

(Edited this to shorten it.)


updated by @flint-hill: 02/17/19 06:25:20PM

Musical Traditions Dulcimer circa 1980

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

Hi Ken and Stephen.

As far as I have been able to determine, The Sandpoint MT dulcimers have no connection to Hank or to his instruments. It appears to be a independent use of the name. The two principals at Sandpoint, ID were John Rourke and Larry Kiefer, two of the signatories mentioned above.

Larry Kiefer may be the same person who galvanized the Wichita, KS folk scene in the early 1960s.

That's everything I've been able to learn about the instrument.

Musical Traditions Dulcimer circa 1980

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

Robin, no I didn't know that!

Musical Traditions Dulcimer circa 1980

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

I would be grateful to hear from anyone who knows anything about this instrument.

A family dulcimer passed into my hands in December, 2009. It belonged to a old-time music lover named Fidello Henderson from Henderson North Carolina. He got it from a friend about 25 years ago, and he passed away four years ago. It's a Musical Traditions hourglass from Sandpoint, Idaho, circa 1980. It has a sweet, dark, old-time sound.

The fret wear indicates that it was played noter-drone style.






Here are the specifications:

Description:

Label (three hand-written signatures)

Dimensions, inches:

Musical Traditions was associated with the Guitar's Friend music store in Sandpoint. Guitars Friend later relocated to Moscow, ID. The shop and dulcimer operation were written up in the Marketplace Section of Canadian Folk Music Bulletin , Volume 1.5, 1978. In this article, Musical Traditions is said to have made dulcimers for Jean Ritchie:


Musical Traditions also sold this dulcimer as a kit, although mine appears to have been shop-built in Sandpoint. Here's an exploded diagram from an advertisement in Dulcimer Players News, Fall 1981, p22. It appears identical to the instrument that I have. (Thanks to Dan Landrum for permission to use this advertisement)



I found one reference to a more elaborate Musical Traditions instrument on Everything Dulcimer in 2005. I will post additional information here if I learn more about the instrument.


updated by @flint-hill: 10/27/19 12:02:25PM

If you could only keep ONE of your dulcimers....

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I find myself really wanting one of Keith Young's early Virginia dulcimers. Glad to hear that you like yours. Do you have any recordings of it online, or know of any? Paul Elliot Bostick said:

That would be my 1800 retro dulcimer my Keith Young. Great sound, great story behind it, and I could still play at the history events!

How many dulcimers do you own... lets see the lists..

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

A three-string walnut Jerry Rockwell YAM (25" VSL) strung with 0.10" strings straight across.A Musical Traditions walnut hourglass with a doubled melody string, ca. 1980, that came down to me through my sister-in-law's family. It's strung conventionally.

cats & songs

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

The sad civil war cat song Poor Kitty Popcorn by Henry Clay Work.The old-school and politically incorrect Dead Cats on the Line , sung here by Vassar Clements.Rosalie Sorrels does cat songs: "Mehitabel's Theme" and "Always a Lady". Oscar Brand did a whole album about cats.And who could forget Eric Bogle's He's Nobody's Moggy Now ? (Even if you'd like to forget it.)Mean Black Cat by Robert Lee McCoy, ca 1937.Not to be missed is Riley Puckett's wonderful, deadpan version of The Cat Came Back .A personal favorite is Ralph Stanley's The Kitten and the Cat . The link goes to iTunes. Scroll down and click the link to hear a sample.

dogs & songs

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Here it is:
My Dog Loves Your Dog

dogs & songs

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Yeah, that song's a killer.That's the part of farming that breaks your heart.

dogs & songs

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Good one!I believe that forlorn doggie was last seen in the song Life Gets Teejus, Don't It ?Cal Tinney did a popular version in the late 1940s and Doc Watson did a live recording in the early 1970s.

dogs & songs

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

This really cooks, Phil. Like it a lot.It's striking to me how some old-time tunes sound like baroque French dance music when they're played on the dulcimer. I think it's the pacing and the implied harmony of the chords. A lot of those old gavottes and minuets started out as "country music" or turned into country music as they trickled down from the French court to the villages. Whatever, this sounds really rustic and pretty.