Forum Activity for @lois-sprengnether-keel

I realize there may be more than one Neville Price, but someone by that name lived in Shelby, Indiana. He was born in 1904 and died June 10, 1989. I did one of those online searches Ken mentioned because it was suggested that Price might be the maker of my Swan shaped dulcimer (mentioned in another thread here) because of the woodburning on it. Since I bought it in an area of Michigan near the IN border that seemed likely. Don't know if any of the Indiana group will respond, but I'm going to make a plea for one of them to post on their group my own information. Whether by Neville Price or another Hoosier, I think they're my next resource and you might want to see what develops there.

UPDATE!

I see that, while you are in GA, you joined the Indiana group, possibly because of this question. Would you post in their group my discussion, Swan Dulcimer - Anybody recognize it? and say whether it's from Neville Price or not, I'd greatly appreciate folks looking at the photos to see if they can tell me more. The signature woodburned on it and the logo are in the photos, but are a bit hard to read. Possibly it's familiar to others in IN. If I joined their group I'd not stay long as I'm barely up-to-date here with other groups.

Life beyond FOTMD has been busy. That's not to say I'm leaving my dulcimer playing. Have a new song I want to include in my One Room Schoolteacher program. The music is fairly straightforward, but the lyrics at the same time are challenging.

All I can say for certain is that he's not on the Active List of Builders maintained by Richard "Pristine2" over on EverythingDulcimer. I'd start with the Shelbyville phone director or an electronic White page search and see what you can find.

Recommendations for builders if you're looking for second hand? Since you're interested in a specific sound quality, I wouldn't worry about maker.

Look first at dimensions -- 27" VSL (or 28" if your playing style will allow); 9" or more width, 3" or more depth. Then buy by sound of the specific instrument -- not shape, not wood types, not maker name, but sound. That means you'll have to play them yourself or have someone play them for you over the phone.

How much is your budget is also an important factor. I can tell you about Dwayne Wilder, but his instruments, even second hand, go for close to $1000. FF's brother, Harpmaker Dave, could build you a new one from scratch for about a third of that, which would sound fabulous, and he would work with you to get exactly what you want.

Tena, I'm going to suggest that you contact some of the luthiers who are members here at FOTMD and talk directly to them about the voice you are looking for. I'm going to mention one instrument maker in particular, my brother, David Lynch of Sweet Woods Instruments. Here are some photos of some of his instruments.

http://s53.photobucket.com/user/theharpmaker/library/custom%20dulcimers?sort=6&page=1

The important thing about getting any instrument built is to go through the creative process with the builder and make sure he has a good idea of the sound that you are looking for and that you know what modifications he'll have to make to his standard models to achieve that voice. /Good luck.

To get a real lute-like sound you're going to probably have to figure out gauges and string a dulcimer with gut or nylon strings like a lute, not metal strings.

If you just want a deeper, more mellow sound, there are LOTS of possibilities that any of the builder here and elewhere can make for you, for not a lot more than a new McSpad. To my ears, as a noter & drone player of traditional "high silvery" instruments, McSpads are not particularly "bright and a little twangy", but their sound has become, as you suggest, the modern idea of a classic dulcimer sound.

Talk to some of the builders here, and get them to play various instruments for you over the phone.

As a general rule, to get a "deep mellow" sound you're going to want a dulcimer with a body that is wider and deeper (more internal volume) than a McSpad or similar dulcimer. How wide & deep? In the range of 9" or more wide, and 3" or even 3.5" deep. The greater the internal volume, the more bass/baritone response there is from a dulcimer. If you want the ultimate in deep mellow sound, consider a Tennessee Music Box (TMB) or similar dulcimer that will be 10"-16" wide and closer to 4" deep than 3". By contrast my Virginia Hog Fiddle traditional style dulcimer by Bobby Ratliff, is only 5.75" wide and 1.25" deep.

Most of the builders here make some version of a TMB.

James, I'm sorry. Can you start a new one? I know it wouldn't be finished in time for Christmas but you could make a drawing of it and stick it in a card for you daughter. You can tell her it's coming soon

Does your daughter play any instruments currently? is she very young?

I am excited about your folk fiddle project and I want to see pix and know how it turns out!

James, please post pictures when you finish. We would love to hear a sound clip too

Looking forward to seeing your build.

inserting.... may give me something to do this winter.

An old mate of mine had a wonderful scrapbox, not so much for the thin section stuff, but all the bits for tailblocks, scroll heads, nuts and bridges etc..
You could always give him a bell and he'd usually come back with "I've got just the piece for that".

