Forum Activity for @lisa-golladay

Yes.  It sounds like your tuners need tightening.  Tighten the screw a quarter-turn, tune up the string, and see if it holds.  If not, try another quarter-turn.  If you've tightened it too much and the tuner becomes hard for you to turn, loosen it again just a bit.  I've met loose friction tuners that needed a 360-degree turn or more to get them working right.

Properly-adjusted friction tuners should hold tune just as well as geared tuners do.  They'll need tightening once or twice a year.  Sometimes loosening, too, if the humidity changes.  I have a little blade/phillips screwdriver on my keychain and it goes everywhere with me.  If I'm going to play a gig and I won't be able to tune between songs then I'll give the tuners an extra twist just for insurance.

If the tuners are really old and corroded or the screw is stripped, then they'll need replacing.  If the wood in the head stock is damaged, that's a whole different can of worms.  Know that the folks at the Magic Fluke company stand by their products and will do repairs, usually free, even if you bought it used.

Google just told me this:

Play Music on the Porch Day 2017 will be at 4:00 AM on
Saturday, August 26
All times are in Central Time.
4 am !?  The neighbors will kill me!  Better make lots of coffee.  

It determines where McSpadden glues the bridge. Read this page:  https://www.mcspaddendulcimers.com/kb_results.asp?ID=6

As a practical matter, compensation is more of a concern when:

1.  You have a short-scaled instrument (like a 23" Ginger)

2.  You are playing higher up the fretboard (in the second octave)

3.  You are fretting more than one string (noter/drone don't care unless the intonation is way off)

4.  You have a sensitive ear and notice when strings aren't quite in tune with each other

FWIW, my Ginger was compensated for GDG.  When I string her DAD the intonation's OK for me in the first octave but I notice it's off in the 2nd octave.  I know someone who tunes his Ginger DAA but had her compensated for that.

If you're ordering a standard 28" McSpadden and you retune between DAD and DAA often, I wouldn't worry about it.  If you tend to play drones in DAA and chords in DAD, then compensate for DAD.

I've heard enough arguments about "bridge" vs "saddle" to leave me totally confused.  According to Frets.com, no wonder: http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Musician/Guitar/Setup/Saddle/saddle01.html

I think uke is a perfect 2nd instrument for MD players.  Most of us start MD playing melody on traditional modal tunes.  While a uke is just begging you to strum chords and sing Leon Redbone songs.  Or maybe that's just me.  Anyway, uke makes us approach music from a new perspective.  That can't help but make us smarter all around. 

I used to worry about balancing time between instruments, but I finally realized they do not care (unlike my family, friends, coworkers and cats).  So I play what I'm in the mood to play. 

Colleen, my Fluke has friction tuners and they give me no problems.  Have you taken a screwdriver to the screws at the ends of the tuning pegs?  Mine need adjusting once or twice a year.  Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.  It does take patience to get used to the tiny movements (like a few ticks of a clock) necessary to get friction pegs in tune.  OTOH, when you change strings it's a whole lot faster!  Magic Fluke sells Peghead geared tuners, but they are not cheap.  Some people attach ordinary cheap geared tuners, but those are heavy and put the uke out of balance IMHO.  Search the Ukulele Underground forums and you'll find lots of tips for modifying Flukes. 

(Public Service Announcement: Do NOT look at the Ukulele Marketplace forum.) 

If you put a strap button on the bottom, the Fluke will no longer be able to stand up by itself.  Magic Fluke sells a velcro strap; I haven't tried it but I assume it works.  Try fluorocarbon strings on the Fluke.  I'm currently in love with a set of Oasis Warm strings, but if you like the bright ring of a spruce top then you might prefer Oasis Bright or Martin M600. 

Speaking of cats (I was a minute ago, wasn't I?) my avatar Nick was born in the household of someone I met at uke club.  As far as Nick knows, all human females play ukulele.  I would hate for him to learn otherwise.

Kala makes some really nice ukes.  I have a mahogany-laminate bari with a fine deep voice and I've been sorely tempted by their cedar/acacia models which are lovely for fingerpicking.  Ohana, Pono and Mainland are other good mid-priced brands.  As if we needed more ukes!?  But above any of those, I firmly believe every uke player needs and deserves a Fluke .  USA-made, nearly indestructible and astonishing tone for the price.

