Forum Activity for @theresasc

Ron makes some very nice, sweet sounding dulcimers, and I'm sure you'll be pleased with your purchase.  I've not been to Gebhard Woods, but the Festival has a long history and you should be very welcomed.  My advice is to take whatever classes appeal to you, regardless of the so called "skill level" listed.  Take the beginner classes, of course, but don't feel that you should only take those.  One day, down the road, something will happen and you'll go "THAT's what that teacher at Gebhart meant!

A number of years ago I wrote a booklet called I Just Got A Dulcimer, Now What? .  It's an illustrated glossary of dulcimr terms (so we all speak the same jargon), plus answers to many beginner questions about the tuning, playing, care and feeding of your new 'friend'.  Here's a link to the booklet to download or read on line:

Ken Hulme's "I Just Got A Dulcimer, Now What?" Article - Strumelia | fotmd.com

Anytime you have a question, feel free to ask them here,  There are no dumb questions, just ones that you haven't gotten answered yet.

Welcome Tull66.    Elsewhere you wrote:
I’m new here, don’t see how to start a new topic. I don’t own a dulcimer yet and want to know how to choose. I want to dabble making music, not looking for an heirloom.  Where do I begin? Thanks. Also looking for a mentor in Jeannette PA.

To start a New Discussion you go to the Discussions Tab and scroll down until you see the category you want to start a discussion in  -- This is the General Category.  Then in that category you click the + sign at the top right of the page, and a new window like this one appears.


Choosing a first dulcimer can be difficult because everyone here is going to recommend their own personal favorite brand/style and all that!

Since you at this point aren't even sure if you'll like the dulcimer, I suggest you start as inexpensively as you can while still getting an instrument you can trust.  Believe me, there are lots of cheap, fly-by-night "deals" out there to be avoided.  

I've been building and playing dulcimers since the mid-1970s, and have owned and played many different styles, brands,etc.  My advice to you, as a complete newcomer, is to choose one of the Cardboard dulcimers you can find here:

www.backyardmusic.com  › page › subpage › dulcimers › simplicity-dulcimer.htm
or here:
https://www.folkcraft.com  › products › cardboard-dulcimer-kit-2311071

It may sound almost silly.  But it isn't.  The material the body of a dulcimer is made from isn't particularly important.  Wood is the most common material, but there have also been perfectly good sounding dulcimers made out of Legos, thin plexiglass, gourds, and violin cases!  However, the accuracy of the spacing of the frets (to the nearest 1/100th of an inch or less) is critical.  Many of those "deal" dulcimers are made with inaccurate fretboards.  The cardboards instruments in the links above have VERY accurate fretboards, and are VERY suitable for a newcomer to learn to play. Those compoanies havebeen around for mny years and have thousands of satisfied customers. 

Once you've got some experience playing, and have hung around here reading and seeing what folks say about this and that -- for six months or so -- then you'll be better prepared to decide which next dulcimer you want.   BTW, finding a mentor would be a great thing, but many.many of us learned to play from one or another book, without any formal teacher.

IN the meantime, here is a link to a booklet I wrote a number of years ago called I Just Got A Dulcimer, Now What? .  It's an illustrated glossary of dulcimer terms (so we all speak the same jargon) plus answers to many beginner questions about the tuning, playing, care and feeding of your instrument.  Enjoy your journey!!

Ken Hulme's "I Just Got A Dulcimer, Now What?" Article - Strumelia | fotmd.com

Thanks Ken, as I am new to the board and to dulcimers, I was not sure how all that worked.

So, June 11 & 12 in Morris, IL there is a music festival and I for one, can't wait!  I had originally planned to try out mountain dulcimers there, but I was too impatient for that, so I ordered one from Ron Gibson.  Hopefully it will be here in time and I can take it with me.

Thanks for posting Theresa.  If a Festival organizer doesn't approach FOTMD and ask to post a Festival announcement in Events, it doesn't get posted.  Too much work for Lisa or the other Admins to keep track of all the Festivals out there. 

I did not see any mention of this festival in Illinois.  I am not a member of the sponsoring group, just that it is close enough to me that I am going to go.  It will be my first dulcimer festival and I am hoping that I have my instrument by then.  Is anyone here going?  It looks like there is a nice list of workshops and other happenings.

http://www.gebharddulcimer.org

Many thanks to you dulcimer veterans for sharing your knowledge!  Once again, you have given me helpful direction in my dulcimer journey.  I will heed your sage advice.

One other thing, the doubled melody string produces a different sound/tone than a single melody string. 

