It has been the third year of International Appalachian Dulcimer Day. A five year celebration could be a great idea. Might give us all enough time to share our ideas and put together something really nice.
After reading some of the recent posts here, I went back and read the posts in The Positive Thread. Steve, I think you should go ahead and write up something about the beginning of International Appalachian Dulcimer Day. Am I correct in thinking that this was our fourth celebration or was it the third. Perhaps for our fifth anniversary we could put Steve's article about the origin of the day in that year's DPN; probably for the issue that usually comes out in February. Or we could all get a cupcake, put 5 candles on it, play Happy Birthday on our dulcimers, and blow the candles out.
Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."
I made a video announcement back in 2022 and it got quite a few views on YT-- I'd shared it to FB. I started hash-tagging posts that same year, I believe. The photo you see to the left of this posting is one I began sharing a few years ago, after Dusty sent a few stickers he designed, my way. On fb, if anyone asks questions, such as "Is there a fb page" or "Who runs it/is in charge, etc." I let folks now it's a grassroots celebration of the spread of the Appalachian dulcimer from the Appalachians to countries around the world. And no one is in charge. Any creative endeavor featuring mountain dulcimer is welcome for sharing. 
Mystery or public-- each is a good choice! 
I think we should not rush to take credit, it might slow momentum. A mystery is far more interesting and people are running with it. I belong to a large dulcimer group here and the newsletter person asked me if I knew anything about it, I didn’t try to hide the fact of its origin, but I was informed that there has been a great deal of talk and enthusiasm for the Day. There will be a time when we should share the history of it in a formal way, but I think that for the moment the “obscure origins” is working for the event and the event matters most. I do think that Dusty you should document its history, especially since your post set us all on this journey. It will be important later. But, I always live by the code, that we can do a great deal of good in this world as long as we don’t care who gets the credit. Not that one should not take credit where it is due, but it is always best to let them ask first.
I think we should not rush to take credit, it might slow momentum. A mystery is far more interesting and people are running with it. I belong to a large dulcimer group here and the newsletter person asked me if I knew anything about it, I didn’t try to hide the fact of its origin, but I was informed that there has been a great deal of talk and enthusiasm for the Day. There will be a time when we should share the history of it in a formal way, but I think that for the moment the “obscure origins” is working for the event and the event matters most. I do think that Dusty you should document its history, especially since your post set us all on this journey. It will be important later. But, I always live by the code, that we can do a great deal of good in this world as long as we don’t care who gets the credit.
Personally Dusty, as someone who has struggled from a lack of definitive information on many dulcimer topics, I'd love for you to put it in black letters
Well, everybody, it appears our efforts to create International Appalachian Dulcimer Day has been a success, if we define success as the growing awareness of others of this special day to honor a special instrument. People who know nothing about our efforts here are now referring to this day and it is becoming part of dulcimer lore.
The question before us now is whether we want the origin of IADD to remain "an unofficial holiday of obscure origin," much like the instrument itself, or whether we want to assert the role of FOTMD in creating the day.
One of us (I would volunteer) could easily write up a few sentences on the creation of IADD here at FOTMD and insert those lines into the Wikipedia entry on the mountain dulcimer. The evidence (first in the Positive Thread and then here) is clear.
Should we assert our role as the originators or is it best to leave things "obscure"?
Unfortunately, my IADD video has been postponed too long to matter :(. Lesson learned, and next year i will make a point to prepare a video ahead of time so that its already ready on IADD
For what its worth, I have used one of those under bridge pickups that i took off an electric acoustic guitar and put it on a dulcimer, and did not trim the excess of the braided wire, but instead just drilled a small hole at the edge of the fretboard under the bridge for the excess wire to be tucked into. It sounds great and in the future i might be glad i kept the bit of extra length
International Appalachian Dulcimer Day (with all its "nicknames") is, indeed, an unofficial holiday of obscure origin. 
Yeah, this is kind of what I was afraid of
> It does take "some skill," but not a whole bunch. My kit came with paper templates for the holes. Other than a drill, I used only hobby/craft hand tools. The wiring is all plug-in, and the holes you cut for the tuner/controller and battery/jack boxes allow you to pass the wires for hook-up.I even appear to have all the tools needed. It's till terrifying!
Ukulele fret boards are essentially the same width as those on dulcimers- about 1 1/2 inches. Guitar pickups are wider, but they say they can be cut. That's why I pointed to the ukulele version.