Alas, I made the mistake of joining a uke club full of enablers who play high-end ukes and allow me to try them out.  Mostly I can resist but sometimes...  Well, let's just say I love my Blackbird Clara, I got her used, and she was totally worth it. 

But in my heart of hearts, I love my 17-year-old Fluke the best.

We're lucky we don't like guitars!

(nods sadly in agreement, looks at credit card statement, crawls under desk to hide)

There's a few on this page: http://www.davidbeede.com/octavedulcimers.htm

Take a look at the center dulcimer in that picture at the top right.  It looks like a royal pain to build and I see that David stopped offering that option.  If memory serves, he used to call it an "evil half-breed" fretboard.  I would love to have one just to see how people react!

I think the idea is that you can play the melody string without speed bumps, while accidentals are available on other strings if you need them.  In DAA (or any 1-5-5 tuning) it would make perfect sense to a piano player: white keys on the near string, both white and black keys on the middle string.  In DAd (1-5-1) you'd find the black keys shifted up a little higher on the fretboard but still the same idea.

Come to think of it, that fretboard looks a lot like a piano keyboard.  Short frets are the black keys.  It strikes me as a perfectly logical layout for someone who wants all the notes but isn't comfortable looking at (or sliding a noter across) a fully chromatic fretboard.

That will be awesome!

A musician friend of mine just got back from a week in New Orleans.  He says all the street musicians are using "those little Roland Cube amps."  This guy knows his stuff and he's been nagging me (gently) about the Cubes for a while now.

If all you need is a single input for your dulcimer, I bet the Micro Cube will make you very happy.  If you ever intend to sing or play harmonica, consider the Cube Street which has dual inputs for both an instrument and a mic. 

Let's all get Cubes and go to NOLA!  See you in Jackson Square...

Jan, do you need sheet music to work from? 

Here's a lead sheet and guitar tab for "The Lakes of Pontchartrain."  I arranged this for the ukulele club last month (gotta love Irish songs with alligators).  I think this could be worked into a gorgeous dulcimer arrangement, but I haven't had time to play with it.  While the arrangement is copyrighted, the song is, I think , in public domain and that should make it ok to post MD tab.  How nice of Paul Brady to share his arrangement!

I remember an old trick for playing a counter-melody in DAA tuning.  Fret the middle string two frets down from the melody string.  No reason this wouldn't work with two players, one playing the melody tab and the other playing the same tab but two frets lower.  Listen while you do this, because sometimes that counter-melody doesn't sound good and then you can try sliding up or down a fret until it sounds better. 

When all else fails, there are lots of rounds.  Frere Jacques, Oh How Lovely is the Evening, Come Follow Me, Dona Nobis Pacem...  You can probably find tab for these and they are automatically duet arrangements!  Trios and quartets, too!

There's also what the Internet has just told me are called "partner songs."  Like when you play "All Night, All Day" while I play "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."  This page says "Cindy" and "Liza Jane" play together.  How about "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" with "Go Tell Aunt Rhody"?

I was lucky enough to attend a class where Stephen Seifert taught us how versatile bar chords are in a 1-5-8 tuning like DAd.  When you play a bar in this tuning, you're playing the root and 5th notes of the chord.  Since it's the 3rd interval that determines whether a chord is major or minor, you simply don't have to worry about that.  The other instruments will fill in the missing notes. 

If the chord is D (or Dm or D7 or D13...) strum the open strings.

If the chord is E (or Em or E7 or E9sus4...) strum a bar on the 1st fret.

If the chord is F (or Fm or F6 or...) strum a bar on the 1.5 fret (if you've got it)

And so on up the fretboard.  The only outliers are diminished chords (fret the middle string one half-step down because in a diminished chord the 5th is flat) and augmented chords (fret the middle string one half-step up).  If you don't have a half-fret where you need it, you can play the root strings and mute the middle string.

This was a class about chromatic dulcimer, and I got positively gleeful when Steve started calling out obscure random chords (G#13!  F-minor 9th!  E-flat augmented!) and we all responded by playing the appropriate chord.  Now I know ALL THE CHORDS .  Which for an MD player is quite a rush.

