Forum Activity for @robin-thompson

John Henry's tribute to John P is altogether fitting and proper.  And so lovely. 

I will pass on the info.

    I hope you do continue with the dulcimer even if on your own. There is lots on here or you-tube on 'how to' Even if there are others around, you still spend a good amount of time playing on your own. So, try and stay with it for one day when you can meet up with some folks. Do you have several dulcimers or is your Smoky Mountain,  the dulcimer you are learning on? AS long as it has a nice action (not too hard to play) and a sweet sound it's as good as any to play.

Good luck, ask a question and strum away.

John Henry has posted a beautiful tune tribute, played for John P ....

Lament for John P

I have a town & country, a mini-van but much better than the some cars that needed to hop onto the sidewalk at the end of Causeway Blvd. and many other parts of the city Friday. Rain just came too fast for the pumps to keep up. 

Yes, ken, I am very familiar with new orleans and flooding, just wishing erin 'all the best' with her move. Ha, it's not just the level of the water but the pot-holes, they will drop you down sometimes another foot while you're driving. 

I was uptown visiting family and dropping off a dulcimer to my sister-in-law. She has recently became very interested in their sweet music but the weather messed up the amount of time I had to show her much of anything. What is the saying 'hell or high water' well that didn't keep a dulcimer from landing in new hands and a heart ready. 

"high ground" and "New Orleans" just don't belong in the same sentence....

Hope your move is to high ground erin-laine, it was a mess yesterday morning in new orleans

Noah, that looks very much like the headstock of a Hughes Dulcimer.  I have 2 that I believe are Hughes kit dulcimers.

This is a dulcimer my great grandfather built. I haven't been able to find any dulcimer pictures that show this distance from the nut to the headstock. Just wondering if there is a certain style of dulcimer that He could have seen and decided to copy.

 IMG_2531.JPG.jpg - 87KB

Wow...this thread was originally started right after Karen and I discovered the mountain dulcimer.  Like so many, we first saw it at Silver Dollar City.  It's nice to read this thread and remember some of the posters who have come and gone over the years, and to take a moment to really miss a couple of folks who are no longer with us.  We made a little mini-documentary about our dulcimer discovery that pretty much tells it all. 

Yum!!!!

I forgot to add the skunk pot pie to the menu.

Possum on the half shell, a big ol' crawDAd boil, Dew claws, ramp salad, with a jug o' corn squeezins.  Yum, Yum!

Salt ,you're on to something!

Yes!!!!! And Lobster claws for finger pic's......

Salt, porcupine quills !! 

Well..............yeah!   Same goes for picks you know..............the quill think has run its course and I suggest some of us begin experimenting with other things.  Just this afternoon, I came across a poor Opossum on the road.............then I thought, now wouldn't that tail would make a great pick that would add a lot of zip to Galax style tunes.  Then a bit further an Armadillo............so I said, why not have Opossum on the half shell.............

Good one, Charles.  We also sleep in the key of "Z"

I,ve been working on a new key... "H" Why do we limit ourselves to ABCDEFG when we have a whole alphabet of 26 ? Imagine a tune in the soothing key of S or the Zing of a song in the key of Z! The possibilities are mind boggling!! My explorations with the key of H have lead me to a chiropractor , but please don't  let that  you stop your experiments............... Happy April Fools Day!!

My favorite place to play?  Anywhere I can sit with a dulcimer.  Although, if I can't sit, I will do the "Robert Force" standing method (tho' not too well.)

My favorite place to play alone is in my recliner with my feet up and the dulcimer resting across the arms of the recliner.  But I also love playing with one or two people, in small groups, large groups, and KMW super jams!  I love playing on the porch at Dulcimer Rendezvous or the lodge at the Great American Dulcimer Convention.  I love having someplace comfortable to sit with a cool breeze and some beautiful scenery.

Practicing  strum patterns. ..........you are very smart Lexie.

Yes Gail, it is fun to play around with my dulcimers along with my Girly, who is just 9.

It is a great tutor for me to really listen to what is played. It works lots on my strumming techniques also. We have fun with it.

It has been fun and a test for me to involve this child.

Lexie, Your 'copy me' game sounds like a great way to learn to play by ear, with a willing friend or family member.

 Chord chart for dulcimer by David Beede is here:

http://www.davidbeede.com/simpledulcimerchords.htm

 Beautiful work Kevin, it really rings and sings. I hear that you play just fine, we all know you understand how to make um sing!

I love the zither drones! 

Hi IIshana.........I have tried tab edit, but alas I am too slow to figure it out.....I'll bow to your expertise with that concoction of buttons and stuff.   I have found the chords for  OM Namah Shivaya more or less worked out by players far smarter than I.  Here is a link to some guitar chords:

http://easybhajans.blogspot.com/

 However, for almost all the traditional versions that you will find you are going to need a 1 1/2 fret.  Now, all is not lost because those can be added by a luthier or you can use what I call the Jessica Coumeau method, who incidentally is a genius on the MD.  Appears she took a piece of wire or bass string about a 1/2 inch and placed it at the 1 1/2 point and using some Scotch tape held it in place.  I would also think that DGdd would be your optimal tuning for that one.  David Beede another phenominal player posts this chord chart for all sorts of tunings..........I found it very helpful.

Now to be perfectly honest...........chord playing fine, but I really get a hoot and holler out of drone and noter.

My favorite places to play are at home in my living room in font of my fire with my dulci' books etc, sometimes I do strum patterns with my lil' girly sitting side by side each with a dulcimer, it is our "copy me game", we have also included fret numbers.

When I have to ice or relax my injured knee, ( the knee part is healing) and practicing or working on a song alone, it is on my sofa recliner with my tabs etc next to me where I can reach both my dulcimers so I have a choice of which to play per song. 

