However, alluding to Shakespeare, what we call the instrument doesn't change what it is, its value, or its place in the musical world.
He proposes that the dulcimer was commonly used for dances and church services. I have seen no evidence that dulcimers from our area were ever used in dances or church.
The 2024 edition of worldwide Play Music On The Porch Day is Saturday 31 August! Make music where you can when you can, friends! (Not everyone can go outdoors to play nor is everyone available on the actual stated date.)
How come nobody ever comments on how much money it costs to keep all these babies in fresh strings !?! 
I am not sure about the "one size" anecdote, but dramatically changing string size will dramatically change intonation. In the past, when I have already installed a fixed bridge, and it is only off by a couple cents, I will sometimes file a slot or two slightly deeper to adjust it. Not my favorite solution, but it shouldn't affect playability very much. For that reason, I recommend taking a tuner and fretting each note to see if the instrument is well intonated. If all the notes are in tune, I'd say leave it alone. If they're not, then it may be fair to assume that the strings are at different heights due to imprecision.
Nate
I would recommend checking the frets with a tuner before making any alterations. It may be the case that the strings are set at different heights to accommodate their location on an installed bridge. There may be very small variations in the bridge that are actually adjustments made for intonation.
Nate
My strategy when facing adverse conditions as far as playing outside is simple. I cancel any plans to play outside.
Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."
A lot of my dulcimers are plywood, and I very often use a few layers of polyurethane on them. (for solid wood dulcimers i much prefer oil)
I am aware that conventional knowledge suggests allowing wood to breathe, but in rough weather or high humidity, I wonder if it's better to have an instrument that can "hold it's breath"
I have made two with no soundholes and with a heavy coating of polyurethane on the entire outside, including the fingerboard. They are essentially waterproof, and have traveled back and forth between inland and the coast multiple times with no noticeable warping. I left one of them on a back porch and it got rained on all night, and I just wiped all the water off, put new strings on it, and it was totally unaffected.
Probably not applicable for most people, but I definitely appreciate having a dulcimer that is specifically more weather resistant than the rest.
I gave away one of the first bundt pan dulcimers that I built to an older gentleman who is homeless and had a precarious lifestyle. Shortly thereafter he got ripped off and it was stolen from him and my dulcimer, that meant a lot to me, was suddenly being passed around amongst strangers. Eventually it was gifted to someone who gifted it to a very nice man, and by pure luck i met that man's wife, and the two of them gladly returned my dulcimer to me, that i may return it to its original recipient. Talk about a feel good ending!
Nate
In my opinion, any stiff and dense material transmits the energy well. Metal, plastic, bone, dense hardwoods, etc. Each will slightly alter the tone of the instrument, but only very slightly. I often use hardwoods out of convenience, or a metal zero fret for consistency of tone, but bone is my preference because it transmits super well, and I like the look of bone best. I'm not a big fan of the premade plastic ones because they are harder to alter, but they sound just as good.
Those string lubricant products are very strange. The feel is totally different. I think a lot of them are mainly just mineral oil. Personally, I like it, but can't be bothered to apply a product to my strings before playing. Heck, I can barely even be bothered to tune up xD
Sounds like a thicker unwound string is the way to go. I will have to check out that brand as well.
This is all fascinating! The fact that it's number 99, when he started recording them at 100 is such a neat coincidence. And also the fact that it's unfinished! The reputation of that luthier precedes him, so it seems to me that you have a very awesome opportunity to finish building a dulcimer that was done up most of the way by a master.
Thank you to Dwain for providing all the awesome context
Sadly, I've been spreading myself too thin lately and I haven't been getting as much practice as I like to on a few different instruments. I have a Magnus accordion sitting on my couch that I like to play while I'm unwinding when I get off work. It's basically a vintage plastic children's toy accordion with way fewer buttons than a real one. It's a lot of fun to mess around with.
Very interested to hear what others with actual knowledge do for this. Personally, I have mounted dulcimers on the wall by securing them with picture frame mounting hooks, and hanging them by a piece of twine that is tied to the scroll and tailpiece. Because the twine puts a lot of friction on the hook, it will stay at whatever angle you position it. I am sure there are more simple and elegant solutions so I'm looking forward to hearing from others.
The dulcimer community has been the most positive, helpful and encouraging out of any instrument I've played, by a lot.
It looks to me like the spacer is not only meant to keep the strings at their correct distance, but also is meant to pull them down over the zero fret. That is why the strings are going through holes, and not just resting over the top like an actual nut.
My mistake I thought the nails were screws. Are the nails loose? It visually looks like the spacer is meant to be flush with the edge of the fingerboard, but has been pulled out of place and tipped over by the force of the strings.
if you were to tighten those screws, would the nut be upright and flush with the end of the fingerboard? It seems to be leaning pretty dramatically toward the zero fret and the screws look pretty loose. Maybe is just needs to be re-secured
Is that "nut" screwed into the fretboard?? Thats a.....creative.....solution.....
I think it would be simpler to replace the string spacer bar than to replace the tuners. Theoretically, if the spacer bar is lower than the 0 fret, it shouldn't matter that the tuners are higher than the spacer. The only challenge is anchoring the spacer to the headstock well enough that force from the strings doesnt lift the spacer up.