In most ensembles it sounds good to reinforce the root and 5th, which is what you're contributing by playing those bar chords.  Rock players call it a "power chord." 

Ken, thanks for reminding me about the Ebony Hillbillies.  I would love the chance to hear Norris Bennett in person.  I found this video where he's playing without a noter and without bar chords, but inspirational nonetheless!  (Memo to self: get a really great ring to wear on my fretting hand.  Also practice.  Very, very much practice.) 

I think Ginger plays great in DAdd using the strings McSpadden recommends for that tuning.  I like the heavy strings and really enjoy playing it chord/melody style, mainly on the lower octave and not so much up the fretboard where the strings get really short.  I wouldn't pick Ginger as my favorite for DAA noter/drone style, but I have a friend who does exactly that and is very happy.  He even special-ordered a Ginger without the 6-1/2 fret.

Adding a possum board makes a big difference on these little dulcimers.    

My Ginger was originally set up and compensated for Gdgg.  I changed to DAdd for a workshop and never went back.  If I try really hard I can notice the intonation is slightly off, but only up past the 7th fret.  And I'm picky about intonation.  I think you could safely order your Ginger compensated for DAdd and still experiment with Gdgg at a later time. 

At the risk of igniting a fret war, I'll suggest if you're at all interested, add the 1-1/2 fret.  This is because Ginger is short enough already.  If you retune to DAcc or capo on the first fret, you're making the scale that much shorter.  With the 1-1/2 fret, you can play both major and minor tunes in DAdd without a capo, giving you the use of the entire fretboard and two entire octaves (starting on the bass string) before you venture above the 7th fret.  

The first songs I remember learning were in Sunday school.  They came with choreography!  I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery... even as a preschooler I wondered why we're pretending to fire a rifle in church when Jesus says to love one another.  But I loved "This Little Light of Mine."  Then and now, forever.

In 1st Grade they taught us "The Star Spangled Banner."  In 3rd Grade Mrs. Coolidge had us sing "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" every morning.  We learned "If You Dance Then You Must Have Boots of Shining Leather" in music class and it was not an easy song to sing.  But the songs that really counted were the songs we sang on the school bus.  I lived outside North Canton, Ohio (not Canton, not even North Canton...) and Grades 1-12 rode the same bus to the same huge consolidated school.  Given the range in ages, the playlist was, um, interesting:

B.I.N.G.O.
There she was, just a walkin' down the street, singing doo-wa-diddy, diddy-dum diddy-doo
I Wanna Hold Your Hand
Rat Fink (to the tune of Rag Mop)
The Name Game
It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want To

There was an ongoing argument among the older girls about whether The Beatles or The Dave Clark Five was a better band. 

4th Grade is somewhat too old for this discussion, but I must share the following, which I remember almost verbatim from our long-suffering music teacher (this was Cumberland, MD by now):  "The words are 'her green beret has met his FATE.'  That's FATE, not FACE.  He didn't meet his FACE, that doesn't make any sense.  How could somebody meet his own FACE?  He met his FATE which means he DIED.  Now let's try it again."

More often than not, I can't find a .09 string when I need it! 

Old strings can get floppy even if they were the right size back in the day.  I can relate ;-)

I have a Bill Berg 5-string hourglass that measures 27-1/2" from nut to bridge.  Bill recommended these string sizes:

.24-.09-.13-.11-.11

The wound bass string is on the outside.  For the inner string on the bass course I often use a .10 instead of a .09 and it works fine.  You can try .11 if you want, but I don't think string size is your problem.  Bill knows how to set up a dulcimer and I am certain your MD did not leave his workshop with string interference.

Ken's right that changing strings is the first thing to try, since it's easy.  But I'm wondering: does your MD have the original nut and bridge?  Have they been damaged?  If somebody took a file to the bass slots (perhaps to install a second wound string instead of a thin octave string) then they could have messed up the string spacing.  The .09 string should fit snugly in its slot.  If you can, post a close-up photo of the nut and bridge.

Rarely do I pass up an opportunity to suggest that people learn how to strum with a lighter touch, but unless you're strumming like a gorilla that isn't your problem; it's the dulcimer's problem. :-)

Oh no!  I'm so glad you're feeling better.  Good on ya for knowing enough to go to the hospital when you needed it.  I know people who were too stubborn and almost missed the boat.  Now I'm wishing you good luck and a great time on Tuesday!

