Forum Activity for @nate

How to train my ear

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I've wondered a lot if the music that I listens to "untrains" my ears. I listen to quite a bit of blues from 1920-1950 and a LOT of it is only "relative tuned" from the top string down. I've never been good at all at knowing whether a note is flat or sharp, and if a note is flat or sharp it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the music. Starting to think I might have permanently screwed up my pitch perception

updated by @nate: 10/24/23 11:56:39AM

Vintage Dulcimer Builds

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

 
congrats on the purchase! its a fine looking instrument and I hope you have fun with it.

Vintage Dulcimer Builds

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

 
That is definitely going on the "think about more until I have a good way to implement it" list, Ken

Vintage Dulcimer Builds

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

At the risk of making light of a serious situation, a dulcimer full of muddy water sounds like something I'd like to try playing. I have been wanting to try to make a dulcimer that is entirely coated in a waterproof finish, inside and out, and let it "soak" to see if anything happens.

Fiddle

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Thank you very much shanon! I'm already having a lot of fun with it :)

Nickel allergy--nylon strings on an octave dulcimer?

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

Thats pretty interesting. Does the red rub off on your finders while practicing?

Native American Flutes

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

 
Irene, if you are not in a place where bone can be shipped to you easily from an online seller, I have found that some pet stores sell large intact chunks of cow bones in the dog bone section
updated by @nate: 10/02/23 07:35:53AM

Native American Flutes

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

That is super cool Salt. I couldn't find one that was Hupa or Wiyot, but this Yurok flute may have been similar to the ones my ancestors heard, since there was a lot of cultural overlap.

Nickel allergy--nylon strings on an octave dulcimer?

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

I hadn't heard of the

"Aquila 11B red series" but the product description says "Nylgut made firstly elastic and then added with red copper powder in order to increase the density to about twice that of standard white Nylgut"

which I found really interesting. Id be curious to know whether they feel like metal or plastic to the touch.

Native American Flutes

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Thanks for sharing salt, these are cool. To my sensibilities, different tribes had different flutes and "Native American flute" is just a general term for one style of flute that some tribes made, which has been adapted into a western instrument.. Obviously pre-colombian flutes were not in A440, so that makes most "native American flutes" I've seen "cultural appropriation." The flutes I've seen in tribal museums, as well as the Musical Instrument Museum were often visually and functionally very different from each other.  If it were built traditionally, I would expect the name of a tribe and not just "native American." 

And Irene, I really look forward to seeing that dulcimer!

updated by @nate: 09/30/23 01:39:47AM

Native American Flutes

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

That is interesting Steve. It seems pretty silly to me but this is America and we do love to sue. As I was trying to look into it more, it seems like the native American flute got loopholed into being included as an "American Indian craft" just due to its name, since the instrument was called such for quite a while before that law was written. Still silly to me though, that someone would see the descriptor "native American" and directly assume that it must have been made by a real one, let alone it happening so often they passed a law lol. The flute herself does not know or care whether she is native American or native American style. Either way that law is interesting.

Nate

updated by @nate: 09/29/23 07:00:29PM

Nickel allergy--nylon strings on an octave dulcimer?

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

I often use mandolin strings on my dulcimer, which are phosphor bronze. At my local music shop, they are only a dollar more than the pack of dulcimer strings but come with 2 of each gauge. They are basically the same gauge as dulcimer strings, and the extra 2 thickest strings can be tuned a fifth lower than the root note, so with one pack you could string up a 4 string dulcimer Dadd and a 3 string dulcimer AEa, or whatever tunings suit your VSL. 

Nate

Native American Flutes

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Steve, I believe "native American flute" just denotes the origin of the style of the flute, not that specific flute. To me it's a bit like saying you have to be French to build a French horn, English to build an English concertina, or Appalachian to build an Appalachian dulcimer.

Some people might actually agree with that last one

Nickel allergy--nylon strings on an octave dulcimer?

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

In general an instrument built for steel strings will have less volume and sustain when using nylon strings. This is because nylon strings are typically at a much lower tension, and dulcimers made for nylon strings are typically lighter, in order to be more responsive. The strings will eventually stop stretching and will keep their tune. If youre not happy with the tone you might be best off sticking to metal strings. I do like silver coated strings, as well as plain steel. I dont know much about nickel allergies and how careful you have to be, but I also used cobalt strings one time and gold coated strings another and found the tone nice for both.

updated by @nate: 09/28/23 11:07:51AM

Fiddle

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Thanks a ton to both of you for the positive encouragement! So far I've been keeping the headstock tuner turned on while I practice scales, so I can adjust. Ive never been great at knowing if I'm in tune so this will be a big challenge for me.

