Forum Activity for @shanonmilan

It sounds like you have a diverse and impressive collection of instruments, including some that you built yourself. Your expertise in building vacuum tube guitar amplifiers must be fascinating, especially with your background in electrical engineering.

It's fun to compare our environments and the trees that grow there.  I like using the wood that's local to my area, though if I got the chance to use exotics that would be fun.  I have a sister in Kansas and some day maybe I'll ask her if she can bring me an osage orange branch.

Marsha, I expect you don't have to worry about the head of your drum getting tight and clangy in the air there?  Out here the air's very dry, and I usually wet the head down some before I perform, and sometimes I can hear the pitch get higher as it dries out, while I'm playing it.

Thanks, @phil-myers, but I can't take credit for the tune.  I found a short fiddle demo of the tune online, with an indication that it was written by Susan Reid.  I found a few videos online of the Vermont Fiddle Orchestra playing songs by her, so I wrote a letter to her c/o the Vermont Fiddle Orchestra, and included the dulcimer tab I had created.  I heard back about a month later.  She gave me permission to teach the song to my dulcimer group and also to post it online.  It's a cute tune indeed, and fits perfectly on the dulcimer from the open middle string to the seventh fret of the melody string in a 1-5-8 tuning.

Dusty, I'm a little late for IADD but that tune of yours works for any day! Love it!

Thanks, Wally, I misunderstood you. I have Chet Hines' book and quite a few others books like it. I'm sad that I never met Patty Looman but I do have a few tabs Patty made for some of her workshops.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Dan, I seem to have offended you, and for that I am sorry.  I do not consider "dulcimore" a "term" but rather a local pronunciation of the word whose spelling has now been standardized as "dulcimer." All those variants that I list above are clearly different local or regional pronunciations of the same word.  These pronunciations most likely developed in the late 19th century before free and compulsory education in most of the country, so spelling would not have been standardized. But all those variants were clearly referring to the same instrument.

It makes perfect sense that you use the term "dulcimore" for your traditional builds as a way to differentiate them from the modern dulcimers I play (with frets across the entire fretboard, large boxes for a guitar-like sound, extra frets, electronic pickups, etc.). But in 1890, when one person pronounced the word "dulcymore" and another in a nearby region said "delcimer," they were referring to the same instrument.

Well, Bill did a lot to spread the "dulcimore" labels with his books and festivals. I wasn't trying to suggest that he originated it.

There is also "How to Make and Play the Dulcimore by Hines, Chet" from 1972 with several copies currently on eBay.. Again, I think, an attempt to create a trade identity. There were other other "how to make/play a dulcimer" books.

Our local (deceased) guru Patty Looman did an LP with "Dulcimore - Sweet Music" as the title, but that was the hammered variety, and dulcimer was used in the description. She was, by the way, a school teacher as well as a dulcimer teacher.

Dan, my comment about Thomas calling them dulcimers comes from a conversation I had with Mike Sloane. Also, both Ralph Lee Smith and Jean Ritchie refer to Thomas as making and selling in dulcimers. I think if he used another name for the instrument that would have appeared in their writings. If there is a specific reference to Uncle Ed using another name, I haven't seen it.

Wally, the name "dulcimore" appears in writing way before Bill Schilling started his club. I think Kimberly Burnette-Dean found that spelling in estate lists she found while researching dulcimer history in southern Virginia and western North Carolina.

The label "dulcimore" is sometimes used in the manner of a brand or trade name - i.e. "Dulcimore Dan." His instruments are sold as Dulcimores and should be referred to as such.

Some responsibility might be placed on Bill Schilling and his friends. There are some very well educated and skilled people in that bunch. See the Dulci-More webpage https://www.dulcimore.org/

Dulci-More: Folk & Traditional Musicians is a club that started in January 1993, at the First United Methodist Church of Salem. The purposes of the club are to have fun with folk-style music and to share that music with others. The club meets at 7:00 pm on the first Tuesday and Third Tuesday (note: it was the third Wednesday until January, 2000) of each month just off the sanctuary by the Unity Classroom of the First United Methodist Church of Salem, 244 South Broadway, Salem, OH 44460 (see calendar link for summer meeting locations). All levels of acoustic instrumentalists and singers are always welcome at the meetings to jam, to learn, to listen, or to perform. Meetings are generally run as song circles with most songs or tunes chosen from the Dulci-More Public Domain Songbook with everyone joining in, .....

They are MORE than dulcimer players.

As I have said before, I think much of this confusion is probably from SPOKEN language being moved into print.

"Duckslammer, IIRC comes from a Tom & Missy Strothers ancedote about someone mis-hearing "dulcimer".

Would doctors and educators be folks of low literacy? Why would they use the term "dulcimore"? 

I've had the opportunity to go through my records and can't find the reference of Uncle Ed using the term "dulcimer". Please share your reference?

Glad to hear your eye surgery is behind you, Ken!  
Those are two really wonderful dulcimers you have there. 🙌🏼

Mountain Mahogany does not grow east of Colorado.  It has a Janka hardness of about 3200 -- roughly the same as the Ebonies.  Makes great noters, nuts & bridges for Mountain dulcimers, tippers for bodhran, musical bones, and similar projects.

