dogs & songs
General mountain dulcimer or music discussions
Goodnight Little Cowup is my favorite sweet, sappy, country dog song. It's by Stephanie Davis, who has three Australian Shepherds.
Forum Activity for @flint-hill
General mountain dulcimer or music discussions
Goodnight Little Cowup is my favorite sweet, sappy, country dog song. It's by Stephanie Davis, who has three Australian Shepherds.
dogs & songs
General mountain dulcimer or music discussions
Robin, I don't know the song, but the story is known as the "Gelert Legend" among English-speaking people. It's a Welsh story, also found in cultures worldwide, with the faithful dog replaced by a tame bear, a mongoose, or whatever.See also the noncanonical Saint Guinefort who is definitely a good sort of saint.
dogs & songs
General mountain dulcimer or music discussions
Thanks Robin, for using Old Blue to kick this one off. We lost both our blueticks this year, and they're the last ones we'll have. Too old to keep up with them. :)I think all these have been mentioned, but here are some links.There's "Coon Dog" , aka "Old Coon Dog" which uses pretty much the same tune as Angeline the Baker.Then there's "My Old Coon Dog" sung to the same tune as "Whoa Mule".Here's "Old Rattler" sung by Grandpa Jones.You can buy whole CDs of maudlin coon dog songs if you go to one of the big hunts, but I would recommend it. :)
Here's a list of songs/tunes that are said to be in the Aeolian mode according to posters at ED and Mudcat. I collected these over a couple of years time. Additions and corrections welcome.I also have lists of supposed-to-be in the Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian modes, but the error rate is pretty high. I can post those if anyone is interested.A ship was lost at seaArise AriseBabylon is FallenBanks of FordieBlack is the colorBloody GardenerBonny Hind (probably Dorian)Border Widow's LamentBotany Bay (Skibereen)CallahanCharlie is My DarlingCome all ye fair and tender ladies.Consolation (Sacred Harp)Cool of the DayCrafty Maids policyDabbling in the DewDaemon LoverDona DonaDrowned LoverEast VirginiaEl ShaddaiErev Shel Shoshanim (An Evening of Roses)Erin's green shoreFair Nottiman TownFarewell to WhiskeyFoggy DewFuneral Hymn - Sacred Harp 320God rest ye merry gentlemenGreensleeves (What Child Is This)HaTikvahHangman's reel in EmHouse CarpenterHouse of the Rising SunI Wonder as I WanderIn the pinesJohn BarleycornJohn HenryJohnny on the WaterKing of the FairiesLong Black VeilLord LovelLowlands of HollandMary Did You KnowMayn Ruhe Platz (Mein Rue Platz)North country maidO sacred head now woundedOutlandish KnightPeat Bog SoldierRaggle Taggle GypsiesRandall CollinsSatan your kingdom must come downScarborough Fair (Actually Dorian, I think.)Shady Grove /Mattie GrovesShalom ChaverimSprig of ThymeStar of the county downThe Cat Came BackThe CuckooThe Parting GlassThe Star of the County DownThe night they drove old Dixie downTwo sistersWayfaring StrangerWe Three Kings of Orient Are (verses only)What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor (Actually Dorian, I think.)Wild Bill JonesWindham - Denson 38bWondrous loveYerushalayim Shel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold)
Favorite accessories to go with MD
General mountain dulcimer or music discussions
Lisa, I'd love to see how one of your straps works. Can't quite envision it from the description, and it's neat to hear of a way to do this without putting a strap peg on the instrument.
Bobby McFerrin: The power of the pentatonic scale
OFF TOPIC discussions
It knocked me right out.Putting aside the nature/nurture thing altogether, this piece is powerful evidence that music is somehow wired into our brains.
Bobby McFerrin: The power of the pentatonic scale
OFF TOPIC discussions
Bobby McFerrin shows, in a muscial experience conducted with a live audience, that the audience has an internal sense of a pentatonic scale after being taught only two notes of the scale.This isn't a lecture. It's a short, riveting musical performance that is relevant to diatonic performance and especially to melody-drone-style playing.
updated by @flint-hill: 01/13/19 05:09:18PM
Thanksgiving: Old Blue
OFF TOPIC discussions
Randy, thanks. My grandmother -- a fine Sacred Harp singer -- told me once that my singing sounded like somebody calling hogs and that my guitar sounded like the hogs answering back. This was done in a good spirit as a way of suggesting that I ought to sing more church music and less Hank Williams and Carter Family.I just got back from Georgia. One of the great things about having grown up there is that Georgia is a good place to get back from.And yeah, coonhounds aren't for everybody. Just ask my wife. People say they're dumb, but I think that they're smart enough to know what they can get away with.
