I play at an Assisted Living Facility. I cancelled before I got word from them, because I just don't think any of us outsiders should be coming in there at this time. I have heard one the the Assisted Living Facilities in town isn't allowing visitors, I'm sure the one I play at and the others will follow suit.
Be smart. Stay healthy.
I used to visit my father-in-law when he lived in a memory care facility. (You know what they say about music being one of the last things to go.) I would sing with the staff music therapist (or whatever her title was) but have been there just once (with my hammered dulcimer) since he died.
I've thought of going back, but lately I've been wondering how long it will be until I would be barred. Perhaps already.
And I go to a weekly jam session that meets in the dining area of a senior-only apartment building. Yeah, I wonder how long we will be doing that. I didn't go to the last session because I had a leaky nose and decided to stay home and rest.
Hi Terry,
I just reached out to a library where I'm scheduled for a program later this month. The program I do is 100% public domain -- the joys of historical programs. I suspect material you are using is also public domain. They offered to either postpone the program or live stream it. I'm not sure how many of us have that option, I know I would need them handling it, but it's becoming a method for all manner of meetings and performances. I confess that techies would need to help me if I tried to do it on my own.
Just heard that Hong Kong is finding that survivors of the virus have 20-30% reduced lung capacity. Stay well & use it as you said, with new material work.
I might even find time to go back through the timeline here as I've had to be off it with rehearsals and performances.
Well, after a few years of performing at senior homes two-three times weekly, I’ve been locked out until further notice. Coronavirus.
Others having this experience? I wholeheartedly agree with their decisions. But it’s kind of a loose feeling. Missing the experience, but most of all the residents. After awhile, it’s like having a bunch of mothers. Even though I am older than some.
Gonna take this down time to learn some new songs, dulcimer and ukulele. Already working on this. I have decided I like Tom Waits. Write some new jokes. How many times can you tell the same old jokes before they figure you out.
Time to also work on some new devotions. With the reality of this virus and it’s potential outcome, I suspect it might be high time to delve into this a little deeper. Perhaps I need to have a gut check.
”Just rambling a bit with a sincere mine.”
Yeah Ken, it stinks when someone implies in an opinionated way that other ways of playing, methods, or instruments other players use are less valid. I agree!
That includes dissing: chord playing, noter playing, diatonic frets, chromatic frets, using tab, DAA tuning, DAd tuning, calling people 'sheep', disparaging teaching or group practices, playing jazz or playing hymns, whether someone's instrument is what we consider a 'dulcimer', and in fact includes the entire concept of either traditional or non-traditional being somehow more valid.
Instead of putting down other people's enjoyment of their preferred way of playing their music, we should all lift up and share our joy in how we can play something, sheesh anything , to begin with! It's such a privilege that we humans can produce sweet notes that are something we call music. We should be trying to help people achieve their goals in simply playing personal music in a way that makes them happy, helping them solve their problems. We should strive to be encouraging rather than boastful or patronizing, while always, always being respectful that there is more than just our own preference or opinion. We can share the joy of our own ways of playing music without putting others' methods down.
I have to say I think this whole concept of "dulcimer police" is very tired and negative. It may have had its use in the past, but it's time to retire it already. IMHO, perpetuating the idea that other people are being 'police' is in reality just another way to continue dissing others and keep alive an "us vs. them" mindset while boosting our own legitimacy. To set a good example and actually make a real difference, let's look closer to home and examine our own selves before we push the same old ideas about other people being villains. 
Hi Robin,
yes, I heard of your fabulous idea - there will be fantastic acoustics!
But everywhere else your music will sound fantastic too! 
Ariane, Mark & I have been working on our tune and waiting on nicer/drier weather so we can go record at a cave not far from our home. If weather doesn't cooperate, we'll make a recording someplace other than the cave and send it to you.
Lisa -- your salmon & egg tacos with salsa verde sound. I make my own salsa verde too. My trick is to include a whole lime -- skin, pith, seeds, everything; and juice of a lemon. It all gets pureed anyway... Then following my Mexican chef friends, I "fry' the sauce is a large blisteringly hot skillet, stirring madly for about 10 minutes to marry flavors and tighten up the consistency.
I make soup weekly -- often based on one of the winter squashes -- Acorn, Butternut, Spaghetti; but also eggplant, or red bell peppers. Posole of course. And the famous Florida speciality Chez Suzanne's Creamy Romaine soup. In the hot season I make chilled soups like white and red gaspachos, Ajo Blanco (almonds and garlic), chilled lettuce soups and several ceviches.