How delightful!  If your little vocalist doesn't have experience using a microphone (don't you love kids today?) be sure to spend a minute or two beforehand testing where he should hold it and work out a couple of hand signals for you or Dad to give him during the songs: closer and farther away.  Just a few inches can make the difference between hearing him, not hearing him, and summoning banshees :-) 

Have a great time.  I'm looking forward to the video!

Ain't it great?  With Chordie.com and a chord chart (whether for uke, dulci or both) we will never, ever be at a loss for songs to play.  Now we need a site that will find us more hours in the day :-)

Silver Bells in C: http://www.chordie.com/chord.pere/www.guitaretab.com/h/holiday/8449.html?songbook=&transpose=0&tuning=GCEA

If you play a bari, look on the right side of the page for "tuning" and select "baritone ukulele" to see chord diagrams.  Of course, the same chords work on MD as well.

Winter Wonderland, Silver Bells and White Christmas always get people singing.  If you need uke chords for any of those, just let me know ;-)

On dulcimer you could add some happier traditional carols like Joy to the World and Angels We Have Heard on High.  My favorite Christmas song to play on dulcimer is In the Bleak Midwinter, but that song is entirely not going to make your setlist more cheerful! 

When the uke club plays senior centers, we often hand out lyric sheets to encourage singalongs.  Comes in handy on those 2nd and 3rd verses of even the most familiar carols.  Remember to use large type!

I've played n/d on 3, 4 and 5 string dulcimers and I've borrowed a 6-string once in a while.  I haven't felt the need to adapt my strumming except for one thing: how the number of strings (and how they're tuned) affects the sound balance between melody vs drones. 

If you're used to a typical 4-string setup (with a doubled melody course) then you're used to hearing 2 melody strings and 2 drones.  If you try a typical 6-string with three doubled courses, you'll have 2 melody strings and 4 drones.  Which might seem like too many drones. If the drones are (ahem) droning out the melody then you'll want to adjust your strum.  Angle the pick so you're strumming the melody string(s) harder than the drones.  Don't feel compelled to strum across all the strings at every strum, either.

If you're used to a 3-string, then maybe a 6-string won't be a big change.  There are a lot of possible 6-string setups and tunings.  I guess the only real answer is listen while you strum and adapt as you like. 

Two lovely backup singers!  Delightful... and yet... terrifying.  You may become famous for this one.  Watch out. 

All those hours in the car listening to Katy Perry make you just the man to do it!

Dusty, you are a wonderful Dad.  I could only handle a 1:4 ratio of Millennial Whoop to Other without going crazy.  Although I do enjoy whooping along sometimes. 

Slate has a fun article about this: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/08/29/the_millennial_whoop_the_simple_wa_oh_ing_melodic_sequence_showing_up_all.html

Andy Samberg's parody video on that page is great fun, although some might be offended by the language (which is kinda the point).  Millennials mocking their own ;)

This could be our opportunity to break new ground in the folk tradition.  In Scarlet Town where I was born (wah-oh wah-oh) there was a fair maid dwellin' (wah-oh wah-oh wah-oh)...

Here's a place to start with stretching exercises: http://www.musicianshealth.com/stretches.htm

What I like about that page is it includes arm and shoulder stretches, not just the hands. 

If your heart is set on playing chords on a longer-scale dulcimer, there are ways to ease into it.  You can play 2-finger chords, leaving one string open to drone.  Also you can play further up the fretboard where the frets are closer together -- play your B-minor chord as 4-4-6.5 instead of 1-2-4. 

You might find it easier to play chord/melody in DAA tuning (1-5-5) rather than DAd.  That's because the DAA scale starts on the 3rd fret, not the open string, which puts you that much further up the fretboard.  A capo on the 4th fret makes for easy playing, but then you might as well have started with a short-scale dulcimer to begin with so maybe the capo is cheating.  Still an option, though.

See, folks, it's not like I've never spent time chording a long-VSL instrument :)  If you want to do it, great.  Pursue the goals that are important to you and don't let anyone talk you out of them.