Thanksgiving: Old Blue
OFF TOPIC discussions
Bobby, thanks. My family has raised blueticks since I was a kid. I grew up coon hunting, but am too old and too hippy to do it anymore. It's a young person's sport. After my grandfather got too old to run with his dogs, he would still turn them out then sit in his truck and listen to them, but those days are over, at least in Pennsylvania.I've had four blueticks over the years. Sweet girls, all of them - never had a mean one. Never seen a mean one actually, as far as I know. Now Catahoulas, that's a different story.Coot, Roadie's surviving sister, will be our last coonhound. We've got two Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dogs - totally non-crazy, solid citizens - and any future dogs are likely to be Pyrs or Border Collies, given our ages and the direction the farm has taken in recent years.It sure is quiet around here without Roadie. She was one howling dog!
Thanksgiving: Old Blue
OFF TOPIC discussions
Thanks Robin and Andy. Dogs are one of our greatest blessings, I think.Robin, if that's how it works, and it may well be, I guess Roadie's off to the land of three-legged possums.
Thanksgiving: Old Blue
OFF TOPIC discussions
Aw thanks folks for commenting.Roadie was one wild, howling, goofball dog She could make anybody laugh.
Thanksgiving: Old Blue
OFF TOPIC discussions
Roadie, our old bluetick coonhound, crossed over Monday afternoon. We had a lot of great years, and I'm sure thankful that we had that time together.Coonhounds are crazy dogs, blueticks are crazy coonhounds, and Roadie was the craziest bluetick coonhound I've ever known. My grandfather, George Washington Rice, told me, "Blueticks in the house has been the end of many a marriage", and old Roadie sure put that one to the test. I'm grateful to say that we were up to it.Roadie had never been sick a day in her life until Sunday, and she seemed only mildly ill then, just some stomach trouble. She looked OK on Monday morning, drinking water, but not hungry. She died peacefully in her sleep Monday afternoon.We'll have a good Thanksgiving, and I hope you do too. No need to feel sad about Roadie. She was all dog and she knew how to have a good time.Here's a song about a bluetick coonhound, Old Blue Ken
updated by @flint-hill: 02/16/19 03:34:09PM
Two mode/tuning/notation questions.
General mountain dulcimer or music discussions
Timothy and Folkfan, thanks much. You have both been very helpful.I've been picking out a tune in each of the church modes as a learning exercise. The Locrian mode is fascinating -- though useless perhaps -- because it seems such a pathological case.Frank Singer says, "Modal harmony is exclusive, meaning only scale tones are used to construct the chords of the harmonic progressions."However, he goes on to say, "Lydian and Locrian do not produce harmonic progression, as the I chords in these modes don't produce a feeling of resolution using secondary chords containing unique notes from the mode". (Emphasis mine.)(There's a sharpened 4th in the Lydian and of course the flatted fifth in the Locrian mode.)Finally, the one near-Locrian example I could come up with (the Berceuse theme from Stravinsky's Firebird) does in fact use both natural and flatted fifths. It still sounds pretty evil. ;)Thanks again for your thoughtful answers.Ken
Two mode/tuning/notation questions.
