Forum Activity for @dusty

@tonyg, I'm glad to hear of your discoveries on the instrument.  In traditional, modal dulcimer music, the tuning is dictated by the specific notes of the melody.  DAd gives you the lowered 7th note (found on the 6 fret), which does not exist in DAA (it would be on the 8+ fret).  So certain tunes such as Going to Boston or Old Joe Clark can only be played in DAd.

That lowered 7th note defines the mode as Mixolydian.  DAA, beginning on the 3rd fret, provides the major scale or Ionian mode, which has a regular 7th note on the 9th fret.

If you have a 6+ fret, you can play the major scale or Ionian mode in DAd, which is presumably why that extra fret became so popular.  And if you are fretting with your fingers and are comfortable moving to the middle string, then you can overcome the main limitation of playing trad tunes in DAd only on the melody string, which is that no notes are available below the open melody string (the root or tonic).

But the short answer to your question is that traditional players tune DAd whenever the melody requires that lowered seventh note.

After abandoning chord melody playing (former long time guitar player), I've been playing drone style, (but no noter though) using more traditional tunings, and have really come to appreciate the old time sound of the dulcimer.  However, the other day I tuned to DAD for the first time in a long time, and was pleasantly surprised to find how good this tuning sounds played drone style without any chords.  Since I don't use a noter, I can easily play a couple notes on the middle string when necessary.  It would seem most DAD players use chords, but I was wondering if any of you traditional players use DAD?  I guess you could say I'm becoming a  semi- traditional  player, ((no chords but no noter) using not-so-traditional chords (DAD/DGD).  Hmmmmmmm........

Hello world!

I’m Gareth, living just outside Edinburgh here in Scotland. I’ve played mandolin off/on for around 20 years (doesn’t make me good though!) and I drifted toward the Seagull Merlin family of instruments having noted them in a local music shop, along with mountain dulcimers. Exposure to traditional folk from the US got me interested in the dulcimer.

Presently I have two mandolins, a ‘project’ bouzouki and a Merlin which I bought gently used a few weeks ago. I’m finding the relative freedom of the Merlin to be really amazing and drawn to pick it up whenever I can. Usually while dinner is cooking or between meetings at work (when I’m working at home).

In the past I’ve played in a few groups with friends, then as part of a mandolin and guitar orchestra, but now mainly music-making is for my own amusement and general sanity.

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Thank you, Karen and Dusty. These embellishments are probably too advanced for me right now but I think I will still try the hammer-on and pull-off with some of the simple songs I’ve been playing by ear to get started and add some flair and variety.

I am saddened by the news of Terry's death. It is always somewhat of a mystery when an active member suddenly becomes silent. I wondered why he disappeared from the forum. Now I know. He was a delightfully positive person who truly cared about bringing joy and happiness to others. Yes, Dusty, loved that hat. RIP, Terry.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Sad news.  For a few years Terry was very active here and always had encouraging comments for everyone.  There was true joy in his heart and respect for the humanity in all of us.  Plus, he wore a good hat.  RIP.

So sad to hear. Terry was a great guy. We exchanged a lot of emails. I purchased a dulcimer from him one time. He invited me to stop by and visit him if ever I traveled his way.

I am very saddened to hear this news. Terry was a good friend to me when I first joined this site some ten years ago. He encouraged me to enjoy and appreciate my own style of playing (self taught) and singing. I hadn’t seen Terry on this site for some time but just attributed it to my own intermittent activities here (not on as much as I used to be). He was truly a good person. Rest In Peace Terry.

Thanks, Dusty!

Hi @karen-b, I arranged Beech Spring specifically to teach those left-hand techniques.  You can find my arrangement here .

In general, I find slow airs and ballads to be well suited to those techniques.  For example, see my arrangement of Calon Lân .

I wanted to add- Terry Wilson was very active in playing music for elderly and/or disabled folks. He was quite active in fotmd's "Dulcimer Therapy" Group , if you would like to Join that group to read all the inspiring threads there. In one of his threads in that group, he wrote the following a few years ago. I think Terry would like that I share his words here today:

"I'd sure like to see this group revived.  Senior Ministry is my heart.  I love it and participate with a passion.   I also head up our Senior Ministry at my church, with the name of SALT, which stands for Senior Adults Living Triumphantly.   And I am here to tell you, our group of approx 75 attempt to live this way every day.   We have ministries in Assisted Living Homes, Nursing homes, a Hospital, a food bank,  and a local Rescue Mission, and a Prison.   