Fiddle

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Ken, I've become a bit of an instrument hoarder and I probably own more instruments than anyone could master in a lifetime, so I get what you mean. The fiddle is one that I feel more motivation for than other instruments so I finally bought myself a beginner model. I am hoping some stuff I learned on mandolin can transfer over

Nate

Fiddle

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Haha I like that dusty. I must be a fast learner because it only took me about 30 seconds to be bad at it

Fiddle

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Ive just started learning fiddle! It's the one instrument that Ive always wished I was really good at, if I could pick one. Guess it's finally time to get that ball rolling! 

Nate

Checking in

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Shooter, I built a cigar box guitar tuned DAD before I built any dulcimers. To me a 3 string CBG is the same as a chromatic strumstick. Cigar box guitars led me to building dulcimers, and I still like building cigar box dulcimers a lot. It's all a lot of fun

PS I recommend that new mandolin players start with 1 string per course while learning the chords, then add in the second string once you have the shapes down. Those strings can really shred up your fingertips and limit the amount of time you can practice when you're first starting, which makes a lot of people burn out on Mando 

Nate

Accompaniment

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of pickups because of all the added fuss of having to bring an amp and make sure you have power supply, plus I'm not someone you can trust with cords around their feet lol.

That's why I make some of my dulcimers really thin, really large in volume, with metal cake pans, and with really heavy gauge strings. They're SUPER loud and can hold their ground against other instruments when played acoustically. In fact I have to play very gently when playing with other dulcimers or I will drown them out lol.

I have only seen one real resonator dulcimer and it was even louder than mine, so a dulcibro seems like the ticket if you want to be louder than the banjo. In general some dulcimers are much louder than others, and are better suited to playing alongside loud instruments. 

updated by @nate: 09/13/23 06:14:32PM

Accompaniment

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

 
Shanon, most dulcimers are relatively quiet when compared to other instruments, and are easily "drowned out" by banjos, mandolins, fiddles, resonator guitars, etc. I don't like to think of it as 'drowned out' though, I like to think of it as fitting in nicely. It's not always that easy to discern a dulcimer when played with louder instruments, but the music does still sound fuller for having one. With modern tech you could make a dulcimer way louder than everything else if you wanted to, but if youre sitting between a banjo and a fiddle and it's all acoustic, your dulcimer isnt going to be very pronounced.

I wish I had the opportunity to play dulcimer with concertina, but I don't know anybody with one. Id love to get myself a concertina and learn to play but i already own a handful of instruments that I haven't learned yet so I think the concertina might have to wait a while
updated by @nate: 09/13/23 06:40:55AM

Maybe ive been in the dark but how cool is THIS?

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I forgot to mention, you can find those built in pre-amps with tuners online for anywhere from 15-300$ depending on the quality. You'd have to cut a hole in the side of your merlin to install the display into, and youd have to cut a slot into your bridge under your saddle for the pickup to sit in. Nothing too complicated to do yourself, and definitely something you could get done by a pro if you wanted to. Just make sure you get a preamp small enough to fit in your instrument, perhaps a ukulele preamp.

Maybe ive been in the dark but how cool is THIS?

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I have built a dulcimer with a fishman preamp that I recycled from an acoustic guitar. It had an UST or basically a pickup under the bridge and had a built in metronome, tuner, and tone controls.

Personally I am not a big fan of how amplification changes the tone so much, however I'm also not a big fan of the hollow, plunking tone that strumsticks often have. I have tried one of those little piezos, and preferred that, because the original tone was mostly preserved. In my opinion, many strumsticks players are also guitar players who want a more gutsy, guitar like tone, and install pickups to achieve that. 

When it comes to tuners built into amps, maybe this is just me, but I find their displays to be very unintuitive to use to tune. I have a headstock tuner but I mostly use an app on my phone. A modern smartphone has a very high quality microphone, typically better quality than you'll ever need for tuning, and also typically better than an actual tuner, plus the display is much bigger and has more details. The clip on can be handy in a group setting or anywhere noisy.

Nate

updated by @nate: 09/10/23 04:29:40PM

Confused about Sharps and Flats

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

To give a specific example of how key and temperament affect notes on the dulcimer, if you had 3 dulcimers built to be tuned (EBE) and
one was "equal temperament"
one was "mean tone temperament"
one was "just intonated"
G# would be flatter on the "just intonated" dulcimer than it is on the equal temperament dulcimer
G# would be sharper on the "meantone" dulcimer than it would on the equal temperament dulcimer.
That is not a common tuning, but it is an example of one where G# is quite different for each temperament, since you mentioned G#.

