Forum Activity for @phil

Thanks John Merry Christmas

John Keane said:

Merry Christmas Phil!

Dusty you found out my secret Identity.

Merry Christmas

Dusty Turtle said:

Thanks Santa, er, uh, I mean Phil. Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Thank you Jim. I hope my next one will be a lot better.

Merry Christmas.

Jim Fawcett said:

Not bad at all, Phil. Thanks, and Merry Christmas.

Ron Thank you, I hope you've had a Merry Christmas. I think I have a good Doc he keeps check on me once a month and makes sure I have what I need. But I am just an old Jar headed Marin They never thought us how to give up or go backwards. so I just keep pushing forward. gues in short what I am saying if something don't work for me I find another way to do it.

Here's to 2013 best wish.

Thanks Santa, er, uh, I mean Phil. Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Not bad at all, Phil. Thanks, and Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas Phil!

Very nice, Phil.

Thanks ya'll Hope your all having a Merry Christmas.

I knew there was a link just could not find it, looks like I did the right thing.Thanks Strumelia.

Thank you, Phil! I hope you and your loved ones are having a nice Christmas!

Your link works fine now. Nice job Phil !! Great spirit, and love the hat. It sounds real pretty to me.

(Yes, I believe little drummer boy is copyrighted. A good list for checking some carols can be seen here . Thanks!)

Thank you John Merry Christmas from Indiana

is little drummer boy copyrighted?

was not sure where to post this so here it is. You could call this playing with Arthritis my hands where not working to good. I still hope you can enjoy it. I was not sure if the first song was copyrighted or not so here is the link to youtube.

I have ebony on my Aeolus dulcimers, and I agree it makes a superior fretboard. But then again, Dale has a large amount of high quality ebony that he has been aging and storing properly for a great many years. I'm not so sure about the ebony that is currently on the market. It's becoming threatened due to unsustainable harvesting practices.

I have a rosewood overlay on one of my dulcimers. My son has a wenge overlay on his. Both are nice, but I think ebony is best the fret board material. I have it on one of my guitars and two banjos. I just like the feel and speed of an ebony fret board. I have walnut fret boards on my other dulcimers and have not problem with them. I do not use Fast Fret on any of my instruments, do not treat the fret boards often or regularly, nor clean them often or regularly. My rosewood fret board is oiled from the oil in my fingers. All the other fret boards are oiled the same way. I have fret boards finished with violin varnish, lacquer and no finish at all. I never noticed any appreciable difference in sound quality or volume from different fret board construction. Ken Hulme likes Titebond. I like Elmer's Carpenters' Wood Glue. Their formulations are similar I think.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song.'

"How does one attach an overlay?"

Glue. Titebond II or III for preference. The fret slots are them cut in the overlay.

Rosewood and wenge are nice alternatives to Ebony.

Here are a few of the downsides to ebony fretboards.

It is brittle and can be hard to work with. It is prone to chipping if you ever have to re-fret. It is prone to cracking over time. The best trees are gone and the quality is not what it used to be. The good stuff today is likely to be unethically obtained at best or even illegally logged so a lot of what's sold as ebony now is actually other spieces not quite as black or hard. It doesn't take staple frets easily - it must be pre-drilled and the leg spacing and angle on the drilled holes perfect or the frets will not bed properly. It is expensive.

An ebony fretboard is at the top of my list of "must-haves" for every dulcimer I have ever bought, or ever will buy. If you haven't played on one, you're in for a pleasant surprise. You're gonna love it!

Dewey

I think ebony is the best fret board material although none of my dulcimers have ebony fret boards. I have one dulcimer with an unfinished rosewood fret board. All the others are walnut fret boards with different finishes from violin varnish to lacquer.

Since the action of the fingers/ noter/strings will wear away any finish used on a fret board, violin makers adopted ebony for finger board use centuries ago. It's hardness allowed it to resist wear, and the natural oily quality made ebony difficult to varnish. These natural oils made a finish unnecessary on the finger boards. Ebony is still the preferred finger board wood for violin makers. Guitar builders use a lot of rosewood as well, because it's cheaper and in much better supply, but most high end guitars use ebony.

Paul

I would agree that ebony makes iteasier to slide fingersaround and therefore encourages faster fingering. But the hardness of the wood also makes it much more resistant to pick marks. If, like me,you often strum over the fretboard rather than in the strum hollow, and if, like me, you occasionally do so with a little too much exuberance, then you sometimes leave pick marks on the corners of the fretboard. Ebony resists those marks due to the hardness of the wood.

I had a dulcimer with a padauk overlay that was fast, but not as fast as ebony.

I do not believe having a fretboard overlay would affect sound in any way.

In agreement with Mary. Faster, Smoother, and resists wear.

I like Ebony or Wenge, I've had great success using Beech as well.

I use just a very light application of lemon oil to clean off the crud and moisturise the wood.

Beware very glassy finishes on fretboards, they are quite contradictory and not as fast as you may think if you have even the slightest trace of moisture on your fingers.

john

First, hardly anyone ever varnishes/lacquers the tiop of the fretboard. Too prone to quickly being worn away and looking nasty. Oiled fretboards are very common. So is an ebony overlay. The advantage of ebony (virtually zero disadvantages) i that that wood is so much harder and finer pored, and thus, when sanded/polished fine, it is much faster when you're sliding fingers or noters up and down. Faster even than a freshly oiled non ebony fretboard polished fine. Few woods are harder - Snakewood and Lignum Vitae come to mind - but they're even more expensive than ebony...

