Forum Activity for @strumelia

When i saw the pictures of this dulcimer, I immediately thought that the maker used the carved swan head arm from an antique chair for the head stock.  Such carved swan head chair arms were fairly popular both long ago and again in later reproductions of Victorian furniture. I suspect the swan head was recycled from an old discarded chair, the rest of the dulcimer having been built at a later time than when the chair was made.  In my eyes, the smooth stylized mahogany swan head doesn't really seem to match the whole rest of the instrument which is decidedly more rustic. Look at some of these vintage and antique chairs for typical carved swan head arms. One like this one could have easily been cut and adapted as a head stock.  I also think the 'wing' decorative element might have come from recycled furniture, and the fretbord may have been a mahogany piece from furniture as well.  I think whoever made the dulcimer was into using old furniture wood for thier projects.

Lois, there is an element or two of this instrument which I've seen before-- the swan head being the more notable element.  I can't recall, though, when I saw some similar photos.  I'm hoping somebody knows who the maker was! 

There are a whole spectrum of Baltic Winged Pslateries, each slightly different from the next.  The Kantele is arguably the most well known, because of it's connection to the Kalevala.  In Lithuania they're called Kankles; in Estonia,  Kannel; in Ltvia they are Kokles or Kandla; in parts of Russua they're called Kusle,a nd in other parts Gusli; and the Norse Sami call them Harpu.  I've built several over the years.  Some of the originals were backless, but the vast majority are "carved body" construction -- a 2" thick plank is hollowed out, and then a thin soundboard is inset into the top so there is a sound box.  The majority of them have a metal 'string bar' at the back and wooden peg or autoharp pins for tuning.  They can have as few as 5 strings or as many as 18.  

The photo below shows a Kiev style Gusli that I made for Lady Sally's daughter Holly who has a 17th century Kievan persona in the Society for Creative Anachronism.  6" wide, 1-1/2" deep.  

I am somewhat familiar with the Kantele as well as the Kalevala having graduated from Suomi (Finland) college.  I, too, would like to see a photos of the whole instrument front and back. Some things to consider are whether the tuners work smoothly. After 20 years some may be stuck in place or no longer hold when tuned to pitch. These are easily resolved problems. Make sure all the joints are secure. If not, you will need to glue them. Do you know who made your Kantele? If it has a finish on it, you can test to see what type of finish it is. If it is lacquer you should be able to put a new coat or two over it. It could be shellac. Or it could be some type of varnish. You may need to sand it down to bare wood, but I would avoid that if I could as I don't like sanding. If you like to sand, go for it. It looked like some of the dents could be raised using moisture and a hot iron. Looking back at your photos, I do not understand what is happening in the first photo with the string anchors. What are the strings going over in the photo? Also, if you want to you can replace the tuning pins with shiny new ones.

Just a few thoughts. I hope some of them are helpful.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Folks might be interested in the free pdf book Be Different: Play the Kantele by FOTMD member @Peter-W.  Peter makes and plays the instrument.  (And in the interests of full disclosure I should say he asked me to do some copyediting at the very end stages of the writing process.)

What's it's current tuning, bass to treble?

Ferrator, can you post here a photo or two of the entire instrument?  It's hard to tell anything from just a few closeups, without the 'big picture'.

A computer search on Kantele was eye-opening.  It reminds me of the zithers and toys that had diagrams you insert under the strings to play a song.  Being eager to make music simply, I've fallen for some of those & even created some diagrams of my own.  This shows there is a whole Finnish musical tradition without the cheat sheets that probably inspired the commercial American instruments .

I'm not "Finnished" with mine, but appreciate seeing a more musical and traditional version.  His tying it to the Finnish epic of the Kalevala adds to its appeal for me as a storyteller, especially in a state known for its Finnish residents.  The Folkcraft name convinced me to watch the video & I appreciated Ken Bloom's many ideas.  They fit much more than just the Kantele for those of us playing members of the zither family & that includes the dulcimer. 

Just wish he hadn't allowed his microphone to pick up wind noise.

Mine thinks "come" means stand there & wait for me to come to him!  I tend to use it when walking on our dirt roads & know a car is coming.  I've gotten very fast at shortening his extendable leash & coming.  Who trained who?

I love our truck's rear window over the truck bed, but learned to put a stick in the track so it only opens big enough to put his head out.  Nothing like being on the interstate & looking in your rearview mirror & your dog is past his chest trying to get out!!!

My childhood dog one time jumped out on a busy road when he saw something he wanted.  Fortunately other cars missed him.  Don't believe dogs won't find a way out, it can happen incredibly fast.

I have had this for many years. When I got it, it was labelled as a Kantele. But now, after a lot of researching, i came to have my doubts since the back is enclosed. Doubts until I saw this:

As you can see, she needs a bit of love given to her...

