Forum Activity for @kypfer

What songs were you taught in kindergarten/grade school?

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

A couple of lines from a song we sung in primary school (probably about 8 years old) were "Hey rig-a-jig in a jaunting car" and "Clear the track, let the bullgine run". These stuck with me, probably because they didn't make a lot of sense (to an 8-year-old).

It was only recently, with the magic of the search engines on the internet, did I manage to track down The Margaret Evans and add it to my repertoire ... really ought to figure it out for the dulcimer :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How did you first discover the mountain dulcimer?

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I'm not really sure what my first meeting with a Mountain Dulcimer was ... I was probably researching some of the old "Child" ballads and found either a video or recording that I liked the sound of, then spent some little while both convincing myself I really wanted one and then finding one at a price I wanted to pay ... they're a bit thin on the ground on the east side of the Atlantic, and, as everywhere, what might be considered a novelty item often commands a high price!

With instrument found and purchased I ended up with a "no-name" 4-string that needed a drop of glue and a new string ... the glue glued and the string got knotted (I didn't have a spare string long enough) and it gives me a great deal of pleasure :)

She moved through the fair

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I was moved to join this friendly community because I saw the answers to the problems some of you'd had with Ken Hulme's tab and thought you might be interested in my workaround.

I tune my instrument DGD and play the 1+'s as a 3 (on the second string)!

This tuning also gives the opportunity to play some of the "4"'s on the melody string as an emphatic 444 chord, also some of the "0"'s as an 010 and at least one of the "3"'s as 323 ... these chords are optional, the original melody still works fine without them.

 

Hope this of interest to someone :)