RIP Ron Ewing
General mountain dulcimer or music discussions
Sad news indeed. The Aorell I own has the most wonderful tone and sound.
Forum Activity for @wibble
1 1/2" and 1 3/8ths fretboad widths.
Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions
I've just acquired a New Harmony Command performance Dulcimer. I spent about an hour auditioning it.
Now, All my other Dulcimers have 1 1/2 " wide fret boards which work for me because of my pudgy fingers. In the hour during auditioning the new one I didn't really pay attention to this (to busy enjoying the sound of it).
I had a really long session with yesterday and found that more times then not when playing something a first position G chord the finger fretting the middle string will impinge on the melody string giving a bum note to it. The was happening quite often and with similar bass & middle string fretting.
So my question is thus do dulcimer players supposed be able to just pick up any dulcimer fret board width and play it ok?
I am what I suppose you call an advance beginner or starter intermediate. I can play the New Harmony albeit completely changing my fretting technique for this shorter width. Will learning to cope with a 13/8ths wide board help improve my playing? The New Harmony is very unforgiving as it is.
Due i stick with it or change it for a 1 1/2" like all my others?
Many thanks for any advice
Richard
updated by @wibble: 07/21/25 11:09:54AM
Are two melody strings louder than one?
Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions
Depending on string strike timing/forces used, it's all about the waveform spectrum and the phase interplay between the pitches & the harmonics produced from this. Even slightly out of phase components between the two will cancel slightly. Conversely in-phase will reinforce, the end effect is an altered sound spectrum which won't sound like 2 pure pitches played together. This the "fullness" that is heard but not louder.
Interestingly because wave prorogation/ pressure level is governed by the square root rule to make your Dulcimers twice sound as loud as all the others you'll need to strike the strings with 4 times the force of the others players.
I think slashed fingers/broken strings would be the order of day if you tried that 
What Are You Working On?
General mountain dulcimer or music discussions
Only been playing for 5 months as a complete beginner but I am now exploring the sounds of CGC tuning. Luckily as it is still 1:5:8 I can still play all the stuff I was learning in DAD. To me CGC just sounds so much more pleasing.
I also discovered I like playing with harmonies and am working on a little ditty, something along the lines of 023 - 034 - 045 - 023 -022 - 011 - 103 -113- 012 - 234 045 - 056 -045 - 056 and so on and trying different strumming patterns.
Just need to learn to write what I play in musical notation now, for the fun of learning it.
updated by @wibble: 02/13/24 04:35:47AM