Forum Activity for @hugssandi

@jill-geary do it!  I have a teeny front porch and a very teeny, row house front yard.  I'm going to line it and my walk with chairs!  ~anything can happen~ 

I don't have a porch either...got a patio tho! I don't know if I have the nerve to play out front for people....maybe some fiddle tunes with a noter?

Me & my band (Mark) are taking over our deck Saturday morning.  haha

I've invited folks to stop by anytime between 2 and 5 p.m. to play a tune fr two or more. I expect some group playing, some solos, and other combinations.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

@ken-hulme that sounds FANTASTIC!!!!

I'm changing it to Play Music At The Beach Day. 
Don't have a porch. 
Going to Sanibel Island for Labor Day weekend, where there are miles and miles of white sand beaches.... and beach chairs.   If the Dorian Modal Tropical Storm doesn't blow us away, I'll be playing down by the water....

Our cats react to my plying with complete indifference...

@marg Whiskey Before Breakfast has been a good go-to jam tune for me over the years. :) @robert-shuler listed some good ones, too.  

Thanks Robin! It is about 18 years old, looks brand new, and of course it sounds better than new!!! Unbelievable that Janita helped me out :-) Well, knowing Janita, it's actually not unbelievable! Still trying to figure out how to play the tunes on your most recent CD!

I am hoping to get some players to come by but it's been so hot, may need to organize it for sunset. If there is a group, we should play several songs, any suggestions for a good porch or patio jam?

 2Come Play Music.jpg - 215KB

Nice interview, Dan is such a sweet fellow and has helped me on occasions.

Dan Evans is a professional fingerstyle dulcimer player, based in the UK, but who is often over in the USA. Here is my chat with him covering a range of topics such as education, electrification, playing Ionian and what instruments he plays....

https://mdconversations.blogspot.com/2019/08/3-dan-evans-from-olney-near-milton.html

Doug is a great guy and a wonderful friend. One of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. He builds some of the most beautiful dulcimers. His wife is a beautiful soul too.

Nice article/interview, thanks for sharing.

Odd. 

I know that in organ building a similar effect is actually sought out: when a 16' D and 10 2/3' D (sounding an A) are properly tuned and played together, a resultant pitch, an octave lower, a 32' D is heard. In organs this is handy because not many buildings can house a veritable forest of huge pipes that a proper 32' rank would require.

Kind of odd that it should be the fundamental A you're hearing and not the D.  Kind of a neat effect, though!  Does it only happen with that combination? Or do C/G, E/B and F/C produce similar effects? What happens when you slightly untune one of the strings just a bit?

Oh well crud!

I tried the link and got the infamous 404 Not Found error.

Got that both on direct click on the link and C&P'ing into a new page..

Thanks, @Robin-Thompson.  Those sites are definitely worth adding to the list, although they are a bit removed from my current project.  Je te remercie!

Redmando, I greatly enjoyed your "chinwag" with Doug Berch!  I'm a fan of Doug's music and am happy to be able to call him a friend.  

I'm not sure whether these fall into the category of interest, Dusty?

https://maxhunter.missouristate.edu

https://libraryguides.berea.edu/bsaresearchguides/researchguides

Thank you, @Redmando and @Ken-Hulme! You've added very helpful sites to my list.

Hey Dusty -- Here's one of the good old sites.  Very thorough:

www.contemplator.com

includes, with MIDI files and lyrics for most tunes:

Folk Music of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and America

Francis J Child Ballads
Popular Songs in American History
Songs of The Sea
Turlough O'Carolan
Taylor's Traditional Tune Book

Contemplations on Life

Hi @dusty-turtle - here's a one for you, Folk Archive Resource North East (FARNE). Unfortunately no longer supported, it originated as a grant-funded project run by Gateshead Council. There is loads of stuff here, but it is a little bit tricky to navigate. http://www.farnearchive.com/browse_by_collection.asp

Here's a recent chinwag I had with Doug Berch about all things dulcimer, including playing "Lola" by the Kinks.....

https://mdconversations.blogspot.com/2019/08/2-doug-berch-originally-from-brooklyn.html

Hi all. I am nearing the completion of a small project on music from the British Isles dating from 1500 to 1800, and I am including a list of online sources for traditional music.  I offer it her for two reasons: 1) some of you might find the list helpful; and 2) some of you might know of some important websites that I have not listed but should.  Please let me know what I've left off the list.  Mille grazie!