General mountain dulcimer or music discussions
Questions in bold face.I ran into this question looking at the Locrian mode, which may be the only place that it arises with fifths tuning (e.g. 151, 155), but it revealed a general misunderstanding on my part of the notation used to describe dulcimer tunings and modes.The table below contains the Locrian scale in D for a dulcimer tuned DABb with Bb as the melody string. The first column is the note, the second is the melody string fret required to obtain that note, and the third is number (scale degree) of the note in the D Locrian scale.D 2 1Eb 3 2F 4 3G 5 4Ab 6 5Bb 7 6C 8 7Recall that we're tuned DABb. Let's assume that The D and A strings are unfretted drones.The first misunderstanding I have is that the 5th degree of the Locrian scale in D appears to be Ab rather than A. Yet each time we strum the three strings we sound an A drone, and the A note is not found in the D Locrian scale.So my question is "why is there an A drone in a tuning intended for the Locrian mode in the key of D?"The second (and related) thing I don't understand is the notation. I have seen DABb referred to as a 1-5-6b tuning. It appears that the scale degrees in this notation are always given in terms of Ionian degrees.Example: Looking at all three strings, 1-5-6b corresponds to DABb in the D Ionian scale, whereas it corresponds to DAbA in the D Locrian scale.)Do we always give scale degrees in terms of Ionian degrees when using this notation? Not a problem either way of course. I'm just trying to understand the notation.Thanks for taking a look at this!!Ken
updated by @flint-hill: 02/20/19 01:57:50PM
A simple dulcimer or scheitholt with a floating bridge?
Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions
Thanks much Lisa. I'll check out Ben's site right now.
A simple dulcimer or scheitholt with a floating bridge?
Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions
I want to buy a simple but high-quality scheitholt or dulcimer with a floating bridge or saddle. (By which I mean a bridge or saddle that's held in place by string tension alone and that's not glued or pinned to the fretboard or soundboard. The term's usage seems variable, but that's what I mean.)I want a floating bridge so I can change string gauges freely without resorting to woodwork to restore intonation. I don't mind notching 2 or 3 bridges for different gauge ranges. The goal is to be able to experiment freely.Other things I'd like are:* Durability and a general a lack of finickiness other than that occasioned by the floating bridge.* Playability.* Decent sustain.* Nice, silvery sound when strung with, for example, three 0.010" strings.* Tight, somewhat restrained bass response when using a wound bass string. No need for a big, guitar-like bottom end (though it's not a deal-killer in an otherwise suitable instrument).* Trapezoidal scheitholt or teardrop shape.* Iron zither pins (preferably) or planetary tuners as opposed to wooden pegs or worm-gear tuners.* Metal frets, probably using fret wire, but stapled frets are OK too if they work well.* Simple, somewhat antique appearance. For example, round soundhole(s), no binding, purfling or bookmatching, no obvious modernity other than frets, tuners and finish.So far this looks fairly close to Karl Gotzmer's Americanized scheitholt .Are there others I should be considering? Should cost less than $500. Much less than $500 is certainly a plus. (Karl's scheitholt is around $200.)Thanks for looking this over.
updated by @flint-hill: 06/08/16 09:24:05PM
Any banjo players out there?
Adventures with 'other' instruments...
Hey all!
Went down to Georgia for awhile, came back, got sidetracked on a couple of computer projects that are more complicated than I've done in recent years, then got bronchitis, so have been scarce here at FMD. Bronc's about bottomed out, so expect I'll be feeling better in a couple of days.
I got a head on that old banjo and strung it, but it needs a real neck reset, and I mean steam it out and re-shim it kind of reset.
I'm playing the banjo daily, practicing finger-picking on Doc Boggs' Calvary and Robin Thompson's version of Roustabout which is about the best version of Roustabout I've ever heard.
Just now, my two stock dogs got out and ran off. They'll come back in an hour or two, covered in brambles. :) There's no sense chasing them.
Been doing a lot of this (keeping water thawed for the animals).
Any banjo players out there?
Adventures with 'other' instruments...
Thanks, Lisa, Randy. I wanted to get one of these old spun-over banjos just to get a feeling for how banjos sounded and played back at the turn of the 20th century. It seemed worth doing given that the non-collectible models are pretty cheap.I took it apart yesterday. With the tension off, the pot got rounder overnight, less than 1/4" out of round today. I'm going to block it round or a little over and leave it for a few days while I clean up the rest of the parts.There's a nice Stewart Student on ebay right now.
Any banjo players out there?
Adventures with 'other' instruments...
Sears and Roebuck Supertone Amateur banjo, model #406, ca. 1925.
It has some issues ....
The neck is straight, needs a reset. The pot is out of round by 3/8", probably OK, since I'm putting a skin head on it. Frets are good. Needs one bracket hook, but I have the original nut, so that's no problem.
Dock Boggs played an $18 Supertone at the 1927 Bristol sessions. This one was five bucks in the 1923 catalog. Reading suggests that it was made by Lange at the old Buckbee plant, though there's a minority view that they were made by Slingerland.