Why not give yourself both options.  As Dusty Turtle has pointed out, many builders are slotting the nut and bridge to allow either four equidistant string spacing or the double melody string option.  So there's no need to limit yourself to one of the options.  You can have both if you want them.

With that being said, I prefer a three string instrument for the majority of my playing.  I do, however, own a couple of four string dulcimers that are slotted for both four string equidistant spacing or four string double melody spacing.  The extra bridge and nut slots are barely noticeable.

Conventional dulcimers have three courses of strings -- melody, middle drone and bass drone.  Any one or all of those courses can have 1, 2, or even 3 strings.  They are played, and often tuned, exactly the same regardless of how many stringare in each course -- CCCGGGccc, CCGGcc, CCGccc or CcGgcc are all played the same way that CGc is played  

4-Equidistant strings are a different ball of wax.   They have 4 courses, and that 4th course adds an additional note to the  tunings and the creation of (by dulcimer standards) some 'exotic' chords that are unlike conventional chords.

I suggest you spend some time joining and reading the posts in that Four Equidstant Strings Group

Most dulcimers made nowadays have notches in the bridge and nut so that you can string them with four equidistant strings or with three courses and a double melody.  You can switch back and forth and don't have to choose!

There is a group here devoted to playing with four equidistant strings .  You might consider joining that group and perusing the discussions to see the variety of ways people tune with four strings.

I'm enjoying my three string dulcimer but am considering acquiring a four string instrument (can't have too many instruments!).  Most four strings have a double string but I've seen a few instruments in which all four strings are spaced equidistantly.  Should I stick with the standard double string arrangement or go the equidistant route?  Any input greatly appreciated. 

Having met both Kevin and Howard at the Redwood Dulcimer Day, I can say they are both kind, friendly folk.  Howard is always tickled to meet someone who plays one of the old Capritaurus dulcimers.  (Of course, he likes new orders, too!)

The Germantown Dulcimer Society was organized in June 2016. We are in SW Ohio and meet near Middletown/Germantown Ohio area.

We meet the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month at 6pm. Meeting place is Union Chapel United Methodist Church, 8284 Keister Rd, Middletown, Ohio. We generally have a traditional jam where we go around the circle and each person chooses a song. Sometimes we learn new songs, help newcomers with techniques, or discuss club activities. Bring your own tablature. If you want to be on our email list and receive more details on the meetings and new song tab just let me know thru this site.  

Hope to see some new folks!

Meeting dates for summer are    June 14, 28    July 12,26      August 9,23

---Debbie Simpkins

Wow, Ken, that's pretty cool you got to visit Mr. Rugg!  And you have a fun story about how it came to be, too.  :)

Thanks Robin. That was a delightful interview. Six years ago I had the good fortune to visit Howard in Felton. It was rather serendipitous as my wife made a mistake in navigating our camping trip. She booked us in to a campground about a mile from Howard's shop in Felton rather than finding a place closer to the Monterey peninsula where we were headed. I had a great visit with Howard. He is just as you see him in this video with Kevin and Bosco.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Mr. Rugg is 86 years old and has been building mountain dulcimers again.  

Yes, the beauty of it moved him to tears.

I remember that day he tried to play fiddle...brought tears to my eyes too!

Thank YOU Robin!  I didn't have to do much of anything- i just applied a new update. Looks like the both you and the developers spotted the bug independently, and they put out a fix for it yesterday. Solved!  

That was easy.

Lisa, I got notifications for all your most recent responses-- yay!  Thank you!  

Hi Robin. Just as I was about to ask for some help on this, I saw that a bug fix was released for our Comment module concerning notifications. It seems quite possible that this will fix our problem, so I applied the update.

I just now made new comments on one each of your photos, audio clip, and videos.
Please let me know now (again) if you receive notifications today for these 3 new comments I made.
Again, thanks for your help in testing!

Thanks, Strumelia!  

I realized I was not getting notifications, maybe, a couple weeks ago?  Yet thought it may be a temporary issue involved which would resolve.   

I received no notification for your comment on my photo, Robin.

Now that we have the issue narrowed down a little, we know it's a coding issue related to comments on media items, not a 'video' or 'audio' function issue specifically.
I'm going to see if I can get help locating the exact problem tomorrow. Usually this kind of thing is a matter of one of my custom modules needing updating in order to function correctly again with another module, like it used to.

Thank you so much Robin for noticing this, and for helping me test out where exactly this is happening (and not happening).
It's often hard to notice something that's missing, as opposed to some obvious problem that's immediately visible..