Lots of options for that, good luck!
Nate
That's really cool. That would be a really useful thing for me to do on dulcimers I make with eye bolts for tuners, since theyre super finicky to fine tune
I am curious about how that affects the break angle of the string. Is the bead difficult to move, due to the pressure on it, or does it slide easily?
Okay, I think that is what I originally thought ken H meant. So, the strings are always in contact with the bridge, and the beads do not change the VSL for intonation? The beads just redistribute the tension that is past the VSL, to allow small tuning adjustments to the open string?
Thanks to both kens and Robin for the explanation. The fact that it also has an installed bridge in front of them made that unintuitive to me. Now that I understand better, that seems like a very clever feature.
Oooh, so are they basically fine adjusters for bridge intonation? Sort of like having a separate floating bridge under each string? Kind of like on an electric guitar bridge?
That's really interesting. So is it basically the case that sliding the beads forward and back slightly changes the amount of tension?
Could those beads on the strings be "dampers" similar to the ones on some mandolins and other instruments with a lot of string length past the VSL? Just a thought, I'm not familiar with that sort of fine tuners so I don't really know or understand how they would function.
John, I don't really do anything that special. I like to mix sweet fruits and berries with tart fruits and berries to balance it out to my own taste. I have a friend who collects wild honey so I use that whenever I get the chance, but usually I like brown sugar, and sometimes settle for white sugar. I leave all the pulp and skin in the mixture, then filter it out after fermentation. I use champagne yeast and a specific gravity gauge to measure the alcohol content and usually stop fermentation at 15% abv. I filter it with cheesecloth and allow the fine particulate pulp to remain, because I believe that a small amount of flesh and skin can decrease hangover symptoms.
Ooh, that is exciting Nate, you are a winemaker now!
we have blueberries coming soon on our backyard bushes. We already put the netting over them to keep the birds from eating them. The blue jays and squirrels would eat them all otherwise.
Very excited to see that the Oregon grape bush in front of my apartment is ripening! Oregon grape is the state flower of Oregon, but a lot of folks here don't know that it's edible and makes a delicious tart wine when fermented. The flavor is like a pomegranate flesh with a plum skin. I am stoked to be starting a gallon of wine today!
Really glad to hear you're recovering, John. I'll keep you in my prayers. Hope you're feeling well soon.
Wow! People who wrote on that page use English in some mysterious ways!
" Its is made of sturdy metal, which is very. "
LOL whoops, I typed out almost the exact same message you did at the same time
Both the bridge and nut look to be in slots. If I am understanding correctly, the issue is that they do not fit snugly into the slots and are not glued into place, so the bridge and nut are being pulled sideways in their slots by the force of the low D string.
After seeing the photos, I definitely think that you should remove the strings, and then glue the nut and bridge into place, taking serious care to make sure that they are perfectly centered on the fingerboard, and also being very careful to make sure that the nut is held firmly in place while the glue sets. you seriously want to avoid leaving any kind of gap between the nut and the fingerboard, as that will mess up your intonation. On some dulcimers, the bridge and nut can be replaced for different string arrangements, but your bridge and nut have slots for both of the common arrangements, so probably the bridge and nut were not intended to be sitting loosely.
I had no idea there were so many factors to consider. I'm used to switching between tunings on the banjo like crazy and assumed I'd have a similar experience on the dulcimer.
I have one dulcimer with this issue and what I noticed is that without the second melody string, my whole bridge and nut slide juuuust enough to recenter the strings on the fretboard almost perfectly, lol. Actually ended up deciding not to fix it.
It is not normal though. Typically, when the bridge and nut are both unglued it is best to have string spacers past them, which hold the strings in the correct places. Normally the nut serves as a spacer on the head end, and the anchor pins correctly space the strings at the tail end, but since your nut is not glued down, I would say there are two possible fixed that come to mind:
1: Simply glue the nut into it's slot. I personally think that gluing things down that weren't built to be glued can be bad practice down the line, but typically on many dulcimers, the nut would already be glued in.
2 Build a small "string spacer." It could look something like this simple drawing.
The spacer would be placed under the strings, just past the nut toward the pegbox, and would relieve that pressure pulling sideways before the tension gets to the nut. The spacer should be about 1/8" wider than the fingerboard, and that extra width should hang off the bass side with a small "leg" that can hold onto the corner of the fingerboard to keep it from pulling. The spacer should be made of a hardwood, with slots cut at the same spacing as the slots on the nut. Make sure the slots are deep, so the strings arent being lifted off the nut by the spacer. I would recommend doing this, because it doesnt damage or alter the dulcimer. The piece could be made easily and can be removed at any time.
Hello! I live in Europe (born and raised in KY) and today I was browsing the website of a chain of music stores here called "Muziker." I was intrigued by the fact that their acoustic guitar section was divided into three sections: "dreadnought," "jumbo," and "folk." The first two were self-explanatory, but I was curious about the third. It seemed to be mostly parlor and 0-shaped guitars, with one very pretty archtop thrown in. Furthermore, I've heard banjo players here refer to longnecked banjos as "folk banjos." The plot thickens.
Since I come from simple folk, it was explained to me quite simply: a folk instrument wasn’t a commercial instrument, and widely available.