Still (grumble, grumble) I think the tool should fit the user, not the other way around.  I just read that roughly 10% of the stone tools archeologists dig up are designed to be used left-handed, which is evidence that the % of people who are lefties hasn't changed for tens of thousands of years.  And, ahem, it means that humans make tools to fit themselves, not some generic average user.  If a left-handed neolithic cave-dweller (a good way to describe myself, truth be told) doesn't feel compelled to use a generic stone hammer, why should any of us feel compelled to play a "standard" dulcimer if it doesn't feel right? 

YMMV as always.  Play happy.   

Drums?  Drums!?  We are dulcimer players!  We need DRONES!  Make it a tambourin a cordes ! 

I mean, how cool is this:

I grabbed this photo from this site: http://instrumundo.blogspot.com/2013/04/ttun-ttun-chicoten-tambor-de-cuerdas.html

  I remember the first time I saw the sheet music for Stan Rogers' The Flowers of Bermuda , I nearly passed out from shock at all the time signature changes.  Sometimes music is easier if we don't look too close at the details!

OK gentlemen, put up or shut up.  My left hand, fully stretched so that my pinky and thumb form a straight line (which is more flexible than a lot of people can manage) measures barely 8 inches.  That's stretched flat, pinky tip to thumb tip.  If I arch my fingers so I can fret cleanly, I have a 6.5" reach. 

How long is your reach?

I have a friend who kept insisting I could play barre chords on guitar if I really wanted to.  Finally I had him hold up his left hand, I held mine against his, and he saw that his index finger is 2" longer than mine (and some significant but unmeasured amount bigger in circumference, too).  True, I could still play barre chords, but it would be Darned Difficult and a heck of a lot harder for me than it is for him.  Need I add that he thinks he cannot play soprano uke?

I don't disagree that beginning players will, with practice, be able to reach frets they couldn't manage at first.  But a scale length that's a bit challenging to someone with large, flexible hands can be unreasonable for someone who doesn't have the reach.  How much pain should someone have to endure to play a dulcimer?

My left wrist hurts now from making that 8" measurement.  Stretched a bit too far to make a point.  Not the first time I've done that. 

Robin Clark made a great video comparing different scale temperaments.  Watch this and all will become clear: 

A JI dulcimer is a specialist.  Played alone, it sounds terrific in the scale it was built to play -- for Mr. May's instruments, this means the Ionian scale that begins on the 3rd fret.  Scales that start on other frets will sound off, some worse than others.  This is why you need an Ionian tuning like DAA and not DAD.

No matter what tuning you use, as Ken said, the JI dulcimer will not play well with standard modern dulcimers.  Nor will it work with guitars, keyboards, or other instruments that play defined notes.  Some of your notes will be flat and sound awful.  You can't play chords on it, either.  A really skilled player, paying rapt attention, might be able to bend strings to make the pitches blend, but I can't imagine anyone doing this in a dulcimer club.

This does not doom you to play alone: a fretless instrument or a vocalist with a good ear can play along with a JI dulcimer, and there's always percussion :)  Still, it's important to understand that a JI dulcimer will impose limitations you wouldn't have with a modern equal-temperament dulcimer. 

The best book ever written for beginning dulcimer players is out of print (boo! sob!) but now available free on the internet because coauthor Robert Force is a great guy (hooray!)  You can read it online or download PDFs.  http://www.robertforce.com/SongsAndInstruction/ISWD-cover.html   I quite frankly refuse to help friends learn MD unless they first pledge to read this book and do what it says.  Once they do, they no longer need me :)

Check out Strumelia's beginner videos here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEDA7958CA5FC2EEA&feature=plcp

Even if your heart isn't into noter/drone style, it's a good way to start learning your way around the instrument. 

Hurry and get that van in time for the Gebhard Woods Festival on June 11-12!  I'll have to miss Gebhard Woods this year because I'm in New Orleans that weekend... one of the few destinations that doesn't make me feel too bad about missing Gebhard Woods :) 

On the topic of nursery rhymes, can't resist:

I agree wholeheartedly.  And I think there's also a place for performers who try to accurately preserve or resurrect older styles.  It's good to keep the inspiration source alive and leave it as a signpost for others coming up behind, even if you do later turn off the path and blaze a new trail.  You can listen to old recordings, but it's hard to learn a style of music without seeing and hearing it performed by a real live musician.  The whole "roots music" idea is one of the best things to happen to music in my lifetime IMHO.