The Joy of Sharing Dulcimer

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

 
I think a tin whistle can be a really abrasive sound in the hands of a new player. When I started on tin whistle, I didnt have any breath control and would always waver in and out of pitch or blow too hard and hit the higher octave. Luckily it was just my cats who had to be there for that learning experience, but they made it very clear that they were worried about me xD

At least a plastic recorder, as much as I don't like the sound, is a bit quieter and less sharp of a tone. I can imagine that children who are genuinely interested could benefit a lot from learning tin whistle, but that the average 3rd grader, if given a tin whistle, would be a true menace xD

The Joy of Sharing Dulcimer

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

 
I find the idea of associating counting with musical notes to be fascinating for a developing mind, since they have different number bases (demical system being base 10, dulcimer base 7, 12 tone, well...12) 

It's my opinion that 'music' is just a series of numbers or 'frequencies' that can be combined into equations or 'melodies/progressions' that our mind finds engaging. I've always been fascinated with research on how early exposure to music affects both math and language skills. 

To me, it is very interesting that many mathematicians have suggested over time that a base 7 number system is more useful than a base 10 for some purposes, but we rely on base 10 simply because that is how many fingers we have. Well if a dulcimer is base 7 (with 7 notes to an octave) and they learn base 10 with counting, this might encourage children to have a more naturally elastic view of maths!

Information on luthier Larry Wilson?

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

Haha, well while I'm definitely no expert in the standard behavior of woodworkers, but I do know that a lot of people have a grandfather who built a handful of dulcimers for friends and family, and when those get sold, it can be almost impossible to find info about them. 

You do make a very good point. Dulcimers can come in different intonations (such as meantone or Just-intonated), or have a bridge setup for a tuning with a specific gauge of strings such as DAA, or AEA, so buying from an obscure luthier increases those risks.

Information on luthier Larry Wilson?

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

After trying to dig a bit, I came across several woodworkers with the name Larry Wilson, but couldn't find anything specifically about dulcimers from any of them. Whoever he is, he doesn't seem to have much online presence. I think it's somewhat common for skilled woodworkers to build a couple of dulcimers for fun, which then end up in circulation with very little info about their builder. I wonder if this may be like that.

updated by @nate: 08/30/23 03:08:49PM

FANS OF NATE

OFF TOPIC discussions

Okay backup plan. You are the minister of propaganda, all you have to do is comment under my songs that you enjoyed them. So far your service has been admirable!

FANS OF NATE

OFF TOPIC discussions

Well then its settled, Robin. You are the enforcer! Your job is to bounce the undesirables. I'll leave it to you to determine which shins you want to kick, and the full brunt force of FANS OF NATE (which I think is just us) will descend on them! 

Introduce Yourself!

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I am guessing the satisfaction of restoring your instrument only added to the joy of playing it!

Welcome

-Nate

I only see original post in a discussion, not replies..?

Site QUESTIONS ? How do I...?

 
Haha sucker, I didn't even pay yet! 

Seriously though that page got a big grin out of me

FANS OF NATE

OFF TOPIC discussions

Of course Robin, though we might need some treasure first. Sadly, I think this may be one of those times where the real treasure is the friends we made along the way....

I only see original post in a discussion, not replies..?

Site QUESTIONS ? How do I...?

 
I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a fansite today

I only see original post in a discussion, not replies..?

Site QUESTIONS ? How do I...?

I'm not saying you should convert the entire platform into a massive fansite dedicated to how cool I am, but......well actually that is exactly what I'm saying.

I only see original post in a discussion, not replies..?

Site QUESTIONS ? How do I...?

To be honest, I find the separation of Groups and Discussions kind of confusing. Im never really sure where I should be posting. I've also gotten confused a few times when I click on a group discussion from google search, and it doesnt show the replies because I'm not in the group. For non-members this is probably very confusing. For what it's worth I'm not great at navigating this site but I think it is very well put together considering just how much information is packed into this place!

A Test for Tone-Deafness!

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Hey Dusty! I noticed that I was able to improve quickly at the test, probably because it used the same tone each time. I also went from 28-31 after retrying. I think your math is right that 1-64th corresponds to 1.5 cents. Not that it matters for me. Being able to tell one tone is a cent and a half higher than another would be much more helpful if I also knew which one is the correct tone. XD

A Test for Tone-Deafness!

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

A test to determine how well you can discern subtle differences in pitch. I always assumed that I had poor pitch perception, but apparently I can detect a 1-16th of a note difference reliably! If anyone else would like to take this test, I'd love to know what you score!
https://www.themusiclab.org/quizzes/td
Nate

Frank Bond Dulcimer

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

On a serious note though, I am quite curious about what would compel someone to remove frets from the fingerboard...it strikes me that the frets are removed from the outer ends of the instrument. Is the dulcimer 'bowed' downward such that the bridge and nut are lower than the center of the fretboard? Maybe the frets were removed to prevent buzzing? If so, the repair might be a touch more complicated. Is the fretboard level for it's full length?

Frank Bond Dulcimer

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

Haha I found the misunderstanding about 'missing frets' amusing. Surely you guys must be aware that a  truly traditional dulcimer only has 3 frets to an octave. This was increased to 7 during an early surge in popularity known as the "vival" hundreds of years before the 1.5 and 6.5 were later also added during a period called the "re-vival."