Forum Activity for @don-grundy

Can anyone explain the Herdim three-strength triangular picks to me please? They do a thin, medium and thick (yellow, blue and red respectively, I think), but each of them has three points with three different 'strengths'... How does that work? Does the yellow go from very thin to thin to almost medium, etc., or do they overlap in thicknesses, or are the different 'strengths' to do with something other than thickness, or what? I'm thinking of trying them but they're expensive and I don't want to buy the wrong one(s).

Here is a link to the issue of DPN in which my article on Everything Dulcimer appears. It is on page 33.

https://issuu.com/dulcimerplayersnewsinc/docs/120823190208-24b1ef20f89d4e1e9cbb6004cdabb332

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Yep -- ken's right.  i joined Everything Dulcimer on the Ides of March 2002.  Wow!  Eighteen years ago...

I thought I had posted a response to Lisa's request for the exact year ED started. It was 2002. Bruce began running some tests as he built the website starting in January and went online full time in March 2002. I think KenH joined on March 15 and I I joined on March 18. I wrote a short article on Everything Dulcimer for Dulcimer Players News. I'll have to search for that article. I did some early testing of the site Bruce and he asked me to be a moderator. When Bruce was at sea Ron Zuckerman pretty much ran the website and I helped with some of the work. Now help me out, Did I respond to this request in some other discussion?

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

@john-c-knopf, I am a Veggie Tale fan, and there is guitar TAB for The Cheeseburger Song!!!  I will learn it.  My very favorite VT is Madam Blueberry.... 

That ED site has a lot of tab! Thanks for letting us know it exists. 

Y'all are WONDERFUL!!!!  Thank you for being FUN and CREATIVE and such a JOY!!!  I have most recently added "Real Love Baby" by Father John Misty and "The Way I Am" by Ingrid Michaelson.  

@dusty-turtle, YES about Erin Mae!!!  I had to relearn quite a few bad, self-learned techniques~LOL.  I have moved into playing a lot of chords via ultimate guitar's site and am enjoying a whole new world.

I'd love to hear that too!  Can you post a quick video demo here in the discussion maybe?

I'd love to hear you play your diddley bow, @natebuildstoys! 

Well, if we're including interspecies animal romance, my vote is "The Owl and the Pussycat," especially the melody put to the Lears poem by Burl Ives . 

I get teary-eyed singing the last lines: "And hand in hand at the edge of the sand/They danced by the light of the moon, the moon/They danced by the light of the moon."

"Froggy Went A'courting"....No, I'm not kidding!

That diddley bow you're playing looks pretty cool...what's the slide you're using? I'd like to hear you playing it! I wonder how it would sound played with a bow? I've never thought about a glass dulcimer, but I sometimes think about one made of brass or steel, like the National guitars.

The first instrument I ever built was a diddley bow. If you dont know its just a string stretched over a glass bottle laying on its side, which acts as a resonator chamber. I have attached a picture. I always thought it sounded very neat, jangly, and old timey. I have conceptualized a prototype and am whipping it up right now for a wooden dulcimer with a glass beer bottle for a bridge. I have also attached an image of some concept drawings for how it will work, and will post a video when it is totally assembled. What do y'all think? I find it very puzzling that so few string instruments use glass resonators, probably because they would be less durable, but most players take exceptionally good care of their dulcimers anyway. Has anyone ever seen a glass dulcimer? Ever tried building one?

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Hello Corvus. The best I understand it is that the stronger and brighter tone noticeable over the strumhollow is due to picking/strumming near the end of the string length, not the hollow itself. An easy demonstration of this is if you strum the open string all the way at the top just above the first fret, the tone is nearly identical to over the hollow. This leads me to believe that the same tone could be accomplished without the hollow. It's also worth noting that the demand for strumhollows does not imply an actual utility function to them. A couple builders have already mentioned that they don't consider it functionally important, but know that their customers want it. It is aesthetically nice, and more importantly it is the norm, but is it actually useful?

Years ago at an open mic I used to attend regularly, the MC said we needed to do love songs.  Being the great rule-follower, I got up and sang "Cocaine Blues" with slide guitar accompaniment.  He tried to upbraid me that what I did wasn't a love song.  I just replied, "It all depends on what you love!" 