There's a lot to be said for putting down the dulcimer (or guitar, or whatever...) and singing a cappella .  Without a steady strum, it's more natural to let the rhythm wander.  When my otherwise much-loved ukulele club plays "The Parting Glass" in straight 4/4 I want to jump out the window.

(Dusty, I've been chopping up quotes from your last two posts.  I hope this isn't mangling the conversation flow too badly... and I hope the html formatting works!)

Back on topic (really!? well, kinda...)  I once attended a master class with Corky Siegel (our local record store is the best of all record stores) and he was promoting this book .  One point being that you should change the dynamics.  A lot.  Sometimes at random, just for the fun of it and to see what happens.  Doing something is more interesting than doing nothing.  Taking that as a basic premise, maybe we should be mixing up the rhythm as well.  Throw in a 2/4 or 3/4 measure in the middle of the chorus.  Hold a note a little longer.  Keep 'em guessing.  Sure you could overdo this, but most musicians are at greater risk of under doing it. 

I guess if I had to summarize this rambling post, I'd say that I hope 50 years from now, all the Barbara Allen's aren't in straight 4/4. 

Lisa, I don't hit the dulcimer clubs and festivals much, but when I do there's usually someone who asks if I'm on FOTMD or ED (yep) and then asks if I'm the Lisa who runs FOTMD (nope).  A couple years back at the festival Folkcraft runs in Indiana, I had to explain several times to Steve Siefert that no, I am not the Lisa looking out the screen door in the userpic!  You are famous!  A rock star among us dulcimer players! 

Nick is shiny midnight black. He was born on June 13, 2013 (which, sadly, was not a Friday).  Our household has three black boycats, which makes us very lucky and confuses visitors.  Our late Beatrice was solid silver gray and beautiful... too bad she hid under the bed.  

This is what I wake up to every morning :)

When people talk "Barbara Allen," this is the tune I think of:

The first verse on this track is from a French manuscript c. 1475.  Then a German manuscript dated 1619, then as published in England in 1859, then a version collected in Tennessee in 1937, then a Georgia hymnal 1855, and a Sacred Harp arrangement collected in 1931 in Virginia.

I've played the English and Tennessee versions and I think the latter sounds much better with drones on MD. Coincidence?  I don't think so!  The English tune starts on Do (3rd fret in Ionian tuning) and never dips below that note.  The TN version starts three frets lower (open fret Ionian) and doesn't go as high.  Maybe this is the difference between Ionian and Hypo-Ionian mode?  Whatever.  I love the idea that someone in the mountains was playing the song on a dulcimore and decided it sounds better this way... leaving future scholars to ponder why.

Everybody should buy this album, by the way.  One of my absolute favorites. 

Slippy Jiggy is an excellent name.  Or you could change your name to Lisa to avoid confusion.  Remember the Monty Python sketch with Bruce, Bruce, Bruce and Bruce? 

Every so often I have to explain to people that yes, I am a dulcimer-playing Lisa on the internet, but not the one you had in mind :) 

As for whether it matters to get song timing right (good grief, are we back on the original topic?) I do think it's worth trying.  We'd lose all the complexity and beauty of the old rhythms if we always settled for straight 4/4.  I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I'm arranging songs for a large and very miscellaneous group of ukulele players.  "Turn, Turn, Turn" trips us up every time.  "Fly Me to the Moon" becomes a pitched battle between the forces of Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett!  Oh, the humanity when we attempt "Ring of Fire" or "All Together Now."  As a group of musicians (and I use the term loosely) with little rehearsal, we are better off simplifying the rhythms.  How much... it's a judgement call.

A soloist has more freedom than a large group.  As does a folk musician playing a song like "Barbara Allen" for which nobody knows what the original sounded like.  There truly is no "correct" version until we invent a time machine.  Why not throw in some extra beats for the thrill of it?  My avatar (his name is Nick) knows the secret to any song variation: look dignified and say "I meant to do that."