I've never heard of it living in Pennsylvania. I see that it is very hard and dense. I should make a good tipper. I sure the shillelagh and walking stick are very sturdy.

Ken

"the dulcimer sings a sweet song."

"Mountain Mahogany" is virtually unknown to those of us living east of the Rockies.

I have some nice, short, Black Cherry planks seasoning in the barn. I split them from short (roughly 30 inch) segments of a fallen tree with a froe.

Mountain mahogany grows in the area where I live.  It's lovely wood, I like its properties of hardness and density, and of course it's relatively easy to get, without having to spend extra.  A few years ago I found a stand close to my mother's house; in it was a couple of dead trees.  I harvested them and from them have so far made a shillelagh, a tall walking staff, and now I'm making this tipper.

Maybe you can finish this today, but why Mountain Mahogany? I should think a limb of Swamp Mahogany would work as well.

KenL, if you didn't have time to make a recording, you should've taken a picture of your workbench to post for IADD!  I believe you worked on the dulcimers yet photographic proof may be needed.    

I started playing bodhran about 12 years ago, mostly solo along with recordings, though there have been some local groups that I've been playing with occasionally for the past couple of years.  My first one broke last summer and I got a new one a little while later, after carving a tipper from a cherry branch.  Now I'm carving another tipper from a mountain mahogany branch.

From observing and listening to the IADD posts on Facebook, I say that the movement to celebrate our beloved instrument is gaining ground.  Thank you to all who posted offerings for this day. I celebrated by working on a few dulcimers I have in my shop for repairs. I did play a few tunes.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

I think I've listened to music from 4 countries on this International Appalachian Dulcimer Day.   In addition to friends who shared audio or video here, there was more participation on Facebook than I might've imagined.  The spread of the love of the Appalachian dulcimer around the world is, truly, a beautiful thing.    

I hope y'all have nice weather for your 20 April music circle, Leo!  

Yay Dusty for so nicely imagining a sunny day today in California!! If only. 

So many involved in a potential jam today were going to be busy - and maybe they were prescient as things have turned out. The delayed music event will be on Sat April 20, noon-3, in Shelton Park, Claremont, with Doug Thomson leading the songs-and-tunes circle. Bring chair and instruments! All instruments welcomed of course, even hammered dulcimers, lol.

Happy Mountain Dulcimer Days!!

Happy International Appalachian Dulcimer Day If We Never Meet Again This Side Of Heaven played on a 3 string baritone mountain dulcimer (youtube.com)

Happy IADD, everyone!  Here is a short rendition of "Tune for a Sunny Day" written by Susan Reid of the Vermont Fiddle Orchestra.  I found a simple demo of the tune on the fiddle and wrote a letter to Susan at the asking permission to share it on the dulcimer.  I was delighted about a month later to hear from her.

Happy International Appalachian Dulcimer Day, friends!  

I just listened to the first offering to celebrate from @macaodha and it's a jewel.  I haven't uploaded a tune yet, yet will soon.    

Thanx John,  Fixed it.  y new eye isn't quite up to par yet... another few days before the swelling goes down.  

It's t'other way around, Ken!  VA at the top, KY at the bottom.  That Ed Thomas sure is a beauty!

Hi @jazzc...  Had cataract surgery yesterday so i couldn't take any pix until today... Here are my two favorite Traditional dulcemores:   
Uncle Ed Thomas replica Kentucky Hourglass by John Knopf on the bottom. Traditionally painted flat black. 
Above is my Virginia style Hogfiddle by Bobby Ratliff
.
Both have the high-silvery sound of traditional dulcemores rather than the more mellow sound of modern dulcimers

 Favs2.jpg - 62KB

That's too bad- the music is great, and it's good exercise!  

I do live close to Dewey Hall ... but I don't dance :-) 

Hi Jerry... so you waited twelve years to introduce yourself here?  

Do you go to the monthly contra dance at Dewey Hall?

Hi, I've been a member here for a while, though somewhat inactive, so I thought I reintroduce myself.  I live in the Berkshires of Western Mass (right down the street from the Magic Fluke Company, known to ukulele players ... and I am also one of those)!  I've been playing and collecting dulcimers since the late 60's.  Bought my first one from Hank Levin at the House of Musical Traditions, then on St. Marks Place in NYC (I grew up in Northern NJ).  Here in the Berkshires, there is a busking program in the summer, and I've been happy to participate on dulcimer, ukulele and autoharp.  I work as a lecturer, so-called motivational speaker, training specialist and consultant.  I particularly speak about intentional gratitude practices, and every Tuesday I post a "GratiTuesday" quotation or gratitude reminder on my blog and various other sites. I have always liked the dulcimer ... a lot!

Yay, @dusty!  I hope lots of folks do the same, too!   

We have an audio recorded and uploaded and will make it "Public" on IADD.  

I just recorded a video. I'll be sharing it with y'all this Saturday. I hope lots of you do the same.  Happy IADD!

Either my Uncle Ed Thomas traditional dulcemore replica by John Knopf; or my  traditional Virginia style Hogfiddle by Bobby Ratliff,  Both with staple frets under the melody string and plain (no 6+) diatonic fret layout.  

In her HomeSpun instructional recording, Jean lists many names for the lap-held zither and says its names come from the parts of the country in which you find it.  She goes on to say that for her lessons she's just going to call it a dulcimer.