Seriously, one of my favorite love songs on the dulcimer (or guitar) is "Would you Lay with Me in a Field of Stone" by David Allan Coe.

One of my all time favorite pop love songs is Van Morrison's "Crazy Love."  I've never played it on the dulcimer, but I don't see why you couldn't. I used to play it on the mandolin back in the day when I accompanied a guitarist who also sang and made all the ladies swoon.

Erin Mae is the best, isn't she? She's so sweet and encouraging and she can tear it up on the fretboard!

I have loved looking up all of these tunes and seeing what I might be able to play~thank y'all for that!  I have added Tracy Chapman's "Baby Can I Hold You", "Come to Me" by the Goo Goo Dolls, and I am checking out other songs of interest as well.  OH I am having so much FUN with my dulcimer~all thanks to a class I recently took from Erin Mae Lewis!!!  WOW I cannot believe the difference it made for me. 

Our wedding song, Crazy, by Kenny Rogers.

Larry Conger did an arrangement of "Unchained Melody" that the Righteous Brothers did in the 60's.  Simple tune, good lyrics, and easy play with 158.  Check it out on youtube, you might like it.

Jill, thanks for the information. The Valiant looks like a powerful sailing boat and the Ranger Tug would be wonderful for inshore cruising ..... enjoy.

We left New Zealand in our double ended 36 foot Lidgard sloop in 1976 for what was supposed to be a 3 year trip and finally made it back to NZ in 1996. We did of course have to work whilst we were away and ended up running charter  boats in the Mediterranean and in the Caribbean and I earned my Masters Certificate and spent time running freighters and tugs ... all good. Our two children became tired of waiting for us to get home and abandoned my wife and I about half way through the trip .... no loyalty!!

Enjoy your time away.

Rangers are really nice boats.  I spent six weeks tripping parts of the Caribbean in a Ranger 41 as Chef for the owner. wife and adult daughter.  Nice blue water boat. 

HI Robin! I bet we're the same height. Good point about the chair - I might just sit in the cockpit on a seat/bench, cross my legs, and play with the dulcimer on my lap that way. Not sure yet, but thanks (I have a nice, low, armless chair that I got at REI but I doubt I'll be taking it along - used it for playing the dobro!) 

Re: HobbyHorse - we lived aboard our sailboat (a Valiant 39) for ages and had prepared to sail long-distances until our parents/in-laws needed help. I did sail from Hawai'i to Alaska, but that's about as far offshore as I got. Our current boat is a Ranger Tugs 31 - we purchased it in February with the intention of having it delivered in March (the boat is in WA, about 1200 miles from here!) - well, you can imagine that we have yet to take delivery - waiting to see if/when we should go there? Our plan is  to cruise the Pacific Northwest for a season or two, plus Canada. Well, we'll see. Thus the dulcimer is coming along with me!!!

Thank you all~these are GREAT!  Keep 'em comin'!  I would love a beautiful love song to play, as I think about my husband...  Not finding it though.  Just started learning "Eight Days a Week", but it doesn't quite embody all that I want~LOL!  

The song @Natebuildstoys mentions, "Can't Help Falling in Love" is associated with Elvis and often played at weddings.  But what I find funny is that, as many folks here know, the melody was taken from a French tune called "Plaisir d'amour."  But the French lyrics are anything but romantic: "The pleasure of love lasts only a moment, but the pain from love lasts a lifetime."

The melody does fit on the dulcimer fretboard really nicely, though, and even people who are not folk music fans recognize it, so it's a good one to have in your repertoire.

Yes, I did buff both nut and bridge. Maybe nut needs it more? Yep, hard to find .028 loop end strings. I thought about thinner. I didn’t know if that would make it worse. I tried 3 bass strings. Two of them were phosphor bronze and other steel? The latter was better. Thanks so much for getting back with me.

With a 26" scale, you could 'try' out a .028 wound bass string tuning it to low D.  But I definitely wouldn't try thicker than that or it might snap.  Your 26 gauge current bass string is already within the high range for thickness.  Give it a try- the worst that can happen is it would break the string. Make sure you have spare .026 and/or .024 wound bass strings to put on if the .026 breaks.   ;)

Because the .026 is already on the heavy side, you could actually test out a thinner bass string- like a .024 or even a .022 wound.  It sounds counter intuitive but remember the buzz started after changing strings. If you have spare strings it doesn't hurt to try this stuff out... strings are cheap.

p.s. did you buff the nut slot with the waxed floss as well?