It's very possible the Byrds learned the song from Baez... or vice versa.  The Great Folk Revival was a small world. 

I usually think of Barbara Allen in 3/4 time rather than 4/4, but there are versions both ways. Many of the really old songs started out in dance tempos from the 18th and 17th centuries.  Galliards are 6/4 time (My Country Tis of Thee...).  Slip jigs are 9/8.  Take that up in the mountains for a few generations, then bring it to New York City and give it to guitar players with a steady strum.  The results could be anything.

I'm listening to Jean Ritchie's highly irregular version now.  If you wanted to transform this into a steady rhythm, you could plausibly go 3/4 or 4/4 or combine them and call it 7/4.  Way over my head.  I think Joan Baez plays 4/4 but throws one measure of 2/4 into each line like this:  4/4, 4/4, 2/4, 4/4.  Trying to write it here with the count in front of the word you sing on that count (and remembering that "twas in the" is a pickup from the previous measure)...

'Twas in the (1 2 3)merry (4)month of

(1 2 3)May, when (4)green buds

(1 2)all were

(1 2 3)swelling, Sweet (4)William

(1 2 3)on his (4)deathbed

(1 2 3)lay, for (4)love of

(1 2)Bar'bry

(1 2 3 4)Allen.

That's how I count it anyway, but I am seriously not good at this so don't take my word for it. 

Everybody's right: play the song however you want to play it.  If anyone complains, start talking about galliards and slip jigs and they'll stop complaining!  There hasn't been a wrong way to play Barbara Allen since the 1660's. 

First things first: Close the MobileSheets app and open your tablet's file manager.

Joe, is the problem that you can't locate the original .pdf files in your tablet's file system... or that you can't print them once you find them?

If you can't locate them, please let us know how the files got on your tablet in the first place: did you copy them from a computer, download them in the tablet's browser, send them by email, put them in Dropbox?   Did you use the MobileSheets Companion software?  We need that info to figure out where the files are stored.  It is likely but not certain that the original .pdf files are still on your tablet somewhere.

If the problem is opening the file and printing it, tell us if you already have the tablet and printer set up to communicate.  Is this the first thing you've tried to print? 

Alternatively, you could just give the nice folks at Zubersoft 13 bucks and  upgrade to the Pro version. Read the instructions for migrating .

Duct tape!    http://bonggamom.blogspot.com/2013/08/how-to-make-recorder-case-from-duck-tape.html

A resale shop is a good place to find items made from faux leather (and real leather too).  You can cut up an old coat or handbag and make several flute cases.  Quilted bedspreads and heavy draperies might make nice bags.

Don't forget us dulcimer players!  We need small bags to keep picks, noters, spare strings and such.  If you want to make drawstring fabric bags, this is a good technique although it seems fiddly and of course Martha makes it seem even fiddlier than it really is! 

For a zippered pouch: http://mellysews.com/2015/02/sew-zipper-pouch.html

Dusty, that's a brilliant goal to give beginners.  I think a lot of us shortchange ourselves, thinking it'll take forever until we're good enough to have a song ready to play in front of others.  It's a great confidence-booster to know you've got something ready to go.

Simple Gifts was the first song I played on MD.  It's still my pocket song for drone-style.  That or The Cherry Tree Carol depending on the season. 

Southwind is my pocket tune for chord/melody, but when I'm feeling competent I play Si Beag Si Mor (just don't ask me to spell it).

Beulah Land Mississippi John Hurt style is my pocket tune for singing.  Except when it's Slip Sliding Away.  Oh, and April, Come She Will.  I've been playing that one so long, I forget to mention it.

If I need to fill time and have nothing in particular in mind, I can improvise all day in Dorian mode.  I'll noodle around on 12-bar blues until somebody distracts me by offering food... or threatening to kick me out.  The great thing about improv is, there are no wrong notes!

Susie, Rosin the Beau is my pocket tune on recorder!

And I have to say, a little whiskey before breakfast is a sure guarantee I'll be missing notes ;-) Not like I needed the help.

Here are a couple of references on where to put a capo, and what happens to the key and mode when you do it:

http://www.jcdulcimer.com/CapoesInstructions.pdf

http://www.sksmithmusic.com/virtual_classroom/modes.html