We don't all go out and play music, in fact, I am the only one.  But we do lead bible studies, and our largest, sewing.  We distributed over 600 bags and pillows last year, and that's not counting blankets, bibs, and toiletries. 

I say all of the above, so you would know what I am all about, and it's genuine.   We have a heart for seniors.

Which leads me to say this:  "If you are considering performing at an Assisted Living Home, first, you must have a heart for it.   Compassion and passion. 

Don't wait until you are a great or even a good musician, just be willing and DO IT.   I play every week at one and every two weeks at another.   I do it all myself, except I have someone to come in and lead a 10 min. devotion.   I sing, play dulcimer, ukulele, and harmonica.  I AM NOT GOOD AT ANY OF THOSE!!!!  BUT THEY LOVE ME!!!!  Go figure, huh?   I consider myself just marginally adequate.   But my goodness, I have great fun, and it's great practice.   

Every week, one 94 year old woman will say; "We don't know what you are, but we sure do like you.  Thank you for coming."   Another lady will say: "There is no one quite like you."

One of the big differences between my ministry and others who come there is this:  I engage them.   I use them.  I encourage them to participate.  The less singing I have to do the better.

I provide song sheets to every song to hand out.  All in large print.   Take them up as each song is finished.   Can't give them to much at one time.   Even if they just look at the sheet and not sing, no matter, everyone gets one.   Their eyes tell you they want one.   I also provide hand shakers, and they love their shakers.  Great therapy.

Twice during the last 12 months I have bused the residents who participate to our church to perform for our church group.   It is a real "hoot", and they love it.  

I would sure love to hear what some of ya'll do.   I need some new stuff...

Okay, I'm off now to my "gig" with the old folks.  This morning from 10:00 until 11:00 is my time.   I'm amp't up this morning.

Thank You, Terry"

It's always sad to hear this type of news. May Terry RIP and his family find peace.

DddA is switching the strings from D3-A3-d4-d4 [standard DAdd] so the sizes would stay about the same, D3-.022W, A3-.012, d4- .010, adjusted to VSL.

I had some lovely interactions with Terry-- such as nice fellow!  I hope his passing was as peaceful as possible.  

Someone just let me know that fotmd member @Terry-Wilson passed away in Oct 2023.

I am very sad to hear this, as I had many fun discussions and interactions with Terry over the years here on FOTMD. A veteran, Terry was deeply dedicated to playing music and bringing joy to older people in living facilities. He played multiple instruments and enjoyed playing songs that everyone knew and could sing or clap along with. Terry had so much positive energy that he loved to share!
Terry we will miss you.

https://www.mathewsfuneralhome.com/obituaries/terry-wilson

Note that if one assumes an average dulcimer VSL (distance from nut to bridge) of around 27", one would need an impossibly thin string to tune way up to the 'a' note above high d (designated as D4, right above middle C). I believe any string would break before reaching that high of a note at that scale length, no matter what the gauge. So, on a normal sized dulcimer, any string tuned to the note of A would have to be tuned to an A note lower than middle C (C4).

Hi all. I’m looking for your favorite novice and intermediate-level tunes that lend themselves to incorporating hammer-ons, pull-offs and slides.  

Using a low wound D bass string, and a thin (.010?) unwound middle string in high d, and another thin or medium gauge string (.012/0.13?) for the melody string tuned to A (three notes below the high d)... would enable you to play in the key of D in ionian mode in noter style.  The tuning would be best labeled as DdA (I might have mistakenly typed it as Dda).  Fretting the melody string on the 3rd fret would then make it sound like a unison tuning of Ddd.  It's like DAA but without the '5th' on the middle string. It would have a unison tuning sound like Ddd, but would also give you the three extra lower notes to play on the melody string.  (It's late and I hope I'm not confusing anything in my explanation!)

@tonyg Indeed, I did.  Thanks for pointing out my error-- I'll correct the posting.  And hope I use the correct "A".  I'm a dunce when writing/talking about music.   

Robin......did you mean Ddda?

I play DddA (using doubled high drones) and like it lots.  I've been stringing instruments for awhile with a wound bass, doubled high drones, and single melody string.  

Never heard of that tuning, but if the middle string is an octave above the bass string--which is indicated by the lower case "d"--it probably has to be plain steel.

Dda........you don't hear much about this tuning.  Strumelia mentioned it in an old blog, and I was wondering if the middle string would be an unwound high d or a wound lower D like the bottom string?  Also, any thoughts or experiences with this tuning for drone style would be appreciated.  

"OOPS"  I will look in to

Thanks again Dusty after I posted this questing I found this web sit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykL2JYGP3CM 

Have not explore this site but at this point I do like that it gives you the Key and Tempo. I look in to Bings sit as well. 

