Forum Activity for @charles-thomas

This is another Huichol Indian work. This jaguar head features scorpions (on the nose),an iguana (on the forehead),and peyote buttons (round symbols throughout) 

Wayne. I think you made a good choice in going with the Mike Clemmer ban jammer. I bought one from him this year and am very happy with it. I also bought a 5 string fiddle side dulcimer that I am also happy with.

Superglue is a good skin coat while developing callus.  Also Liquid-Skin and similar products which are acetone based.

No rababas (or dulcimers) on my sailboat cabin walls.  Not much wall, either.  I do have my repel boarders arsenal (crossbow and BIG knife) within easy reach, copies of a couple articles about me, and the Heel-o-Meter clinometer. 

Thanks, Bob. That's a funny video and much better rababa playing than the video I found (I suggest jumping to about 0:52):

D, I used to have calluses from playing bowed dulcimer and look forward to developing them again when life allows.  :)

That was really great! Thanks for sharing.

Robin,

I'll have to watch. I'm figuring it's from sliding. I love to use my thumb on a slide. :)

Also, I think my fingers and/or thumb are shorter and I have to do some odd hand/finger configurations to reach chords. My thumb has been invaluable for this! :)

This video is about changing the sound of the clapper:

1 just one finger between the clappers

2 two finger between;

3 the bell hitting the bell-hammer way up.

The lower sound is made by an almost complete 'resonator', the air inside the clapper. The 'room' is made by the two clappers, the palm of the hand and the fingers in front. When opened, the sound is higher and sharp as always. A difficult technique, which I can't master myself, is closing and opening the 'fingers'-door while playing. I try it in the end. Anyway, the lower sound is made by the resonator (kind of a soundbox made of wood and flesh :-)

What an interesting video, with all its scene changes, etc.  I really liked the piano playing of the invisible pianist at the beginning (whose touch was so light you couldn't even see the keys moving up and down!), but then was really surprised as the scene changed.

I also have a similar instrument, but haven't hung it on the wall.

yet.

Dusty, I think you could figure it out!  

When my daughter was in pre-school I used to visit with a cart filled with instruments and entertain the kids. I played the ukulele, guitar, autoharp, mandolin, and dulcimer.  Her teacher was so taken with my ability to play these stringed instruments, that when my daughter "graduated" to kindergarten, she gave me this rababa as a present.  Her husband works building huge hotels in the Middle East, and he brought it back from there.  Somewhere along the trip he lost the bridge, so I just stuck on the bridge for a banjo mandolin. I have no idea how to play it, for you bow across a single string the tone of which you can change either by twisting a nob at the top or by pushing down on it with your finger. But I think it would be pretty hard to play Bile Dem Cabbage on this thing!  So instead of getting played, this piece just hangs on the wall in the living room.

I don't know if I speak English well...

But like a friend of mine says 'the Dutch speak better English than the English speak Dutch' :-)

It's the same with 'the journey London to Stradford-apon-Avon has more miles than Stradford-apon-Avon to London'.

I'm surprised more people haven't posted on here, although, as I look around my house, I only have pictures and mirrors hanging on the walls.  Very boring!

In my college days, everything we would find on the floor we would tape to our wall near the door--now THAT was kind of interesting!

Yep--In my toddler years I learned to sing "Frosty the Snowman" from a cracked 45rpm--and would sing it all over the house, crack and all!

Wout, ik heb genoten van je video's van u het spelen van de botten. Je spreekt erg goed Engels. Bedankt voor het delen. 

Woot, I enjoyed all of those videos, thank you for making and posting them.  

It's funny how one can get some good deeper tones when the 'thumb-side' bone is held a lot more UP than the far bone....but it seems the result is always poor when the thumb-side bone is held a lot lower than the other bone.

I couldn't understand a lot of your words in the videos though, because your voice was too soft and low.  Can you tell me more about those very dark and flat ones you were demonstrating?

P.S. it was nice to see you!

BTW the sighing I do is what I always do when I am concentrating myself. :-)

Here some more information about the bamboo clappers:

Here's a video about Dutch clappers:

Hi Strumelia, you asked me to demonstrate the Yin-Yang sculptured bones made by Adam Klein. See

Two configurations wouildn't work because the energy wasn't able to make to right swing.

This is the first time I create a video on YoyTube and I used a photocamera...

The holiday season is fast approaching!  Here's a timely reminder with a link to some common holiday songs that are copyrighted or public domain: common-christmas-carols-are-they-copyrighted-or-public-domain

Well, my goodness.  I still have a landline (not the rotary phone though).  But before 8-Tracks and even cassette tapes, there were 45 rpms that had these inserts and when a record began to skip a penny or two (maybe even a nickle) would to make the record not stutter.  And there was the Western Flyer, the little red wagon, and red ball jets.

