If You Don't Somebody Else Will
General mountain dulcimer or music discussions
Thanks so much for the kind comments, friends! My favorite dulcimer players in the whole world can be found right here at FOTMD and y'all are among them! :)
Since noter play is all I can do, this little observation may be off- base. . . Yet, here goes! :)
It seems that some styles of dulcimer play can be approached more on a note- by- note basis (with both the right and left hands) while tunes played with a noter are more easily approached by working with phrases, series of notes. And a noter player has to know a tune well enough in order to decide how to create good phrases-- when to strum/not strum and how to use slides-- to best emphasize the tune. Sometimes, I'll record myself and notice I haven't strummed enough in a passage and expected too much from the sounds got from the slides to convey the melody. There are also times I strum too much and don't use slides to the best effect. And sometimes I need to let there be space-- not a rest, necessarily but a little breathing room. . .
As Randy indicated, some slides are harder to get clear tone out of than others. I've been working on Fisher's Hornpipe this summer and the A part is hard for me to play cleanly consistently to phrase it just the way I want to. There are plenty of challenges, fun challenges, in sliding a stick along a string to help make sounds!
PS- I, obviously, don't know correct musical terms to explain things musical. So, if what I wrote above makes half sense or no sense at all, please feel free to keep on scrolling. :)
It's both fun and traditional-sounding, and it has a great title!