I'll respond back here when I find out more, hopefully tomorrow sometime.

Every chromatic dulcimer comes with a free diatonic hidden in plain sight. Ignore the extra frets until you need them. For some people this is no problem at all. For others it's confusing and it sounds wrong and they just don't like it. Either opinion is perfectly valid. It's your dulcimer.

I play chromatic. I play diatonic. I play half-breeds with 1.5 and 6.5 frets. Since you asked why NOT buy chromatic, here's what I got:

Chromatic is harder to play. It has wrong notes. This is not insurmountable. Think about the guitar players you know; are they all rocket scientists? If they can manage a chromatic fretboard, so can you. However, if you hate to practice scales you will probably be happier with a diatonic.

Noter speed bumps. Do you play with a noter? Can't stand the idea of your dulcimer sounding like a slide guitar? This is a dealbreaker for some. And some could not care less. Know thyself.

Lack of instructional materials. This is a big one. There are a few books and videos for learning chromatic dulcimer, but not nearly as many resources as diatonic. When an absolute beginner asks me about dulcimers, I usually steer them toward diatonic.

Modal scales get difficult. Dorian is my favorite mode for improvising, and it's so easy on a diatonic! Dial in the right tuning and off you go. Whereas learning all the scales on chromatic is a major learning curve.

Other dulcimer players fly into a panic. Seriously. A friend gets a dulcimer and wants to play together. Bring out a chromatic and they'll yelp in terror. It doesn't look the same. It's too complicated! I have to keep a diatonic around or I won't have any dulcimer friends.

It's not traditional. This matters to many people. And sometimes (living history events? tapping into your personal memories of dulcimers past?) it may matter to you. If the sound you fell in love with is the sound of a traditional silvery noter/drone modal dulcimer, a chromatic is unnecessary and will make it harder to replicate that old-time sound.

That said, if you already have a diatonic dulcimer and you're considering chromatic, and if you have the time and inclination to learn something new, then my advice is go for it.

Done! 

Ok, can you please leave a comment on one of my photos now?

I received notifications for the Group discussion, the Forum discussion, and this thread.  No notification for a comment on a photo.  

You're welcome, @strumelia! 

Before I try to get this fixed, I would like to test this on other types of 'item' that you created Robin...

I just left 'comments' on three more items you created: a photo, a Group discussion, and a Forum discussion.

Can you tell me which (if any) of my new comments generated a new notification for you?  Thanks!

Thanks Robin!

You're right, Strumelia-- I was notified about the "likes"! 

Robin- aside from not getting notified about 'comments'...

I just now 'liked' an audio and video of yours. Can you tell me if you get the usual private message notification for my two likes?  (i suspect you will get them for 'likes')

A couple of other points I forgot, a chromatic will probably be a bit more expensive to buy and much harder to sell.

Both Ken and Robin are correct.

Your instrument is personal.

As Jerry Rockwell says: It’s a possibility box.

Look at lots of video clips of folks playing a variety of music on a variety of different fretted dulcimer configurations and, perhaps, that will give you an idea of what approach you'd like to take to making music.  First and foremost, lean into what music is in your heart to make and get the tool (instrument) with which to do it best.  It's a process and it can be lots of fun to explore.  

Strumelia, I have left comment on one of your videos and one of your audio clips.  

I looked at my settings for notifications and all looks fine there.  

TRADITION! 

When asked about dulcimer with “extra" frets, Jean Ritchie replied “In a strict sense it has a different finger board, it’s not quite a dulcimer anymore.”    

You can find all the notes in the dulcimer's range, but you have to be willing to re-tune at least one string to do so (takes less than 30 seconds, with practice).

If you want a chromatic instrument lay a guitar on your lap and play that.  Or I can build you an  "acoustic lap guitar". Just don't call it a dulcimer.   Part of the essential definition of Dulcimer, to many of us, is the diatonic fretboard.

If you are playing mostly "classic dulcimer songs" especially from tabulature rather than SMN, it will be 'more difficult' because the fret numbering convention is different, and you'll have to find the fewer diatonic frets among the plethora of chromatic frets.  You won't be able to simply count 1,2,3,4... to find a tab numbered fret.  With a chromatic instrument that becomes
1/2,1,1-1/2, 2, 3, 3-1/2, 4, 4-1/2, 5, 6, 6-1/2,7......



Also, IMHO the 'sound' of a chromatic "dulcimer" is different when you slide from note to note -- because of all the intervening chromatic notes between diatonic notes -- I hear those slides as 'muddier'...

Anyone else having this issue, who used to get notifications and are no longer?