Sadly, no longer with us.

john

Good point Ken, tho' as my wife used to say on the rare occasions she managed to see my workplace/hideyhole " why do you keep all these odds and ends of rubbish, they must be too small to make things out off" women ! (tongue in cheek, honest )

JohnH

Carolyn - it all depends on the quality of one's scrap bin. Some folks only have scrap 2x4s of pine and maybe a few pieces of 3/4" oak, Mine has reasonable sized pieces of all sorts of thin cuts of exotic woods leftover from other instrument and craft projects.

The instrument described is much more sophisticated than any of the "real" folk fiddles I've seen in Spain, Latin America and Asia. With it's suspended, radiused fingerboard and sound post and other details, its "just" a 'funny shaped' European fiddle.

nice workman ship for scraps of wood.

Nice. One of the most complete Instructables I've seen, Usually they leave a great deal to be desired. I've built several Spanish folk fiddles called Rabel - lineal descendants of the medieval Rebec. Rabel, like the rebec, usually have a carved body with a separate sound board, rather than 6 thin pieces of wood glued together. The other folks option is a gourd body. Soundboards are often leather or tin. There was a great Spanish language website that I had bookmarked, but it doesn't appear to be working now

You might consider posting this in the building section; there are already other non-dulcimer building things there...

hi my friends......did'nt know where to post this?.......so I used to play classic violin in my early teens....but I'd get up early saturday morning to watch Hee Haw ...just so I could watch those cats burn whenever there were good fiddle players on

http://www.instructables.com/id/Improvised-Folk-Fiddle/

Hi Mike,

That TK O'Brian was my first dulcimer and I loved it I've just passed it on to another beginner and hopefully they will get another few good years out of it too. I used it as a loan instrument for a while and enevitably someone else fell in love with it and asked to buy it!!! I tracked down the workshop who built the instrument for the TK O'Brian brand. They are made by the Hagen family in Ozark. Chas buys in billets of wood from his local lumber yard and they quartersaw and plane the planks themselves. I was so impressed that when I started my dulcimer business over here in the UK I asked the Hagens if they would build a model for me - so they make me the Red Kite which I sell in the UK and Europe.

I'm really proud to be working with such a great family and helping them get their instruments over on this side of the Atlantic. In fact, all the small US dulcimer workshops and individual luthiers I deal with are great people - it is a fantastic community and one where artisan instruments make up the lion's share of the market. The big name instrument makers who mainly build now in the Far East can't really get a look in with dulcimers because the artisan small workshops andluthiers in the US do such a great job. It isheartwarming to find something left in the world where the big companies are kept out of the market because they know they can't compete with the qualityor price that the artisans can produce.However, the one thing that the small workshops and independant dulcimer makers can't afford is an advertising budget soit is up to us players to keep spreading the word and supportingour artisans

'Reletive tuning' is tuningthe strings to each other Mike rather than tuning them to a regulatedexternal source like an electronic tuner or pitch fork. Use your electronic tuner to get close to the tuning you want then blend the strings to each other by ear. You'll find that the instrument will end up in tune with itself and sounding great but you may actually be pitched at say a little flat of the key of D or whatever ie not exactly at a definitive pitch. If you have a look at the tunes I've posted in the Old Style NOter and Drone section of the forum you'll see that quite a few will say something like DAA (just a little sharp) or similar. When you listen to old recordings of folks like Jean Ritchie you'll find that her dulcimer wasn't tuned to an exact pitch either - it varies quite a lot as she would have just tuned it to itself throughout the recording session so it varied a little from song to song.

If you can find another bead then I would add it to the string that's missing one at present. It will help you with those final fine adjustments.

Robin

Mike, Am I seeing this wrong, or is it strung for a left handed player? Just curious as to the string arrangement.

That's a good idea for fine tuning. At first I thought the beads were used to dampen behind the bridge string rattle. Some banjos have this problem.

Another thing I've noticed with too many wraps is that you can get yourself in a situation where winding on more string forces the lay up against the side of the pegbox and actually starts to push the peg out making it slip.

I've always taken the string through the hole, brought it back up to the top and down through the hole again before tightening, works well for me. I've seen people actually knot the string onto the hole, but this can be the devil getting it off if you ever need to make a quick change.

john

The beads are added as fine tuners. Some players with friction pegs use the beads, players with geared tuners won't likely need fine tuners. You want a few wraps of string around the peg, to help lock the string from slipping, but more than 4 is probably overkill, and looks sloppy.

This is easy to demonstrate, but hard to clearly explain in words, but I like to put the string through the hole in the tuner, then bring the loose end of the string back around the shaft and under the other end so it is pinched against the shaft of the tuner. This helps lock the string in place so it is less likely to slip. I could show you in a few minutes, but I'm not sure I can describe it so it makes sense. Words fail me, I guess, probably related to all those D's in English classes.