The piezo element itself looks sort of like a black match stick with a wire on one end. As I recall, I think I just cut the height of the "bone" (probably plastic) saddle down, slide the pickup into the slot, and put the saddle back on top. Some ukulele people appear to put it along the outer edge of the bone saddle, probably raising the strings be a tiny amount.
The rest of the procedure is covered reasonably well in a number of YouTube videos. I think this one is pretty good.
If you are doing it for the first time, you might want to do it on a cheap instrument.
It does take "some skill," but not a whole bunch. My kit came with paper templates for the holes. Other than a drill, I used only hobby/craft hand tools. The wiring is all plug-in, and the holes you cut for the tuner/controller and battery/jack boxes allow you to pass the wires for hook-up.
I laughed out loud when I read this post from Buttermilk Junction, some of it is AI I think. At least it is being noticed. Though all of us are “of obscure origin.” The first paragraph is what tickled me, the rest is Wikipedia I think.
☞Buttermilk Junction wishes all of our Facebook fans a Happy National Appalachian Dulcimer Day!
☞Today, Saturday, March 29, 2025 is National Appalachian Dulcimer Day, a.k.a. International Mountain Dulcimer Day, an unofficial holiday of obscure origin that is celebrated annually on the last Saturday of the month of March in honor of the traditional stringed musical instrument that is variously known as the Appalachian Dulcimer, the Mountain Dulcimer, & the Lap Dulcimer. It is noteworthy that, despite the similarity in name, the Appalachian Dulcimer is unrelated to the ancient stringed instrument known as the “Hammered Dulcimer.”
☞According to Wikipedia: The Appalachian dulcimer (many variant names; see below) is a fretted string instrument of the zither family, typically with three or four strings, originally played in the Appalachian region of the United States. The body extends the length of the fingerboard, & its fretting is generally diatonic.
☞Although the Appalachian dulcimer first appeared in the early 19th Century amongst Scotch-Irish immigrant communities in the Appalachian Mountains, the instrument has no known precedent in Ireland, Scotland or Northern England. Because of this, & a dearth of written records, the history of the Appalachian dulcimer has been, until fairly recently, largely speculative. Since 1980, more extensive research has traced the instrument’s development through several distinct periods, & its likely origins in several similar European instruments: the Swedish Hummel, the Norwegian Langeleik, the German Scheitholt, & the French Épinette des Vosges. Folk historian Lucy M. Long said of the instrument’s history:
Because few historical records of the dulcimer exist, the origins of the instrument were open to speculation until recently when Ralph Lee Smith & L. Alan Smith reconstructed the instrument’s history by analyzing older dulcimers. The organological development of the dulcimer divides into three periods: transitional (1700 to mid-1800s), pre-revival or traditional (mid-1800s to 1940), & revival or contemporary (after 1940).
☞In the mid-20th Century, the dulcimer was brought out from relative obscurity by noted American Folk Music singer, songwriter, & Appalachian dulcimer player Jean Ritchie (1922-2015), “The Mother of Folk Music,” who was born at the village of Viper in Perry County in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Jean Ritchie’s dulcimer playing led directly to the “Dulcimer Revival” of the 1950s & 1960s.
☞According to Wikipedia: The Appalachian dulcimer achieved a renaissance in the 1950s urban folk music revival in the United States through the work of Jean Ritchie, a Kentucky musician who introduced the instrument to New York City audiences. In the early 1960s, Ritchie & her partner George Pickow began distributing dulcimers made by her Kentucky relative Jethro Amburgey, then the woodworking instructor at the Hindman Settlement School. They eventually began producing their own instruments in New York City. By 1965 the instrument was a familiar presence in Folk-Music circles.
☞The undated photograph depicts Jean Ritchie, “The Mother of Folk Music,” with her Appalachian dulcimer.
The problem with a stick-on pickup is that it will not only amplify the strings, but also anything that touches your dulcimer like your hands, picks hitting the fret board, and the sound waves hitting it from nearby instruments. While the example shared by Wally is attractive, it will take some skill to cut holes in the side of your dulcimer. Not knowing the width of your fret board you need to be careful about the length of the pickup. One thing that would discourage me from using it is where the wire comes off of the pickup. It seems to me if it fits the fret board the wire would be exposed. L.R. Baggs makes a nice bridge pickup for mountain dulcimers in two widths, but it is over 12 times the price of Wally's example. Plus you would have the expense of an end pin jack. Of course, with any pickup, you will an amplifier and cable. This is all food for thought.
Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."
Since you have a serious need for a pickup, I would not suggest a stick-on mounted on the face of the dulcimer. Particularly since you say you feel sounds from other instruments on it.
I would suggest a piezo pickup under the "bridge" of the sort shown here.
If installed with the pre-amp/tuner you add many of the features found on electric guitars, etc. I installed a similar unit on a cheap, used dulcimer, and it works. I don't use the pickup since I play quietly in an all acoustic group, but I have tested it with a 10 watt guitar amp and it works well. I do use the tuner - it doesn't get lost in my case.
To put it simply and summarize my previous post, it seems that the sound in the middle of the string is "warmer" and "mellow" because it is energetically dominated by low odd overtones that mimic the perfect major chord (#1 = root, #3 = fifth to the octave and #5 = major third to the superoctave). This perfection is gradually broken going towards the bridge, activating less consonant overtones of higher frequencies....
Thank you for this very interesting discussion.
Excited by the question,I took some measurements on the melody string of one of my dulcimers with an acoustic spectrometer. I successively plucked the string at different points along the VSL, starting in the middle (fret 7) and gradually moving toward the bridge.
The measurements showed that all the notes emitted had exactly the same scale of overtones (I measured up to the 27th...).Qualitatively speaking, none of the resulting sounds was purer than any other, wherever the string was plucked.
The only visible difference between all these sounds was the energy associated with each individual wave. I read somewhere in this thread that the octave (second overtone) might be responsible for the mellowness of the note obtained in the middle of the string, but this overtone was actually almost nonexistent at this plucking point, where odd overtones #3, #5, and #7 dominated the vibrational energy. The octave only appeared when moving toward the bridge, around frets 11-12, and disappeared again toward the bridge.
Near the bridge, too, the vibrational energy was distributed between overtones #3 to #8 with higher frequencies, in keeping with the brightness of the resulting sound, and its slightly acidic character, given that the higher overtones become a bit dissonant (this is quite noticeable for #7).
If that helps...
Really well said John.
I commend and thank you for contributing to the scientific understanding of string physics. The words may be subjective, but this thread has compelled me to try to understand the "objective" side of tone a little more.
Since we seem to agree where a string is plucked does make a difference, let’s not forget that the main thing is to use the varying sounds to make better music.
Adjectives for sounds such as “warm”, “bright”, and so on are subjective. How we perceive and describe things varies. Discrepancies among us should be met with tolerance.
There may be a reason why plucking somewhat away from the center might be preferable to plucking exactly in the center. The mathematical analysis predicts that as the pluck point is moved away from the center, the overtones get stronger, but not uniformly. The overtone that comes in strongest first is the octave overtone. To my ear, octaves reinforce (for lack of a better word) a pitch. Try playing D (open bass string) and then Ddd (open bass string, 3rd fret middle string, open melody string) to get a sense of this.
Thanks for the discussion.
I play semi-regularly with a small/informal (work) jam band. Not only is my dulcimer impossible to hear over amplified instruments, but I feel their music resonating in my dulcimer more than my own strings.
I've seen those stick-on piezo pickups, but my question is would those even function in an environment where I'm feeling other instrument's in my own soundbox over my own strumming? And if not, what should I look for/ask a luthier to do for me?
This topic has got me doing a lot of research and really appreciating how far beyond me most of this stuff is to try to wrap my head around. After a few hours playing around in an audio spectrum visualizer, Im really starting to appreciate just how unreliable my ear is.
Such fascinating stuff
I think overtones are associated with our perception of depth. An example of an instrument with almost no overtones is a tuning fork, and an example of an instrument with many pronounced overtones is a cello.
I also think what Dusty mentioned about the string being floppier near the middle may be the main reason that the tone is so different near the middle of the string. I have noticed that the actual pitch of the string wobbles a lot more when I pluck near the middle. Though very unscientific, I just plucked my string as hard as I could right at the bridge and noted that the frequency wobbled in a range of 1 cent. I plucked as hard as I could at the middle of the string and found that it wobbled in a range of about 4 cents. Since the actual string is producing a larger range of frequencies when plucked at the middle, this might be another factor for why the tone is "warmer" near the midpoint of the string.
I've been wondering a lot about this stuff for a while. I think today is the day I make string striking pendulum and start experimenting!
Thanks so much for your input.
