Forum Activity for @ken-hulme

WHAT AN ODYSSEY!   Nearly perfect month in the UK  from the far south (Steyning on the coast of West Sussex) to Lincolnshire on the east coast.  Then up north beyond the northern tip of Scotland to the  Orkney islands, when humans first came to the UK tens of thousands of years ago.  Home to stone monuments, underground villages and religious centers as old or older than the pyramids and at least as impressive as Stonehenge.  From there driving diagonally Scotland to Oban on the west cost, down the The Great Glen (which includes Loch Ness).  Then diagonally the other way to Dunbar south of Edinburgh and on to the West March where my ancestors held sway around the towns of Coldstream, Kelso, Eyemouth and the stately homes/castles of Wedderburn, Duns, Marchemont and Hirsel (including the lands of the Blackadder branch of the family for you Rowan Atkinson fans).  After our Clan Gathering, we went south to Birmingham for a week or so before returning to the US.

Stain and lacquer or varnish are not the same things.  Lacquer or varnish provide a protective covering, which is clear or slightly red-golden in color.  Stain just colors the wood -- make your spruce look dark like oak or red like cherry or brown like mahogany.  Unless you have perfect pitch or extremely sensitive instruments you will never hear an effect that such tretments will have on the sound (at least until the finish gets 1/16" deep!).  

Awe!!!  Where's the sound? 

Pretty cute!

So easy, any one can play it - and my keyboard, my Fender, my Princeton, and my Yairi.....

Thanks, John, Ill give that some thought. I didn't think of spray lacquer/stain. 

@marg - if you are tuning to the key of D, then the note D would be "1" as you count on your fingers with the alphabet... and the fifth (5) from there would be A (D, E, F, G, A). That's the 1 (the tonic or key note) and its 5th note in the scale... D with A. Hence the popular tuning DAA.

1=tonic, 5=dominant. I never pay attention to absolute pitches.

(tuning is 1s and 5s)

sorry but what is that - could you say like Gg's or Aa's or Dd's

I'm glad Ken is fine and am sorry for the many who have fared badly.  Thank you for posting here, @richard-streib ! 

and i thought *I* had a lot of banjers. 

Thank you so much, Richard, for passing along this word since we know he was right in the worst hit area.

@strumelia.  It is 1 3/4" deep. I love the soundholes too: I figured they might jog someone's memory. The pegs stay perfectly in tune over long periods. If you mean the fretless in the pic, it is my copy of the Wm. Sidney Mount pic. [All - but two - of my almost hundred banjers are fretless.]

[I thought the little flap on the shoulder might be diagnostic, too.]

@marg. The strings came with it; the tuning is 1s and 5s.

I spoke with KenH this morning. He is fine. No power. No damage to his house. Some folks staying with him who did not fare so well.

I checked your FB - what size strings do you have on it & what is it tuned to? Sounds lovely

Perhaps a light coat or two of spray lacquer, such as Deft Semi-Gloss.  It dries quickly, too.

Well that's a really lovely instrument! I like that it's got a relatively shallow depth, so the sound will be bright and project nicely. Love the little sound holes too. Must be a bit of a job to tune though! 

Who made your fretless banjo?

Ken H, when you get a chance, please let us know how you are doing since hurricane Ian.  

Good morning!

Mainly for wood protection, a little for aesthetics. It is the naked-est of all the instruments I own (guitar resembling).

Stain -why?  Lacquer, maybe, will lose some mellow in the tone.  Pick guard, maybe, stick on, no, mounted off the surface, possible, need to know how you plan to mount.

I've been recording a lot lately and falling in love (again) with my beautiful cherry, 7-string American épinette. I have always bewailed the fact that I didn't know the maker; the man from whom I bought it only could offer that he had gotten it, used, in Virginia. I will, once again, reach out to the Internet dulcimer and other instrument community for help; if you have any information, please let me know. I am eager to know and, as I wind things down, and begin my instrument de-acquisition, I'm sure the next owner will appreciate it as well.
[It can be heard on several of my albums.]

My files are all too big. See my Facebook post for pix.

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10224215474392337&set=a.1860687234702

My older daughter did choir and madrigal in HS- full costume. Her senior year she was the Queen of the Madrigal “court”. The rest of them not so much musical, though. They have other interests. My 22 yr old son DM’s for about 4 different groups online and plays Warhammer 40k, my younger son and middle daughter are K-pop fanatics. We’re a weird lot

Welcome to the site!
Wow what a lot of music playing runs in your family- how nice!

I have a spruce Merlin and wonder if anyone has opinions on stain, partial lacquer, pick guard…yea/nay

it’s untreated, bare spruce. I know it might affect the sound a minute bit but I’m worried about damage over time. Sure I could buy another one- they are pretty inexpensive, but I’d like to avoid it. 

thoughts?