For decades many of us have used the phrase "There is no right way, or wrong way to play the dulcimer; there is just what works for you." A statement attributed to Ohio dulcimer player Missy Strothers, one half of the "Tom & Missy Strothers", who also gave us the Strothers String Choice Calculator and the Strothers Diatonic and Chromatic Chord Wizards.
Unfortunately there are still quite a few "dulcimer police" teachers and players who try to enforce the idea that their way is The One True Way -- be it small hands vs large hands, Chord Melody/DAd playing as a style, or specific aspects of playing like how to finger chords, whether or not to use the edge or ball of fingers, or anything else which they categorically state "...you must...
Hi Dusty - no, it is not too late 
- I will need the link of your "not listed" youtube video (or soundcloud link) beginning/mid of April at the latest.
I will send you a PM with my email address to where you can send the link.
I am looking forward to your music 
Ariane, is it too late to contribute a tune for the Musical Spring? I've been really busy with work and other responsibilties but would still like to contribute if there is time and all your days aren't taken.
My positive things today:
My husband was finally able to get his pneumonia vaccine...yay!
We had a yummy tortilla dinner by candlelight in the kitchen.
Vacuumed the whole house! ...and now (for a little while at least) it'll feel so nice to walk around the house barefoot. 
Ah, the little things in life can be so nice.
You mean it's not hot links and whiskey?
Soups are like the most nutritious and comforting meal we can have during these stressful times.
I didn't make soup today, but we're just about to make some smoked salmon w/egg in soft tortillas, with our own home-canned tomatillo green sauce! 
Followed by maybe watching a movie in bed. A little slice of humble Heaven.
I'll be over tomorrow for leftover chicken soup, Robert, and some porch picking! :)
There's a pot of tomato-based bean soup cooking on the stove now for lunch. It is a sunny and warm-ish day here in our neck of the woods. So, maybe lunch out on the front porch. :)
I've got a pot of chicken soup on the stove. Trying to do farm chores with a pot cooking on the stove is a bit of a challenge. You know, being two places at once. Not a bad day for some porch picking too.... Robert
Hey, come on over, Dusty! We've eaten already but there's plenty more in the soup pot. :)
There's a pot of tomato-based bean soup cooking on the stove now for lunch. It is a sunny and warm-ish day here in our neck of the woods. So, maybe lunch out on the front porch. :)
Thank you! I looked at that website, and it looks like it has what I'm looking for. I have two dulcimers that lack inlays, so a sheet of 20 will serve me well.
Thank you! I looked at that website, and it looks like it has what I'm looking for. I have two dulcimers that lack inlays, so a sheet of 20 will serve me well.
I have used those a few times on various instruments. My latest was on a custom Folkcraft dulcimer that had all the fretboard inlays I'm used to, except it didn't have one on the 5th. My eyes are just used to one on the 5th, all my other dulcimers have one there. So I got the white pearl stickers from inlaystickers.com, and put one on the 5th. Can't tell the difference between the inlays and the inlay sticker.
Go directly to their website for many more choices. Still free shipping.
I haven't used them, but a couple of my guitar player friends use them for marking certain chords in unusual tunings.
I'm enjoying a dulcimer I added to my collection, but I'm a bit thrown by its lack of fretboard markers, which I'm used to.
Have you used something like this and if so, has it been useful? Is there a better alternative?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PGQYQJY?tag=duckduckgo-brave-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1
I'm happy you folks enjoyed seeing this!
I've tried a striker yet wasn't very good at it. I've tried to make my husband use a striker on the mountain dulcimer (much like a person would use fiddlesticks) while I played it yet he wasn't interested in sticking it out with me. 
Very fascinating. I first started playing dulcimer using a colored pencil for a striker. At the time i was listening to a blues artist named eddie jones who played a diddley bow with a whittled stick and thought maybe i was bringing a new technique over to the dulcimer. Of course it makes sense that a great player has already thought of it and developed mastery with it. I gave up pretty soon on the colored pencil so it's awesome to see what a skilled version of what i was trying looks like. Personally I found it very difficult to utilize the percussion while still keeping the sound sweet and pretty and I made a striker wrapped in felt, which i found gives the dulcimer a sound almost like a piano.