When I am studying or need help I sit in front of my computer working on instruction from a friend on this site, I have no skyp, so it is not interactive, but occasionally it has been interactive through chat.

On a sunny, less windy day I sit on my shaded deck in my glider swing, oh I can't wait for the rain to stop and the sun to shine! I love strumming for the birds that are flittering in my bushes along side my deck....  

My update is that I now live on my sailboat at a marina on the Caloosahatchee, and my favorite place to just play is "sittin' on the dock of the bay, watchin' the tide roll away..." 

Update, seven years later (!):

We no longer play at that farmer's market.  Right now I gotta say that my favorite place to play is with my husband in our living room in front of the fireplace, whether there's a fire or not.  Though we do still enjoy going down to town and occasionally playing under a tree on Main street somewhere...for no particular occasion.  We don't put out a hat or case for money -simply to avoid anyone possibly complaining about 'busking'...ha ha!  

My favorite place to play is in our sun room at the back of our home, situated on the banks of the Flint River, in Georgia. 

I have Indian artifacts, decorative lighthouses, and a collection of bamboo fly rods and other items that I just enjoy staring at.  Through the glass windows, one can watch the birds and other animals play and hunt food.  Ducks down by the water and the occasional alligator float by.

All of this provides an amazing place to practice dulcimer and NAF, for a moment or sometimes hours.   I feel extremely blessed.  

Though my favorite place to play is still at home, I've got a new favorite room.  Upstairs by the front windows.  (They are low front windows.) I'm away from home for much of each week so my time playing dulcimer at home is very dear. 

PS- My Sweetheart keeps the home fires burning.  And he's my favorite playing partner. <3

I'm so sorry to hear of this. I only have been a member here a short time, but he helped me figure out how to tune the dulcimer correctly when I was afraid of popping a string. 

Very sad to lose friends even new ones...

God Bless him and his family

Maria

I got a really nice bunch of tabs from his website but when I googled him so that I could share my video of a song I did using his tab I get an obit. Did he pass away? and did anyone know of him?

thanks so much

Maria

In the mid-70's a couple came to the elementary school where I worked and performed at a school assembly.  I was familiar with folks songs and various instruments, but had never seen a dulcimer before (not that I could remember, anyway) and I loved the lively songs they were singing, like "Groundhog". Sometime in the next decade I got to hear Jean Ritchie perform in person, and in another 5 or 6 years I was making a cardboard dulcimer from a kit and trying out tunes on the melody string.  I wish I knew who the couple was who performed....I've wondered if our paths have crossed again in the past 40 years.  Could be...

My John Tignor, with geared tuners replacing the hand-carved ones (which were saved, however....but at the time of purchase, I was not considering the historic nature of the instrument--I just wanted something more playable and I like the way it looked and sounded.  Note how dark the cherry has turned over the past 40 years!  Still sounds lovely and I like the workmanship and details like violin sides and trefoil sound holes.  The VSL on mine is 28".  Purchased 2012 at the Folk Shop in Tucson, AZ.

I have an early 70's Tignor , made of Cherry ful frets. It is a fine noter player,but, chording is not out of the question. Yes John had his own scale, and it doesn't match any JI scale I have tried. He started building the larger dulcimers late 70's ,due to pressure from the buying public. Rob Lackey a member here has a couple of John's dulcimers, a small one and a large one. You should talk with him.  John's dulcimers play and sound as sweet as they come. He wasn't the finest wood worker ,but, I like what he created.

George,  I have 2 John D Tignor's, 1 large one and 1 old Cumberland (Ralph Lee Smith's term.)  The one on Ebay is a very large one.  Tignor changed his fretting as time went by.  Most of the large ones are ET.  The workmanship is superb on both.  I really think that big one is a little too high.

The "waist" of an hourglass dulcimer is the narrow place between the upper bout and the lower bout, in reference to the hourglass dulcimer being shaped like a woman. 

"Wasp waist" refers to a narrower than usual waist, because the wasp has a notoriously narrow waist between its thorax and abdomen, compared to say the honey bee.

John had his own scale. Early models mostly set for DAA play; some of the late models were set for DAd play. As for JI or ET? Again it was "his" scale and was set for noter play. Don't look to play chord style on it, it is not made for contemporary playing. John used a pocket knife to carve his tuning pegs. If you look close you can see the tool marks left from it! They may or may not adjust easily as there is a curve to learning to use wooden pegs made more difficult with his craftsmanship. As for bio:

Born in 1922 near Hindman, Kentucky, John Tignor attended the Hindman Settlement School where he was introduced to Jethro Amburgey, the Industrial Arts teacher. John attended Berea College from 1947 until his graduation in 1950. It is around this time that Mr. Tignor began to make dulcimers. His wife Sally had a Jethro Amburgey-made dulcimer that had become damaged beyond repair so Mr. Tignor decided to make her a new one as a gift. With a few minor adjustments, Mr. Tignor followed Amburgey’s design, adding internal supports and changing from the traditional heart to a trefoil design for the sound holes. Mr. Tignor was more concerned with practicality than beauty, so he left many parts of the instrument unfinished (from a woodworker’s prospective). Mr. Tignor continued to make instruments until his passing in 1982. Though not as prolific as some, he is in a direct line of notable dulcimer makers from Ed Thomas, through Jethro Amburgey, to Mr. Tignor himself. This piece was made in the late 1970’s. The early models closely resembled the Thomas design but the later pieces were much deeper and the shape is described as “wasp” waist. John also started using guitar frets instead of the traditional staples but continued to use the wooden friction pegs. The later models also had a hollow fret board.