Robin, if we could figure that out it would not hurt so bad. Like Carrie says we Texas Rangers fans have been disappointed again for the third time. I sometimes have had to not watch games for awhile, my wife says I get to hard to live with , and my blood pressure I am sure goes up!!
Oh, Carrie!
How in the world did the Reds win the first two games of the series in SF then lose 3 at home?
Anybody cheering 
for a team in baseball's post-season?
Robin "Go, Reds!" Thompson
My hat's off to you, David!
My husband and I also have played 'out' to help in overcoming stage fright. It helps.
Wow! Good for you for playing great and not succumbing to stage fright. That is a BIG deal!!! You played great!
Cheryl
I have stage fright sometimes as well. You did a great job!
Hey David, well done !!! You have done something I never will, congratulations !
JohnH
Very proud of you David!
Surprisingly I did think (sort of)to smile. That is one comment that is always made from time to time in our group: when people play on stage they are so focused they forget to smile.
David, you did GREAT. With all that pressure in front of judges, on a stage...I would have made mistakes for sure!
Not only did you not make any mistakes, but you smiled too! 
David, that's great! I think that's a winner
. Thanks for sharing.
Friday night I entered the Mountain Dulcimer competition at the 2012 Tennessee Valley Old Time Fiddlers Convention http://www.tvotfc.com[/url . It was my first time entering a competition. I did not enter to win so much as to overcome my extreme stage fright. Generally I avoid all public speaking (or non-speaking) type activities. Here I am playing Ode To Joy . While I did not win I did actually play the tune as I intended and did not make any mistakes.
this is a 30 page thread in the making
Nice to see that my question still brings joy to some people even more than two weeks after I had started this thread... 
As to my grammer problem: despite the standard "Duden" dictionary says "die Dulcimer" (fem.), most of the mountain dulcimer players I am in contact with here in Germany (and some standard musicology books on instruments) seem to say "der Dulcimer" (masc.), so I am in good company when I stick with that as well. Wilfried Ulrich is of course an important authority as well.
Thanks to all who contributed their thoughts to this (maybe peculiar but hopefully not annoying) discussion...
CB, what is this about 'another on the way', lol GF, tryin to catch up to Dana
Carrie Barnes said:
ROFL Dusty, I have to agree w/the full figure woman comment!
Goschi, you had me at "Sack" is masculine, lol, can't stop laughing
I'm another that refers to dulcimers as "it". In German, since the dulcimer derived from the general zitter (most probably NOT specifically the scheitholt, in spite of Praetorius) I would use the feminine form...
I refer to them as its. What is it? It's a dulcimer. Though some of mine are given feminine names, others are neutral as to sex. Der, Die or Das? DAS
Goshi,
I think you could ask Ulricus. I think he is a member of this forum too. He is German, well, at least Ost-Frisian, and somebody who wrote about the dulcimer and more specific about the Hummle.
I know in English the gender of a word isn't important, but in written German, specific the more serious writings, it is. I think Ulricus has been through this too...
See http://mountaindulcimer.ning.com/main/search/search?q=ulricus
Wout
Excellent research, BRAshley!
B. Ross Ashley said:
That would be dulse , Benjamin, with an s, not a c. [Scottish Gaelic duileasg , from Old Irish duilesc .] at The Free Dictionary , it's not got anything to do with sweetness.
That would be dulse , Benjamin, with an s, not a c. [Scottish Gaelic duileasg , from Old Irish duilesc .] at The Free Dictionary , it's not got anything to do with sweetness.
Benjamin W Barr Jr said:
Wow! What an interesting thread! I should sharpen up my linguistics should I have a mind to enter into this tale that is being woven.
I recall trying to search out the meaning or origin of dulcimer. Somewhere (perhaps it was over the rainbow?) I read that the word dulce was German and meant sweet. I suppose it could be Latin and Greek as Goschi states.
Anyway, I think that I concluded sweet for Dulce and that the other half would be music, so I like to think of it as "sweet music".
However, to throw something else that I don't know the exact origin to is that my cousins from New Brunswick, Canada call seaweed Dulce. I have tried it and find it is anything but sweet! Of course, my cousins look at me as if I"m kinda strange
, especially not only because I don't like "dulce" but that I don't drink my tea with milk!
Well, that's my tale and I'm sticking to it...until a better one comes along!
Check out this story about why B.B. King named his guitar "Lucille":
Ah, thank you Rob - that is a really strong argument for using the masculine article! I've visited his website before and the instruments he makes look beautiful. And there's also a picture comparing a woman's shape with that of an hourglass dulcimer!
I think if the body is curved it's female and if its not it's male .I often attribute female names to my orchids. My Fiddle is Nellie Jo. My dulcimer is Mary Katherine.
funny my guitars are named ...but not my dulcimers?.......so doctor is there a reason?
Dusty Turtle said:
Funny, when I was writing my comment about one of my dulcimers being a tomboy, I had a weird feeling of dja-vue. Now I know why; check out this discussion that I started one late night and subsequently forgot about: http://mountaindulcimer.ning.com/forum/topics/dulcimer-gender-studies .
baby ...all my instruments are my babies....no gender ...,my friend does call my instrument collection my girls or Raven's Harem...........lol
Funny, when I was writing my comment about one of my dulcimers being a tomboy, I had a weird feeling of dja-vue. Now I know why; check out this discussion that I started one late night and subsequently forgot about: http://mountaindulcimer.ning.com/forum/topics/dulcimer-gender-studies .