Well, for goodness sakes--what did y'all DO with your rotary phones???  Throw them away?

Lovely to have at least one older phone in the house that will still work when the electricity goes out and the cell phones die and can't be recharged!

This mask is from Guatemala, it was probably made for the tourist trade-the "patination"seems to be applied and on the inside there are no shiny spots were the nose or forehead would have rubbed.When she was a child my step daughter called it the "Bad Bunny".   

I remember that you guys did that...don't think I ever saw or heard it though...as you say,not in the public domain.

Jan, Carrie Barnes and I wrote up some silly lyrics for Where O Where Are You Tonight, Hee Haw, song. That was

fun. Unfortunately the tune is not public domain but we still had a blast writing up crazy lyrics....at the expense of the Keanes, LOL. Remember that John? 

Ah, the Green Stamp book...How far we have come!

I've been less than successful finding anyone (group?) here in Derby City that has the passion for ND play as we do. Do you know of anyone?

Actually, as I think about it, several years ago at the Kentucky Music Festival I ran across a lady who played ND "BEAUTIFULLY" (she also teaches dulcimer & clawhammer banjo), maybe I should try to find her. She's a teacher (JCPS - Jefferson County Public Schools) which just happens to be my employer as well. I remember her stating thet ND is "HER" style of choice as well. DUH ME

Call me old fashion, I just like to hold on to "some things" traditional. Besides, you can create some "AWESOME SOUNDS" with ND play - I DO (not to sound like a brag)  ND can be 'simple' OR VERY COMPLICATED !!!

The LDS took me as a N&D player back when I lived in KY for a year.  Always loved the "clash" of a group with the initials LDS meeting in a Presbyterian church

Jan,

CATS

I grew up listening to noter/drone style play and I am "Attempting" to keep that tradition alive - it's the style I prefer - it's who my wife and I are. Actually we have a sign (in the room we practice in) that a friend gave me a few years ago that simply reads Keep It Simple Stupid - KISS for short.

That's who we are  It has only been recently (past several months) that I have ventured into chords, finger dancing etc ...  Sometimes (in regards to your question about the LDS) I get the feeling they don't take to N/D players. Nothing has ever been said but it's just a feeling we get. Nonetheless, that's okay. I don't get upset about stuff like that - that's the Pastor in me AND life is too short. My wife and I do what we do (she plays autoharp along with me) at Church, nursing homes & such and we have a GREAT time - not to mention the folks we play for LOVE our music. Again, we are just husband/wife team that do what's in our hearts. 

I've been having a difficult time getting ahold of Mike that past few days, to order my Ban-Jammer. It's good-ole Time Warner I suppose. Looks like I won't be getting it by Christmas as I had hoped. He needed Christmas orders turned in by the end of September. No BIG deal. I've waited this long I guess I can wait a little longer. I "DO" want to get one ASAP though. We do many of Stephen Fosters songs and I can almost hear them BANJO SOUNDING style.

Have a blessed evening.

Wayne

I've heard you can since any Emily Dickinson poem to the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas:

THEY say that “time assuages”,—

  Time never did assuage;

An actual suffering strengthens,

  As sinews do, with age.

Time is a test of trouble,  

  But not a remedy.

If such it prove, it prove too

  There was no malady.

Now that's a cheerful little ditty. 

Jan is really onto something. If you can whistle a tune, it means your brain has learned to associate different sizes in the opening of your lips to get different pitches. When you hum or sing, your brain has learned exactly how much to stretch or relax your vocal chord to get a certain pitch.

When you learn an instrument, your brain can also learn how high up a string you have to move to get a pitch. It's just a matter of doing it enough that you can train your brain in that manner.

When you first learned to whistle, you couldn't do "I've Been Working on the Railroad" right away; your brain how to learn to associate the opening of your mouth with different pitches. It took some practice.  The dulcimer takes practice, too.  One reason I don't like to look at tab is that I want to see where on the fretboard I am getting different tones, so that my brain can learn those distances. Sometimes I sing the fret numbers while I play to reinforce the connection between the fretboard and the notes that are in my brain. And I spend a lot of time just trying to find simple melodies on the dulcimer.  Not to learn the songs, but to practice letting my brain figure out where to find the right pitch. The more you do it, the better you get.

I don't follow football, but I am a big UK basketball fan!

I'm also, as you know, a fan of Mike Clemmer's Ban-jammer!

Do you play with the Louisville Dulcimer Society?

Go CATS!