Thank again Mr. Dusty :o)

Hey @lilley-pad, not everything is free, but . . . 

* On YouTube, you can just search for a tune, as in "Soldier's Joy backing track" and find some stuff.  And remember that you can slow down YouTube videos and the pitch will stay the same.

* I have learned a lot of songs from https://www.mandolessons.com/ .   For some of the tunes, there is a true backing track and for others he just plays the tune on the mandolin and then plays the chords while you are supposed to take the lead.

* Bing Futch has a series called "Mountain Dulcimer in the Band" that has backing tracks for all sorts of trad tunes.  I'm not sure what the prices are if you want to buy individual issues, but you can subscribe to him on Patreon for as little as $5 a month and get access to it all.  Then you can always cancel after a month if it's not what you're looking for.

* Years ago during my misguided effort to learn bluegrass mandolin, I purchased a product from Homespun Music called Steve Kaufman's Four-Hour Bluegrass Workout. It has both super slow and seriously up-to-speed versions of traditional bluegrass tunes, most of which are part of the old timey and folk traditions as well.  For each version, he takes the lead for the first verse and then the next two verses just have the backing tracks so you can practice.  I think there is a second series that has come out more recently, too, offering even more tunes.  But beware: As with the mandolessons site, the tunes are shared in the most common key in bluegrass jams, so while some (St. Anne's Reel, Soldier's Joy) will likely be in the key of D, others will be in C, G, or A or one of the relative minors.

Good luck searching!

@randy-adams, I'm in the @Nate fan club myself, but neither you nor I are as cute as those Swifties who will be joining us once Taylor plays a jell-o mold dulcimer in a Super Bowl ad.

Your comment about the number of professional dulcimer players in interesting.  How many professionals were there in the mid-1960s?  I have no idea.  But I bet there are more now. The internet has allowed folk musicians to reach a much larger market than would have been possible before.

Since I learned from Jean's column and before the 6+ fret became standard, I use DAA tuning most of the time.  I find chording easier (probably because I'm more familiar with this tuning.)

I first became interested in the mountain dulcimer after reading a Teach-In by Jean Ritchie in Sing Out! magazine in the early sixties.  Soon after that I bought Jean Ritchie, New Lost City Ramblers and Richard & Mimi Farina LPs with dulcimer playing on them.  I built my first crude dulcimer from hollow door mahogany and model RR plywood for the top, circa 1970. 
In the last decade I have had three musician friends buy dulcimers and have had two people request lessons.  There seemed to be a dip in the visibility of dulcimers after the great Folk Scare of the sixties, but in the last decade or so, they seem to be making a come-back.

My home made dulcimer

 homemadedulcimer.jpg - 32KB

This is an interesting conversation. I don't think there is a good method for measuring a decline or increase in popularity. Is it possible to compile a list of everyone building mountain dulcimers 15 years ago and today? Or a list of dulcimer clubs? Or the number of subscribers to Dulcimer Players News? Since the pandemic there seem to be less festivals and in person festivals seem to be declining in attendance. I have no concrete data to support this. Meanwhile, online mountain dulcimer groups and festivals seem to be increasing. Again, no concrete data. Two new museums of the Appalachian dulcimer have opened in the last year. I've been part of the mountain dulcimer community for over 50 years. I know many more dulcimer folk today than I did back then. Personally, I've never met anyone who told me that their interest in the mountain dulcimer began because it was included in a Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, or other concert by a popular musician or band.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

First I just want to say I hope everybody's happy and healthy well at least happy

 anyone out there have any resources, know where to find backing tracks preferably for free.

For practicing, playing along with?

Come to think about it, I guess it never really was what you'd call a popular instrument.  And one of my favorite quotes about the dulcimer went something like this:

"The mountain dulcimer.....that quiet, peaceful, personal instrument; meant to be played in some lonely log cabin, down some dark holler."

I believe I read that in "Four and Twenty" , a songbook which used to be included with McSpadden dulcimers.  I think Lynn McSpadden probably wrote it.  Of course, that was before the internet.

Hey now Dusty, the Nate fanclub may be small, but it has a quality few members. xD

I'm  a member! Quality debatable. : )

FB has numerous dulcimer groups w/multiple posts per day.

The online dulcimer get togethers have provided an opportunity for pro dulcimer players to pocket some jingle.

Biz is booming!

Though I can't recall where I saw it, Harry Styles got a dulcimer from Joellen Lapidus.  