To my ears, a note does sound more 'clear' when plucked closer to a bridge, but it also sounds more hard and 'tinny' (to me), while a note plucked closer to middle of string sounds rounder and warmer, but I'm not necessarily hearing 'overtones' in it, just a little more depth. The 'tinny' quality strikes me as more of an overtone, if anything. With any description within the human senses, I think there is a certain amount of subjectivity based on personal perception of sound, taste, touch, etc.
Thanks so much, John for that explanation. Basically, you are defining purity of tone as a minimum of overtones. That seems logical.
But it also raises a question which I asked earlier, which is how the mathematical definition of purity of tone corresponds to what we subjectively hear. It certainly seems to our ears that the brighter sound of notes plucked closer to the bridge is more accurate or pure than the warmer sound of notes plucked closer to the center.
My question about fingers and pick was, well, kind of stupid honestly, since clearly those are variables you would want to hold constant if you did a physical experiment and something you would not choose to address in a theoretical simulation.
But there are real-world issues that muddy the cleanliness of your mathematical model. In your first diagram of the inverted V, h represents the extent of the pluck, or how much the string is pulled before being plucked. But there is a lot less tension on the string in the middle than there is on the ends. To pull that string to the same extent by the bridge would result in a much more violent release, increasing the volume, certainly, but also, I assume, changing the nature of the string's vibrations. I think you might need to add another factor--string tension--to this study and adjust h in that diagram to keep tension constant. Does that make sense?
Thank you for taking the time to explain John. I have to admit, I find the results counterintuitive. If a "purer" tone means less overtones, and an instrument like a flute is an example of a very pure tone with few overtones, it seems to me that I get a "purer" tone while plucking near the end of the string than I do close to the middle.
I've attached a response for Dusty and Nate. Others are welcome to dig in. It's a little lengthy, so I had to put it in a zip file which you should find attached.
Someone's idea of an upgraded McSpadden kit.
It resmbles a McSpadden teardrop dulcimer, but the use of 5 pieces on the back sets it apart. Also the red color is different, and the type of tuners. It may be a homemade copy of a McSpadden.
Funny...there were 2 McSpaddens in the same lot. This one does not have the stamp though.
I've heard it said that the closer to the midpoint, the more freely the string can excite overtone frequencies. The way it was explained to me is that when the string is divided into two lengths on either side of your plectrum, whichever length is shorter will limit the overtones of the longer one, and therefore the greater the difference between the two lengths, the more the fundamental is emphasized, whereas the closer the two lengths are to equal, the more overtones are emphasized.
Looks like a McSpadden. They often had their name stamped below the bridge area. Most likely a kit.
I was wondering if any of my friends recognize this builder. There is no tag inside the dulcimer so I'm thinking it is a homemade. That scroll head is pretty distinctive, though. Thank you for your help!
If I understand you, @johnr, by "middle" you mean at half the string's length, or the octave (7th fret on a dulcimer, 12th fret on all those chromatic instruments). We would normally say you get a "warmer" or "softer" tone there than you do towards the bridge, where the tone is usually described as "brighter." So the warmer tone corresponds to what you describe as "purer" based on the sound waves. By "purer" do you mean that there are fewer waves that bunch together to make a note?
How did you pluck or strum the string? Whether you use a plectrum or bare fingers also affects the tone in ways that I assume you could measure.
FOTMD is where IADD was conceived. 
In response to Dusty's "How Do You Measure Tone Mathematically" - I would call it more of a description. A very simple, perfectly pure tone for a specific note would be a wave. Real tones are actually built from a bunch of waves which are related to a basic wave which corresponds to the note. The relative strengths of those tones are the basically the heights of the waves. Mathematically these satisfy a partial differential equation which is known as (TA DA) the vibrating string equation (or wave equation). The remaining part is how these waves get going. That's what happens when you pluck a string. What I was able to show, mathematically, is that where (near the end or near the middle) matters. Closer to the middle gives a purer tone. I think that's what dulcimer players intuited a long time ago.
@robin-thompson Yup. I'd say you folks got the ball rolling, and now it's gathering some momentum. I tell everybody that the dulcimer is a more logical first stringed instrument than the guitar, so it makes good sense.
@ken-longfield Thanks ... and you're very welcome!
Sam, thanks for the information about Brandi's song and for the link to Tim Hanseroth-- I'd watched that some time ago yet hadn't looked at it lately.
Participation in IADD came from different countries-- Ireland, England, Australia, US, and, perhaps, other countries of which I'm unaware. So glad to see many places represented!
VibratingStringExplanation.zip - 67KB