Dulcimer have three courses of strings - bass drone, middle drone and melody. Any of those courses can have two or even three strings. The idea of the doubled melody course is that with the modern more voluminous-bodied dulcimers played traditionally (not-chord melody style), the doubled melody course provided more volume to balance against the increased bass/baritone response inherent in larger bodied dulcimers.

As mentioned above, most builders there days (but not all) use the doubled melody course. From the player standpoint the advantage is that you can play single or double depending on what you prefer.

My recommendation is that you learn to play with the doubled melody course. Then after six months or so of experience you can decide whether you want to continue that way or not.

Check out my blog article called I Just Got A Dulcimer, Now What? It's an illustrated glossary of terms, plus answers to many beginner questions of tuning, playing, care and feeding of your dulcimer:

http://mountaindulcimer.ning.com/profiles/blogs/i-just-got-a-dulcimer-now-what

There are a couple of threads that cover all aspects of this. Here is one . I would stick with a setup that allows either so you have some flexibility, and not let anyone tell you that one way or the other is "wrong." I started with four, and quickly discovered that the doubled melody course didn't suit my playing style. So, I took one off. My second instrument only has three, but I knew I was happy with that setup.

A related question is whether you want an extra fret or two. I had a 1.5 and 8.5 added to my first dulcimer, and bought the second one with them already installed. Unlike tuners, frets are reasonably easy to add later.

Most dulcimers come with a doubled melody string, 2 strings tuned to the same note, and placed very close together. The idea here is to have the melody a bit louder than the other strings. They are and used as if they were one string. Some players like to separate the pair, tuning them to different notes. This allows 4 note chords, and also can allow the use of tunings which have no missing notes. This is used a lot by players who like to play swing and other styles of music that require more complex melodies and chords from outside the key in which the song is written. There are a number of tunings using this setup.

Some players use only a single melody string, either buying a 3 string dulcimer, or removing one of the paired strings. Often this is done to make it a bit easier to learn the instrument, though I don't think the difference is significant, if the string height was properly adjusted before purchase.

Like Rob, I have one dulcimer on which I have tried using several different string set ups. I did go so far as to add a 5th string to it, though, as Rob said, most dulcimers won't have enough space on the peg head to add another tuning machine. I managed to fit one in, but a dulcimer designed for 5 strings might have been a good idea. After all, we all want "just one more."

Some of this is due to players wanting to do things the 3 note tuning doesn't allow. My 5 string lets me do things a bit differently than my other dulcimer. Is it necessary? Not a bit. But we sometimes indulge our whims. Robs suggestions are good. They will allow you to experiment with a few set ups and playing styles without making expensive changes, or buying more dulcimers. Not that buying more is a bad thing, as long as you aren't raiding the kids piggy bank to do so. If there are specific styles of music you want to play, this may affect your decision. What do you have in mind?

Paul

Angela. get one with four, but with the nut and bridge notched for different configurations: paired melody, paired middle, 4 independent or like Robin says take one off and use 3. I like 4 stringers so I can change 'em around. I keep several in 4 independent, a couple I've taken one off and play with 3, and 2 I keep with paired melody for (primarily) noter playing. Your big names like McSpadden & Folkcraft come that way from the shop. Many individual makers do the same, or will notch the bridge and nut as you want. Again, with 4 you can take one off, but you can't add one to a 3 string (my opinion.)

Rob

Hi, Angela! I have dulcimers with 4 tuning pegs yet I only have 3 strings on them. The number of strings is really just a matter of personal preference (based on different factors, the type/style of music you wish to play being one of those factors).

There is a "For Sale" area that can be found by by clicking on FORUMS/discussions in the green strip above and scrolling down the page a bit. Oftentimes these are used instruments for sale. Here is a link you may wish to spend some time checking out:

http://mountaindulcimer.ning.com/group/beginnerplayers/forum/topics/what-should-a-beginner-look?commentId=3745489%3AComment%3A83151&groupId=3745489%3AGroup%3A36

Hope this helps!

Piet;

Yep, similar, but depending on how each is aged 'cured' it will work a little differently. I've had some white tail antler that is harder than bone but works very well with a good file then finish sanding. Cow, sheep and buffalo horn will have layers so you have to account for that. Hoof from a cow, deer or buffalo is usuall thin and makes pretty good inlay material. It takes glue pretty good. You'll find variation even in bone, it's just more pronounced in some other 'critter parts'. If you work with cow horn, make sure it's cured ... good bit of shrinkage as it dries out.

Sam

Pieter Sanders said:

Hey, Sam.....what are antler, horn and hoof like to work with? Similar to bone, I would guess? Piet.

Sam said:

Love working bone ... hate the smell. I've used bone, antler, horn and even hoof to make doo dads and embellishments for a lot of the projects I enjoy. This is a great story, much enjoyed.

Love working bone ... hate the smell. I've used bone, antler, horn and even hoof to make doo dads and embellishments for a lot of the projects I enjoy. This is a great story, much enjoyed.

Got Bone

This reminds me of a very sad story from Mongolia called Suho and the White Horse.It's definitely not my favorite as a boy' loses his beloved horse. The horse's bones are used to make the horseheaded fiddle that is a Mongolian folk instrument.

Fortunately your story has a happy ending for your local fox.

Great story! I hope the fox enjoys all those potential dulcimer nuts and saddles.

Pieter, you have a lifetime supply of bone for nuts & saddles! Perhaps you'll want to play a tune for the butcher someday. ;)

That cow will never know that a teeny tiny bit of its leg bone will be making beautiful music for years to come. The fox will never know why such a magnificent gift, because of music. Isn't life funny!