Forum Activity for @robin-thompson

Like Rob, I've not met a FOTMD member I didn't like! I'm trying to think of them all. . . and they kind of come in the 'order' in which I met them. Gary Sager, Laura Elder, Butch Ross, Julie Elman, Ken Longfield, Hunter Walker, Kendra Ward, Tish Westman, Bing Futch, Doug Berch, Ken Bloom, Jim Fawcett, Rob Lackey, Sam (Oh, gee, I just think of Sam as Sam and can't recall his last name! )Tom McDonald, John Wood, Barbara (nice lady who sold a dulcimer to Jim F). . . I'm likely missing someone. My world has been made richer for having made the acquaintance of each of the friends of the mountain dulcimer!

PS-Oh, I must be forgetting someone!

Thanks for jogging my memory, John!

That's just cool, Dana!

I offer $77 and John Henry will do the refurb for free!

John Henry said:

$76, and I'll do the refurb for free?

an onlooker

Hey, Dana, I'll give you $75 sight unseen! Hope to see pictures of your new treasure!

I know what you're talking about, Robin. I don't, as a rule, play Stinson's #2 by myself-- usually play it with someone who adds those changes in part B and the two styles blend nicely.

Robin Clark said:

I was looking at the music for thistune last week as a potential one for playing in noter drone. I thought it was a little 'plain' without the modern Celtic chord changes in Part B, which seem to be the#2 tunes signature. I think I may have a go at adding back some ornamentation to Part B to make it a little more of a 'tune' for noter drone- If it works out perhaps I'll record it and post it here as John Stinson #3

Dave, there might be a lead or two in the following link in which some history could be tracked down:

http://www.bartonpara.com/discog/missouri/stinson2.htm

Hey, Ken, I went to the Ollie's in Newark OH and got a copy. Wow, it's some big book and I look forward to spending time with it. Many thanks for the heads-up!

Kenneth W. Longfield said:

No problem Robin. The offer is open as long as the supply lasts. Ollies buys damaged tractor trailer loads, remainders, etc. I do not know where these books came from, but they are new and shrink wrapped. Folk music and crafts are only a small part of the Encyclopedia.

Ken,

If I can't get to the Ollies up in Licking County to see if they have any copies, I may just take you up on your generous offer. Would it be all right if I let you know in the next few days?

Kenneth W. Longfield said:

I think there are seven more copies at the Ollies here. I am not sure how much it would cost to send them at the media mail rate, but it would still be cheaper than the list price. I am willing to purchase a few and send them out just for the cost of the book and mailing.

Wow, I wish I could get to an Ollie's and buy a copy! (I've never heard of this outlet store.)

PS-I just searched and found there's an Ollie's in the county north of where I live! I just may need to take a little trip. . . Thanks for the information, Ken!

Very cool, Ken! And, yes, make it cooler by taking along a dulcimer next time.

Please let us know how it turns out, Dennis!

Randy & all, maybe the idea of getting a feel for tunes is what serves best in the long haul.

Randy, you're also hitting on how a person can join in to play on tunes you don't know when in a music jam. At least I think you might be hitting on this: where there's both by ear play and drawing on past experience as far as understanding the structure of folk or fiddle tunes and playing along with others on tunes you either haven't heard before or don't know well.

Randy Adams said:

These types of threads about memorizing tunes, or the similar topics 'how do you learn a new tune', or 'ear vs tab' come up occasionally here.

I don't mean to be condescending, or to disrespect the way that works the best for others to learn how to play the dulcimer but there is a higher level to aspire to that never gets mentioned. Well sir, I'm going to take a deep breath and say it out loud.

Most folk tunes, or fiddle tunes, are simple in structure and melody. Many musicians with some experience and competence can hear these tunes once, understand how it goes, and play it. In fact many tunes are simple enough and move in such a predictable manner, they have queues that indicate where they are going, that they can be played adequately the first time through, like as the tune is being played.

How a person gets to this level is dependent on several things. How much are you willing to practice? What are your musical goals? How much innate musical talent are you blessed with?

Assuredly this is a learnable skill. Nobody just picks up an instrument and does it. But it is not only the domain of the musical genius either. Many amateur musicians I know and play with can do it.

Gayle, I'm a 'by ear' player 99.9% of the time-- since I am a noter/drone player, all I have to worry about is being in the right key, getting the melody down, and most importantly, getting the rhythm right. The .1% comes in if I happen to be with a group of people and we all are trying to learn/play a specific piece of music a specific way so I struggle to read from paper; this rarely happens, though.

I'd like to learn to read SMN for playing an instrument, bowed dulcimer particularly.

Take the ox off your Sox and you're a fan of the Reds.
Hey, I want the Yankees to lose, too.

Dusty Turtle said:

As a Red Sox fan since before I can remember, I am indeed routing for a team this year: whoever is playing the Yankees.

I know there are Yankees fans out there. But I guess some people wanted Goliath to beat David, too.

Actually, a lot of the games have been really exciting this year. And here in Northern Cal we had two teams in the run, with the As a genuine cinderella team with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. My wife is a Giants fan, so our house is black and orange and not because of Halloween.

You know I wanted the Reds to win the division and the Pirates to win the wild card.