Paul

Thanks Ken!

Glad to hear about your experience sharing the mountain dulcimer at Grey Fox. Keep up the good work!

That is a a shame Jeni. There were some great acts and I may have a new favorite or two. My wife and I have loved the Carolina Chocolate Drops since we first heard them a few years ago. They stole the show at Grey Fox. New ones we really liked were Jim Gaudet, Betsie Ellis, and Della Mae. Of course, there were a lot of old favorites there too. Over 40 bands in all!

Thanks guys. John it really was pretty neat. We sat down and started playing like we had been playing together for years and the songs seemed to roll out quite nicely. It was kinda like Zen......

That's neat when stuff like that happens!

That's really great, Scott.

Just returned late Sunday night from the "Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival" up in the Catskills of New York. I had a ball and there were thousands attending and camping there. I think I was the only dulcimer player there! If there were others they didn't show themselves.... Anyhow, my wife and I camped beside a Canadian Bluegrass/Gospel group and they had never had any experience with a mountain dulcimer. Long story short, they asked me to sit in with them and we played several songs together. I even taught them a couple of Canadian fiddle tunes they didn't know about! They became very enamored with my dulcimer and several of them expressed interest in maybe acquiring one and using it in their music. Anyway, I had fun spreading the word and maybe made a few converts.

The official festival photographer took stills and videos of us playing and I'm hoping they post it on the festival website soon.

Scott

Since the uke was brought up in this thread, and since I just saw Jake Shimabukuro again for the millionth time last night, I just wanted to mention that if you like uke, you need to hear Jake. He's done for uke what Bela Fleck did for banjo. He also happens to be a very nice guy. You can see a free documentary here:

Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings

Enjoy!

Lauri, I hope to have a JRS one day....he lives close to where I do and I frequent their shop. Really beautiful sounding dulcimer! JH....lately everything in my house is dusty....hasn't slowed me much :) Ukelele.....there has been a banjo uke calling my name for some time now....trying to resist!

I have figured out that looking at the bridges helps with accuracy. For some reason my eyes just want to look at the strings...so I have to kind of keep reminding my self to look at the bridges.

I'm really enjoying the HD....It remains set up in my music room and I have to walk past it to get to my other instruments so I stop and hammer often!

I was led to the fretted dulcimer from the hammered dulcimer, which I learned to play first. I still have my beautiful old custom Dusty Strings D25, and still love the thing even though I haven't seriously played it in a while. To David I just wanted to mention - don't look at the strings; look at your bridges instead. Much easier that way. :)

I made my first HD in the late 1980's, and a great number since then ! I truely believe it to be relatively easy to play, I could'nt read SMN then (nor can I now ) but once I had mastered the 'geography' of the instrument's layout (using a specific 'tuning' pattern every time helps ) I seemed to be able to 'jus play the durned thing', and although attending some workshops, I have never really been tied by the constraints of 'doing it the right way' I always played 'seated', using a monopole leg, and found that I fitted into our UK pub sessions (where just about any type of music is played, on just about every sort of instrument) very well, so long as I observed timing, rhythm , and patterns (see Susanne's comment). For me, the HD fitted into such sessions well , it worked great to be able to lay down backup sound to tunes I did'nt know. I always preferred playing the HD over MD in such situations, 'cos without doubt it carries a lot more punch. The downside being that this enables all the 'bum' notes one might play to be clearly heard !!! Of course, the MD is easier to lug around......................... !

Go for it Cheryl, just don't spend too much time looking down at the strings, 'cos then you might notice all the dust on the soundboard, which may put you off playing ???

best wishes

JohnH

Robin...great idea!!! Connie....I had no idea it was the dark side...push over I'm going to join you!! I was considering the D550 for a chromatic. I wish I could hear one in person, but I have heard Dan Landrum's via recording. I'm starting to get the layout pretty well, just hitting those darn strings accurately has been tough!

Phil....its calling me....its those darn irish jigs.

CJ, don't go over tothe dark side!!!!

Just wondering how many folks who play mountain dulcimer also play hammered dulcimer. I've owned a pretty Masterworks hammered dulcimer for years and just now I'm thinking I just may learn to play the durn thing. It has a nice sound and diatonic string layout with a couple chromatic notes on the side. Shouldn't be too hard to learn....right?? :)

Linda, that makes so much sense about teaching the returned military members. I live not too far from the Walter Reed Medical facility in Bethesda, MD. I'm not as experienced on the dulcimer as some, but I have taught a couple of friends how to play. That would be such a worthwhile thing to do. I'd be interested in how he started his program, where he gets his guitars, does he rent them, give them away, loan them, etc. Think of the wonderful opportunities to serve those who have served.