"You will need a very thin-bladed screwdriver though, so you don't strip the heads of those teenie screws." Or you may need a very small phillips head screwdriver.
More likely.
Also, the holes on the new machine head plate may not line up with the old holes. Ideally you have a drill and a set of small bits. If not, a push pin or thumbtack will make a suitable hole.
Thanks everyone, I will give it a try! Thanks, too, for the explanation that the popping could be caused by string tension adjusting. I had a hunch that that might've been happening!
"You will need a very thin-bladed screwdriver though, so you don't strip the heads of those teenie screws." Or you may need a very small phillips head screwdriver.
Dusty is spot on about the string pop sound!
Yes anyone who can use a screwdriver can change tuners -- especially a set on a bar. You just need to make sure the new set has the round gear oriented towards the body of the dulcimer, not on the outward side. This helps the tuners work properly; otherwise they can slip and not stay in tune.
You will need a very thin-bladed screwdriver though, so you don't strip the heads of those teenie screws.
@dulcididdle, I just want to follow up on the least important of your initial questions: the popping sound you heard and the string going very flat. When you put on a new string and start winding, there simply isn't as much tension on that string as there will be later, when you get it up to pitch. So often it winds loosely around the post. Then, either while you are tuning or sometimes a little while later, the tension will pull that loosely wound part tighter. That is probably what happened when you heard the popping sound. And yes, strings go flat as that happens. When I put new strings on I manually pull on the string to increase the tension, and then as I get close to pitch I repeatedly pull the string up, stretching it, trying to get the winding as tight as possible and all the stretching out before I start playing. New strings always needs to stretch a bit (going flat in the process), but you can speed that process up so there will be less re-tuning later if you just pull on the new string as I've described.
Also, can the average person do the tuner replacement? I can use a screwdriver, measure, and stuff like that, but have few other carpentry/luthier skills.
Thank you, Ken, very helpful advice! On to find some new tuners and the urethane. Cheers!
I would just replace the tuners. You can get a pair of cheap 4x4 mandolin tuners (4 tuners on a plate) for $15-$25 on Ebay. Make sure you use the 'stick' which has the round gears on the body side, like the ones you show in the photo.
Finish -- I would use a rub-on urethane (no rattle-can)
Strings winding neatly -- I always go through the hole, around the peg, and back through the hole as I pull the string on. Then I take a quarter turn or so of the knob to bring the string up in tension. After I get to the note I need, I trim the ends of the strings close to the tuner shaft. No sense in winding around the tuner shafts multiple times. No matter where a string breaks, you'll never be able to shorten it and re-use it!
Two maintenance questions that I'd appreciate help on:
1. Recently I brought a Hondo HD-2 dulcimer out of storage and replaced the strings that had been on since the early 1980s. Before changing the strings I'd noticed inconsistencies in the tuning gears. I would turn and turn the pegs but they didn't seem to change the string tension, then they would get very hard to turn, then past a certain point they would turn again. When I changed strings this problem became much worse. Within 30 minutes of changing the bass string, the string made a popping sound while I was playing, although it didn't break. It went very flat, though, and the tuning peg is very tight--so tight that I'm afraid to turn it. Also it looks like the entire tuning assembly is loose near the melody strings (I'm looking at the air space between the tuning assembly plate and the headstock in the side profile photo). I'm interested in suggestions on how to get the gears running more smoothly, and any other maintenance that this area might need. I'm also looking for tips on getting the strings to wind neatly around the pegs, and I'm not sure if the string end needs 'locking' (like on a mandolin) when it's first threaded through the peg hole?
Photos of the tuning mechanism:
2. I would like to put some oil or wax on the instrument to give it some protection (I live in a very arid place). In these photos note that the finish has worn off of the fingerboard. I'm wondering what to apply to the body of the instrument and to the fingerboard. The instrument has a matte/satin look and the body is plywood.
I know this is a lot of info and questions, and really appreciate any help in fixing these issues. Thanks in advance!
Oh, yes, please post a photo if you find it, @rob-n-lackey! I have a little Jeffreys and it has a cool sound.
Sorry to hear of his passing. He was a great pianist. I saw a pic of him playing his dulcimer. If I find it again, I'll post a link here, but it looked like a A W Jeffreys. It definitely had no extra frets. We'll always have his music!
According to my fb friend Ryan, McCoy Tyner passed away today. Ryan posted this recording to honor Mr Tyner's passing.
Glad Jim was able to put your mind at ease.