Steph, no hospital, definately 'the doghouse' Thank you Goschi for raising this post and thus promoting some interesting answers.
John
That's already taken!
Geekling said:
Since you're receiving two McSpaddens, one being a Ginger, I think the other one should be named Mary Anne!
LOL That's good because I couldn't find it again anyway . But it was in good taste,
just a shapely woman lying with her back to the camera and a dulcimer laying the same way in the forground mimicing the same curve of the womans waist and hips. Really pretty picture. Anyway, your right we don't seem to have the same prob you do in the english language. It's just a preferance of ours to add gender to our instruments. I love the smileys tooo!
Thanks Dana and Dusty Turtle - I think my imagination is sufficent to fancy that without needing a picture. 
Thanks to all of you for contributing your thoughts and tales!
I'm satisfied with the answers you gave - nevertheless, feel free to add your ideas on a problem that doesn't seem to be one in the English language!
So I can take my dulcimer now and play a little bit of sweet music on... mmh, her. 
(Did I already mention that I like the choice of smileys around here? 
)
Ihave adigital copy of this picture -- or at leasta similar one --buthesitate to post itboth because it shows a woman's bear bottom and also because I just copied if off the web somewhere and have no ideaif it is copyrighted or what. If anyone is interested in seeing the picture, send me a personal message and I'll point you to it.
Dana R. McCall said:
There is a neat picture of a dulcimer compared to a womans body, if I can find it again I will post it.
Wow! What an interesting thread! I should sharpen up my linguistics should I have a mind to enter into this tale that is being woven.
I recall trying to search out the meaning or origin of dulcimer. Somewhere (perhaps it was over the rainbow?) I read that the word dulce was German and meant sweet. I suppose it could be Latin and Greek as Goschi states.
Anyway, I think that I concluded sweet for Dulce and that the other half would be music, so I like to think of it as "sweet music".
However, to throw something else that I don't know the exact origin to is that my cousins from New Brunswick, Canada call seaweed Dulce. I have tried it and find it is anything but sweet! Of course, my cousins look at me as if I"m kinda strange , especially not only because I don't like "dulce" but that I don't drink my tea with milk!
Well, that's my tale and I'm sticking to it...until a better one comes along!
One Hundred percent correct Dana, she took it kinda personal 
!
John
Goschi, I really enjoyed your comments and explnation of the German language concerning the gender of things. Never thought of it in the sence you are saying about gender of an object, it is very interesting. Thank you for posting. There is a neat picture of a dulcimer compared to a womans body, if I can find it again I will post it.
Goschi said:
Thanks for all your answers and different opinions! I appreciate all of them and some really made me laugh!
If you look at it from a statistical point of view, it is true that in the German language many musical instruments are regarded as being feminine (trumpet, trombone, violin [BUT: a cello is neuter!], organ, guitar, zither but also flute / recorder, so maybe Freud could have been mistaken at that point) or neuter (piano, accordion, bugle / cornet, cello, saxophone, banjo [even though it has a guitar-like neck!]), glockenspiel, Scheitholt etc.). Compared to that, I have found only very few examples for musical instruments that are regarded as being masculine in the German language. Most of them are compound words, and the genus is given by the last word component for example "Der Dudelsack" (bagpipe), because "Sack" is masculine.
Interesting: in German grammar, the word "chalumeau" is defined as being neuter. The corresponding word "Schalmei", which has come into the German language some centuries earlier, is defined as being feminine. So that example shows that words can change their genus over the years.
Now to make things even more complicated, the word "dulcimer" seems to be derivated from a mixed expression "dulce" (Latin) and "melos" (Greek). "melos" / "" in Greek is an irregular word (because it is neuter, but doesn't have the "typical" ending for neutral words ("-on"), but "-os", which in most cases is the ending for masculine words in Greek). Mmmh, that doesn't make things easier...
The problem is: there are "logical" arguments for all three alternatives.
Grammaticaly, I have been tending to use the masculine article so far.
But on the other hand, I can't deny that my hourglass dulcimer in fact has appealing curves and I think these emotions could persuade me to look at my dulcimer as being a "she" from now on
On the other hand again I am expecting to receive two McSpadden dulcimers in a few weeks. One of them is a "Ginger" model. Now I wonder: should I name the other one (a standard model) "Fred"? Questions upon questions
I just seem to alway call mine female,
prob because of the beautiful shape
. Although if they made a dulcimer based on my shape it would look more like a kettle drum . Most of mine have female names, my favorite being Curly Sue, she is a modern mountain made of curly maple with a beautiful voice
. She's a big girl though and has a double bottom like me
. LOL
Sam your just BAD! LOL
Sam said:
Well when one sits on MY lap and I gently rub oil along all those curves, in and around all those nooks, crannies, orifaces ... believe me .. it's a SHE !!!!!!!!!!!!!
OH NO YOU DIDN"T!!!!
LOL But your little wifie gave you a good going 
over when you got home. And well deserved I might add.
John Henry said:
Wow ! Every now and again this site throws me a 'curved ball', and I worry about whether I am clever enough to be here
. If I talk of them then it would be my 'Baritone', my 'English Walnut', my 'TMB', the 'Purpleheart', or my 'Virginia' (whoops, exception to the rule there, tho' with good reason !) Just once did I make the connection between dulcimers and gender
I repeat, definately 'it' for me !
JohnH
(how could anyone resist not referring to 'my sweet little Ginger',