Upside ... I only need one DVD ... :(

On the other hand, don't make the mistake of thinking the reason I don't need the tab is that I have taken the time and energy to memorize how to play hundreds of tunes!  I have trouble memorizing anything, so don't anyone give me props for something I haven't done--and probably couldn't do  

I didn't mean to say that I'd memorized a bunch either.  It's just I can see the melodies on the fretboard when I hear the name of the tune.  It might take a couple of plucks to find my spot, but then I whip out a dulcimer tune much the same one would indeed, whistle a tune.  I forced myself to memorize specific Handel and Bach organ pieces, but can also count the number on one hand.  If I learn a new one, then sure as anything one of the previous ones will go out my other ear.   Some dulcimer pieces are in fact memorized, but still in just barely the double digits like Greensleeves.  I memorized a particular take on that song in tab.  I memorized not the tune per se, as all probably can whistle that one, I have the frets in mind.  Where the fingers go and what fret to go to next type of memory.

Jan,

THANKS!!!  I've decided that I'm going with Mike's because I agree, there IS NO COMPARISON in the sound(s) that his puts out. You reaffirmed my thoughts/feelings.  I just need to call him and get it ordered so that I can pick it up (while we are on vacation) the week before Christmas.  Don't really want to wait that long BUT ... it is what it is :-)

Noticed you live in Lexington. We will be at the game Saturday (we live in Louisville) and NO I DIDN'T --- I'm a grad of UK!!!  You understand --- it's a BLUE NATION sort of thing.

Wayne

    I think we all have our own way of playing, I was saying what mine was - not due to age or medical conditions. I am a visual person, I have done art all my life, now I am playing the dulcimer. It is a wonderful journey and alone the way I'm making sweet sounds.

Marg, I think you misunderstood what I was saying, since I wasn't saying that playing by ear should come naturally to a person....

My point was that aging and certain medical conditions can affect whatever it is that we may do without really thinking about it, whether that means whistling songs we've heard on the radio, singing snippets of camp songs  from childhood, or picking out a tune we know on an instrument.  This is different for everyone...for instance, I play music by ear, but can't dance.  The only kind of dancing I can do is where you have a set of steps that you follow, like in folk dancing, line dancing, etc.  But to just hear music and dance?  That's when MY body has no clue what to do.......it wants a set of directions....I can't just do what "feels natural" to other people.  I think that's a lot like people who need tab-the "set of directions"--in order to produce the music.  So don't feel like you're being dissed if you need the tab.

On the other hand, don't make the mistake of thinking the reason I don't need the tab is that I have taken the time and energy to memorize howto play hundreds of tunes!  I have trouble memorizing anything, so don't anyone give me props for something I haven't done--and probably couldn't do  

I knew that standard music notation was out for me even though originally musically trained to read it.  I thought that Tab was all I would ever use for the dulcimer, but I've found a peculiar thing when it gets right down to it.  I cannot read tab and play at the same time.  I'm familiar with this dilemma since there is one other instrument that this situation comes into play.  Self taught on the organ, but never taught to read bass clef.  I just knew that a note of bass clef and what it looked like (in an all treble clef world) was actually two notes lower than what I really should be playing.  In other words if I was to see what looked like an "A", then that meant I should be playing a C instead.  And so on and so on.  So for me to "sight read" a two part piece of music (say a hymn) I'd have to move up all the bass clef notes by two and play the treble as it reads.  This is cumbersome at best and darn confusing at worst.  Especially the three staff music of the music greats that some if not all specifically wrote for the organ.  There is one staff of treble and then two of bass clef.  That really is nasty.  What I'd do is my counting exercise for a line of bass and memorize it.  I'd go over and over that stretch of music until I had it down.  Then I'd play that while sight reading the treble clef.  I'd get pretty good at that part with my left and right hands and then I'd spend time learning the bass clef line for the pedals.  Of course that involves (you hear of "finger dancing") well this was feet dancing as they old birds wanted to put more notes in there that'd take three pair of feet to do it correctly (not sure how those authors did it?).  Once that was committed to memory I'd play back, still sight reading the treble all three stafs.  Wow, what a work out.   Well the dulcimer was no different with the tab.  I'd go through the motions learning a song and its chords and when I was actually playing with the tab, the tab was only there for reference.  I'd be playing the song from memory or later to be found, by ear.  In fact it became so obvious that I was not reading the tab, but playing from sight and sound memory that I took to asking my wife to name a tune.  She would and I'd plunk around a couple of notes and soon enough I was playing out the melody and after just a run through or two, I was adding harmonies and chords.  Not knowing what the chords were or the notes for that matter, just what they looked like on the fretboard and sounded like to my ear.  I still use tab now, but only to learn a tune or direct the start of said tune, then the rest is solely be ear.  Not sure why that is for me, but that's surely what I caught myself doing and continue to do so.  It does make it much easier to not have paper music falling all over the place and needing to turn a page and such.  Kevin.