If the buzz still occurred with the string sitting on top of the bridge without being in the slot, that suggests the string action being too low is not the culprit.

I am a big fan of Annie's Song by John Denver, (though I have been hesitant to play it for my lady friend as it seems a bit corny )  so I guess my favorite to play would be Can't Help Falling in Love :)

Strumelia, any suggestions on strings to put on and see if there is still a vibrating buzz? Thanks

Dusty Turtle, I looked and neither McSpadden have the v shape in the slots! Weird, but my Black Mountain Dulcimer does have the v shaped slots. Which no matter what I do on it, no buzz. That is why I don’t think it is me. My all Walnut McSpadden does not buzz either. Just my FAVORITE sounding dulcimer. I believe there has to be an answer. 

Yes, Salt Springs, I did tighten up everything on the headstock. I appreciate you input.

"The Cheeseburger Song" by Mr. Lunt (Love Songs with Mr. Lunt).  Gotta be a VeggieTales fan...

"Where are you Tonight" with Archie Campbell.  (you tube/with Johnny Cash etc.)

Yup, check the hex nut directly under the string too if you have not........my McSpadden is a bit touchy and I can make it buzz if I use pick and hit the string too low.  Good luck with it all!

Update:  I just checked mine and two of those hex nuts were a bit loose...you could actually turn one with just two fingers. 

Wow, I appreciate all the responses!

Strumelia, I am tuning to DAD.

Yes Salt Springs, that was my thought about tightening the 2 screws on the tuning peg. I did that a couple of days ago.

Dusty Turtle, I will take a look at the nut slot. Since I have shipped once already, I may have to have someone else look at it.

The bridge is unmovable so I can’t move it. I did however try to see if buzz sound happened when I put on bridge without being in the slot and it still buzzed. 

A song by one of my best friends, guitarist Jim Visone, who lived down the dock from me here, called I Don't Have The Words.    Other than that, the Robert Burns song called Green Grow The Rashes, O which is a sort of love song celebrating all women.

JUst as an experiment, check the nut below the bass string tuning peg and see if it is tight as compared to the others.  I have a walnut/redwood McSpadden and for whatever reason the bass string peg will loosen itself there as well as the knob on it.  Perhaps the buzz is in the peg since it seems that you have tried just about every string adjustment you can think of.  Likewise check the screw underneath the peg and see if it could be loose.

Something I learned recently is that the slot in the nut should not be flat. It should come to a little point, so the string sits in a single point rather than resting on a level surface.  In other words, the slot looks like a V if you look at the nut from the string's point of view, but if you look at it along the nut itself, the slot inside should look like a ^ rather than be flat.  If a string sits along a flat ledge inside the nut, it can move around and buzz.

I have a nice small dulcimer that had a buzz on only one string and it was driving me crazy, but as soon as he heard it, the repair guy at a music store diagnosed the problem. He took about ten minutes filing the slot to increase the point, and the problem was solved.

I'd be surprised, though, if McSpadden made that mistake in the original build.

And I should also say that I sometimes get a buzz on strings and I'll just change the strings and the buzz goes away. I can't explain why older strings would buzz, but it's such a simple fix I've never worried about it.

Your string gauges seem reasonable to me.  I use 26", 16" and 13" on my 25" VSL dulcimer tuned DAd.

and what notes are you tuning to?

Cool topic, @hugssandi.  Not long ago I started playing (but not singing) a Welsh love song from the 18th century, called "Bugeili'or Gwenith Gwyn," or "Watching the White Wheat."  It tells the supposedly true story of Wil, a young farm laborer, and Ann, the daughter of a wealthy farming family.  Her family did not consider Wil an appropriate spouse and arranged for her to marry another.  Overcome with sadness, Wil left the village.  After some time he had a dream of an impending death, so he returned, thinking Ann's husband was dying. Instead he found that it was Ann who was dying of a broken heart.  Supposedly they are both now buried in that same village. 

I posted an instrumental version of it about a year ago, and you can find both choral and harp versions on YouTube, but I love the Mary Hopkin version in Welsh .  You can also see this funny Tom Jones version in English .