Folk Tune Finder https://www.folktunefinder.com/

Hetzler’s Fakebook http://hetzler.homestead.com/index.html

Old Time Fiddle Tunes (Penn Sate University) https://www.mne.psu.edu/lamancusa/tunes.html

Old Town School of Folk Music https://www.oldtownschool.org/classes/adults/fiddle/tunes/

O’Neill’s Music of Ireland http://www.oldmusicproject.com/oneils1.html

Rampant Scotland http://www.rampantscotland.com/songs/blsongs_index.htm

The Session https://thesession.org

Tin Whistle Tunes (formerly Clips & Snips) http://tinwhistletunes.com/clipssnip/index.htm

Traditional Music Library http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk

Traditional Tune Archive https://tunearch.org/wiki/TTA

Watco is good. I just finished a guitar neck with Birchwood Casey's Tru-oil gun stock finish. It is easy to apply and makes a really great finish. I have nothing against oil. I just don't like to get my fingers messy. HaHa.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Thank you Ken, but I am leaning toward Ken..

Hmm, that needs explaining, huh?

Myself, I am a huge fan of oil finishes. I like tha 'hand rubbing' that goes along with it. Since the Tung Oil will harden. That is another thing in it's favor. So...it can take 2 days or so to dry. No problem. Add in being able to use stains, sounds good. Then, in looking at the oil, I found some put out by 
Watco. Watco and I are already good buddys.

When you say "guitar tab" do you mean six-string note-by-note tablature?  Or are you looking at the leadsheets and chords-with-lyrics sheets that people on the internet call "tab"?  The chordsheets are no problem.  As Ken said, a G chord is a G chord.  We can explain more if that's what you're looking for.

Actual tablature is tricky.  It's not just that a guitar has 6 strings tuned different from a dulcimer.  It's the chromatic frets.  Unless your dulcimer is chromatic, you could figure out how to map every note on the tab to the corresponding note on dulcimer and still not be able to play it because you don't have frets in the right place. 

Look into tab software like TablEdit.  I think there's a way to enter guitar tab and convert it to standard notation.  Maybe there's a way to convert guitar tab to dulcimer tab.  Hopefully a TablEdit guru will check in here.

You might get somewhere with ukulele tab (4 strings) if you set your dulcimer up with 4 equi-distant strings and tune them DGBE. 

Another option, and perhaps the most fruitful one, is to buy all the dulcimer tab books you can find that have contemporary music (there are some).  After you've played enough tab, you'll get a better idea of how this works and you'll have more success at figuring songs out by ear. 

I'm coming late to the party. I can't tell from the photos, but it looks like your fret board is unfitted. This gives you some latitude in VSL. Like KenH, I would add an end piece to the body and fret board and anchor the strings to it. I've used #2 three quarter inch (or half inch) round head wood screws as anchors for loop end strings. They work very well. Adding the end piece and strings in this way will keep the fret board from bowing up.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

The only thing you can get from guitar "tab" is get the sequence of accompaniment chords, not melody chords.  A G chord is a G chord, a D chord is a D chord, regardless of instrument.

As far as I know, there is no way to convert guitar tab to dulcimer tab. I think most folks would start with the standard music notation [SMN] and write their own. Doing melody only is fairly easy if you have a little background [FACE, Every Good Boy Does Fine] and know the basics of your MD [tuning, note locations], adding chords [fingerings] etc is harder. Some use a music notation program like TablEdit, MuseScore, or Finale etc. 

A finish I like to use is a satin finish lacquer. I use a rattle-can spray (Deft), but I think any spray can lacquer would work well. The instrument in my hands in my avatar has a sprayed satin lacquer finish.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

I've seen old posts about how to do this. I really want to play more contemporary pieces, but need to know how to figure it out. I have played with plunking around by ear but not much luck. There has to be a better way.

Thank you, these were both very helpful and very clear!

Will do, and I'll report back....

Try putting a tiny piece of toilet paper (a couple of thicknesses) under the string where it crosses the nut

Though my knowledge is very limited, I'm thinking you do not have a wolf tone; at least, on a cello, a wolf tone presents every place that note is found on the fingerboard.  As you note, you are getting a sympathetic vibration.  Please let us know how all goes?  And good luck!