Hi, y’all. I’m Cedric “…. Hi Cedric…..” and I play a Merlin. Well, only recently,  but I majored in baroque, classical, operatic, and contemporary voice for almost 4 yrs, and I’ve played guitar as a noodler for about 30 yrs, so it’s coming along quickly. I dig 80s hair metal and classic rock but I also really love Rockabilly and outlaw country and rootsy/retro rootsy stuff.

My wife’s family has guitar, harmonica, mandolin, and a couple fiddle players in it. Family reunions are great, but unfortunately many of the rootsy instrument players have passed away over the last 23+ years that my wife and I have been together. So, I decided to take up dulcimer, to go with my boudrahn, tongue drum, and tin whistles. My wife is an orchestral percussionist, singer, and piano player. I also sing barbershop and did some undergrad study of how modern guitars evolved from citoles, gitterns, lutes, etc. As you can tell we are quite a musical household. 

 Army veteran, discharged in 2002 due to a stupid injury ( it’s funny now, though it wasn’t at the time…) I went in pre 9/11 and was out 6-7 months after- only a year total- so much for that college money, right? I had dropped out of college when my mom got cancer and moved my wife and son back to podunkville, so I didn’t need it anyway, at that moment. Luckily mom went into remission not long after I got out because she was my medical dependent, so no Army, no cancer treatment.  I finished college a few years later but in IT Management, basically has to start over since my music classes didn’t count except as electric 😂. I work for the VA now helping veterans since I barley feel like one, doing my part. I used to do IT for hospitals but that didn’t do much fit me other than cause stress. 

I’m a total polyglot! 

This may be off-discussion slightly, but I wanted to add my 2 cents (or maybe only a penny )

I have an old acoustic mic (sorry I have had it for years and don't even know the brand).  It used to have a nice clip on it - but that is broken.  The mic is on a bendable wire and fits nicely into almost all of the sound holes on my dulcimers.  My issue was that if you moved or bumped the mic or cord while playing - it of course would amplify the bang.  I was looking and recently found that Scotch Tape makes a wall-safe tape.  It worked wonders - I put the mic in a sound hole and then used the wall-safe tape to secure it.  Voila!  It holds good and the best part is - no residue!

As I said - this may be off-topic a bit, but maybe it would help somebody out there!

Keep strummin' and smilin'!

Cindy

Sounds like a fun time, Ken!  May God protect you and yours from the hurricane in the area.

Played some Border Ballads in The Scottish Borders, it's true -- Hugh the Graeme (mentions Clan Hume), Kinmont Willie, Tramps & Hawkers, Lammastide,  Lock the Door Lariston and more...   Spent four nights in Wedderburn Castle and used their kitchen to cook breakfast for the 20 or so clansmen and women staying there with us (the others had to do with whatever the could).

Now I'm hunkered down to endure the coming of hurricane Ian.

Rubbing alcohol and acetone dissolve dried super glue.

I wear nitrile or latex gloves when working with CA glue. It is nasty when you accidentally glue your fingers together.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Welcome home, Ken! I'm sure you have stories to tell.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

That's great work you're doing with kids, Erin!  You're not only helping kids learn the dulcimer, but you're preserving our folk song traditions.

Getting the younger generation excited about music is awesome, Erin. I started into music when I was 9 and have made it a life-long passion.

That's a crazy adventure Ken. Hope you don't get hit too badly by the hurricane now.

Glad you are safely back Kenh.

I haven't been on this site for a while, but was reminded of it today and wanted to check in to let everyone know about an online Youth Dulcimer Club I host. 

Youth Dulcimer Club meets weekly on Zoom on Monday evenings. It's for kids learning to play dulcimer -- any ages and levels are welcome. We've got kids from all over the US and Canada involved! Check it out at https://www.erinmaemusic.com/dulcimer-club

Welcome home, weary traveller!  Glad to hear you're back in one piece, and that you (mostly) enjoyed your time there on The Islands.  Hope the hurricane skips your area.

@ken-hulme I'm glad to learn you have arrived home all in one piece!  Y'all batten down the hatches and stay safe!  

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...."  Almost everything went perfect -- flight over, visiting friends and family in Sussex and Lincolnshire, Orkney and the Scottish Borders. 

Our Clan chief, the 15the Earl Home passed away about 10 days before the Queen.  His son, Michael succeeded as 16th Earl, and Charles succeeded a King Charles III.  The Clan Gathering went really well, and our new Chief was able to attend even though he's a member of The Company of Archers --  the Royal bodyguards when in Scotland.  We even saw him on TV as part of the processions and parades of the royal funeral.

Then we went down to Birmingham and ran into snags.  First Sally got Covid (relatively mild), which deleted our canalboat trips and delayed  our flight home.  Then an Aer Lingus SNAFU has our luggage somewhere at Birmingham International (we have iTrackers on them) and cost us a $175 taxi ride from B'ham to London Heathrow airport (all good there).  Caught a British Airways flight to the Dulles, near DC. Then home today to Florida.

And now.... we face the possibility of a hurricane!