Taylor Swift and Tracy Chapman, as I read in one of the more recent issues of DPN, purchased Blue Lion mountain dulcimers some years ago.  

One of the lovely things about the mountain dulcimer is they feel like such personal instruments-- meditative, even.  Though famous singers may own the instruments, they may not be part of public performance for them.  And that's cool, too.   

Friends,

International Appalachian Dulcimer Day is coming-- always the last Saturday in March.  This year's date is 29 March 2025.  Let's all celebrate the spread of the Appalachian dulcimer around the world!  

At least here in California, John, the majority of people who picked up the dulcimer in the early 70s did so because of Joni Mitchell and Richard Fariña.  There was no pre-existing dulcimer tradition out here until people heard those two pop stars.  And many of those people are still around, playing and teaching others.

When I got my first dulcimer I was employed teaching beginning guitar to some middle- and high-school students.  I brought my dulcimer in to show them my new toy, and they all got excited because they had just seen Cyndi Lauper play one on TV the night before. But by then, Lauper was old news.  When she had her hits back in the 1980s, she never appeared with a dulcimer (nor any instrument, for that matter).  Had she done so, perhaps I would have discovered the dulcimer decades earlier than I did.

Hey now Dusty, the Nate fanclub may be small, but it has a quality few members. xD

It's a very true point though. Popular artists of the 70s played a huge role in the re-emergence of the instrument. Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, etc. Often when you look at the comment section of tracks from that era that included dulcimer you will see people talking about how the sound stood out to them.

In modern times, Harry Styles, who was a member of the popular boy band One Direction, had a song that heavily featured the dulcimer and while his audience probably didnt notice, as a dulcimer player I definitely did.

Has the dulcimer playing of artists such as Brian Jones or Joni Mitchell or Cyndi Lauper or Dolly Parton made a measurable difference?  I don't know.

Maybe Ms. Swift should consider playing a dulcimer, if she could only sit down for two minutes in her concerts.  Attention would certainly be drawn to the dulcimer in such a situation.

Interesting question.  I'm not sure how to measure it, either.  The dulcimer was never a popular instrument. Even in Appalachia in the 19th century, it was less common, surely, than fiddles, banjos, and guitars.  The folk revival did indeed represent an apotheosis of sorts, but importantly, a lot of the people who took up the dulcimer then are still involved in the instrument. I've learned from many of them (Neal Hellman, Joellen Lapidus, Holly Tannen, etc.)

The original question references only the last 10-15 years.  Since I first discovered the dulcimer 13-14 years ago, I think my own perspective is useful here.

Until the pandemic, the number of dulcimer festivals was increasing.  And throughout that period, the number of people engaging about dulcimers online (FOTDM, ED, Facebook, etc.) has also been increasing.  In terms of the sheer number of people who own or play the instrument, I think there are more people involved now than there ever were.

And I'm not sure that the number of "commercial" builders is a measure of an instrument's popularity. First, as @Nate says, the dulcimer is relatively easy to build, and a lot of people build dulcimers for themselves or close friends. Second, and I will argue this until the cows come home and crush our tuners, we now have a small number of phenomenal luthiers making instruments that far surpass in quality of tone and playability the vast majority of instruments made in the past.  Even long-standing "commercial" luthiers such as Folkcraft and McSpadden are making much better instruments than they did decades ago, and if you add New Harmony and David Beede and Ron Ewing and Jerry Rockwell and Terry McCafferty and so many more, I think the number of outstanding dulcimers being produced is greater than ever.  Makers of some less impressive instruments have ceased, but I think that's not a bad thing.  Additionally, the market has been sufficient for low-end commercial builders like Roosbeck to enter the fray.

Having said all this, imagine if Taylor Swift would just play one song on the dulcimer in one of her concerts, I bet a whole bunch of teenage girls would get turned onto the instrument and before you can pick up your noter, there would be a NateBuildsToys Fan Club formed, their insignia a jello mold in the shape of a treble clef.

While I totally agree with you Wally, I think that dulcimer has recently rediscovered it's place as an instrument that is great for amateur builders to make for themselves. I have personally taught a bunch of people to build dulcimers. With modern tools and hardware, it's easier than ever for people to make their own dulcimers, and for people who like to build instruments, dulcimers and strumsticks are a common project.
Personally, I mainly built cigar box guitars before learning about dulcimers, and I have preferred making dulcimers since.
I think that the lack of commercial viability is also an indication of the durability or dulcimers, and the care given to them. There are probably more dulcimers out there than dulcimer players, so making new ones is best left to folks who make exceptional instruments, like many of the fine luthiers on this site.