Jim Fawcett said:

Well, all I can say after 20 years of having a losing season with the Pirates, Let's go Nats!

Patty, as a Reds' fan I've been pulling for the Nats to defeat the Cards!

Patty from Virginia said:

Robin, If the Washington Nationals win Friday night, I don't know what I'll do. I'll either get excited that our area finally has a winning team (been a long dry spell; although, hockey team has been okay) or I'll faint from the shock of it all

A most appropriate post, Carrie!

Carrie Barnes said:

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville: Mighty Casey has struck out.

Leonard, this pretty much sums it up for me.................

Robin, smog?

For your dear wife's sake, Leonard, it is good to not watch games sometimes.

I watch no Reds' games-- we don't get cable tv and live in the boondocks where few channels can be got.

Leonard Griffin said:

Robin, if we could figure that out it would not hurt so bad. Like Carrie says we Texas Rangers fans have been disappointed again for the third time. I sometimes have had to not watch games for awhile, my wife says I get to hard to live with , and my blood pressure I am sure goes up!!

Oh, Carrie! How in the world did the Reds win the first two games of the series in SF then lose 3 at home?

Anybody cheering for a team in baseball's post-season?

Robin "Go, Reds!" Thompson

My hat's off to you, David!

My husband and I also have played 'out' to help in overcoming stage fright. It helps.

Cool, Dennis!

DAC can give just that right haunting sound to some tunes.

Stephanie, that dulci-bow built by John Hen-- um, I mean a "certain member from the UK" gives a really neat sound on that electric Yocky!

Stephanie, cool sound! That's your Jim-Bow?

Thanks for posting that link, Jeff! When I got to YT and saw it was a video of Butch Ross. . . well, I'm embarrassed that I neglected to mention Butch. Mark and I love Butch!

Gayle, I'm an old-time music dulcimer player. However, I like lots of different dulcimer music! A couple of my favorite "electric" players are Bucko Futreal (his videos can be seen here at FOTMD) and Jerry Rockwell.

EDIT: Both Michael "Bucko" Futreal and Jerry Rockwell play more than one instrument. They're two players who come to mind when I think of "electric" dulcimer music, though. Also, I need to smack myself in the head . Bing Futch plays great music on electric dulcimer.

Geekling,

I wasn't clear about how I used to hold a mountain dulcimer upright to bow it. When I did this, the instrument was nowhere near the floor-- the lower bout was held/balanced between my knees.

Hey, friends, this same instrument is attracting attention on another FOTMD thread, too.

http://mountaindulcimer.ning.com/forum/topics/funny-ebay-listing

It's a cool piece of folk art. The fretboard does appear to have a radius to it. I suppose someone could've bowed it, holding it upright the way I hold my bowed dulcimers; I used to bow a mountain dulcimer this way. From the looks of it, though, I'd just call it a mountain dulcimer.

I've heard these two live a few times, always a treat. Thanks for posting.

Oh, I love Lester's fiddle play! Lester's 90 or better and I believe he was at Clifftop this year.

According to the liner notes in Kim Johnson's cd, Linda McCumbers (Lester's late-wife) used to sing Cherry River Line.
Have fun learning this cool tune, Phil!

Here's my translation of the tune to lap dulcimer. Tuning is DGG. Any mistakes in my translation are mine. :)

Great ear, Stephanie-- you heard Reuben in it! (Mark heard something from a tune he knows as Lonesome Reuben. . .) Thanks a bunch for the links-- they really add a lot to a thread!

Love this tune from Lester & Kim! I encourage you to check out the notes on YT; this was a banjo tune that Lester brought to fiddle.

Wondering whether anyone plays it on mountain dulcimer?

Gayle, I used to play recorder a bit but haven't given it a go in years. I look forward to hearing your mix with dulcimer and recorder!

It's good to have you be a part of FOTMD, Gayle!

Websites tend to have, for lack of a better word, personalities. I have met many wonderful folks both here at FOTMD and at another site where I'm a member, Everything Dulcimer. I think there's an indescribable something about the mountain dulcimer that draws many folks to it who just happen to be friendly.

I heartily agree, Skip-- it's great to hear variety in the play of a tune! When I'm playing fiddle tunes with friends, I like to play through the tune several times, varying something here or there. Fortunately, I have musician friends who also like to play through fiddle tunes several times and they vary their play also.

Skip said:

Robin;

Watched your video's, we liked them. That is generally where I am aiming to go.

Folkfan; I agree with that. [Except for the modes part, which really doesn't mean as much to me as note availability. I leave that up to the writers/TAB producers and assume they know what they're doing.] The 'everyone would sound alike' is the part which bothers me, it's so sterile sounding [and ultimately boring] to hear everyone playing exactly the same thing. It's part of the reason for the original post.

Oh, got ya, Skip! It was my fault for not understanding-- I'm an idiot about music!

Skip said:

Robin;

The question is based on Paul Certo's post about a player playing a DAA tabbed tune in DAdd. That player was 3 frets off of the SMN notes. In other words, when the tab indicated a DAA 3 {d} on the melody, the player was playing a DAdd 3 {g, s/b 0 [d]}. That's why it seems to me you should pay attention to the notes even if using TAB [Tab positions the fingers to the fretboard, not the notes].