But I have had her since she was playable and the tone was wonderful. After 20 some odd years for the wood to dry and settle even more, I suspect the tone is going to be even better.

There are 15 strings, but I have a place to go to that I can get individual strings, when the time comes. But now, time for some other things, like getting a tuning key. That and a nice sanding down to smooth things out and get rid of the blemishing.

I have originally been thinking of a black finish along the lines of the East German zithers of the late 50's and early 60's. But on further consideration, something natural seems a better choice. Thoughts?

This also leaves me wondering just  what finish to use. Again, thoughts please?

I am no rookie when it comes to wood and working with it. Many moons ago, I was a cabinetmaker building specialized bookcases (specialized to fit a certain size of books). But this is a LONG ways from the kind of finishing that would be given to a fine instrument. I have already ruined a guitar with (I spit) polyurethane once. Long ago, but never forgotten.

This is something that is going to span some time, I know this and look forward to bringing  this instrument back to health and play-ability. Labor of true love here!

Any ideas?

Suggestions?

Things  TO  do?

Things to  AVOID  like the plague?

 20190815_120714-s.jpg - 140KB

P.S. I find that "+" symbol step that I need to remember.

Thank you both!  I posted this unsuccessfully on the former site and thought it was worth trying again.  (It also gave me a procedure for a fellow member who has had trouble posting photos here.)  I love the instrument & its uniqueness, so I decided to post it both ways.  Guess I'm 2 for 2.

I posted these 6 photos on my page of an unusual dulcimer possibly made by a builder in Indiana.  It was suggested I also post them here.  The builder's logo/signature are woodburned into it and should help.

 Swan Dulci Logo.jpg - 100KB

Appropriate string gauges are a function of the VSL and the open notes that you want to tune the string to.  Use the Strothers String Calculator as a start point:  http://strothers.com/string_choice.html

Plug the VSL and your desired open notes into the calculator and use those gauges.  You can go a gauge higher without any problem as the calculator tends to give light values.

I've been saving up ripe tomatillos from my garden for the past 10 days, and had a giant bowl of them ready for today.  I made my first green sauce!

After husking and washing the tomatillos, I cut them all in half, then quartered two onions and halved a large red italian pepper (also from my garden) and tossed all with a little olive oil and salt and black pepper.  (I can't eat too hot spicy so I didn't use jalapeno hot type peppers. Mild hot is ok for me though.)
I spread everything out on a big broiling pan in one layer and roasted it in a 425 oven about 20 minutes til everything was soft and a bit of charring of the tops. That was more than enough cooking. Removed some of the liquid with a turkey baster, because there was really way too much liquid. 

Spooned it all into the food processor and buzzed it just enough to to chop up the bigger onion/pepper pieces.  The resulting chunky sauce all filled a 2 quart pyrex pitcher.  I add a tablespoon or two of hot cilantro chutney, stirred that in, and then ladled into canning jars to keep in the refrigerator.  Recipes say it should be good for like 6 or 8 weeks... plenty of time for us to eat it all up!  It is reeeeally yummy!

There are way more green tomatillos still out there that are not ripe yet.  I think the next batch would be accumulated and ready in a couple weeks.  At that time I might make another batch but actually 'can' it with a hot water bath and seals so I can store it on a shelf for longer time, maybe give a few jars as Christmas presents.

As an experiment, I will be turning a inexpensive acoustic guitar into a bass/baritone strumstick.

3 strings, heavier gauges.

What should I use? Obviously regular bass guitar strings will be too heavy, should I just use the 3 lowest strings from the guitar, or should I go up a little from standard guitar strings? 

These scruffy little pooches are so cute!!

So cute and they DO love to ride. 

Gracie doesn't do 'wait' very well.

Wow, @tautwire, you have a cute little adventuous one there!  

Steve, no worries about the accidental delete!  I also look forward to your further conversations.  Though I'm far away from the UK, I follow Nonsuch's happenings a bit and enjoy doing so. 

The response post I accidentally deleted was from @Robin-Thompson. Just found that out from my e-mail. This is what he said: Steve, I enjoyed your interview with Karen!  I had the pleasure of meeting her, being introduced by Julie Elman.

Thanks Robin. I am looking forward to meeting Karen when she comes over to teach in the UK later this year. 

I have just accidentally deleted my post from yesterday when trying to reply to Robin (?). Apologies Robin.

Here's a bit of the original post again. I was intending to write an article for the Nonsuch Dulcimer Club's newsletter and started off some e-mail "conversations" with other mountain dulcimer players. The conversations were so interesting that I decided to post them on a blog. Here is the first of them. Enjoy:  https://mdconversations.blogspot.com/2019/08/1-karen-buglass-from-rockville-maryland.html

Lois, you could create and name a new photo Gallery and then use the gallery's "+" button to add photos to the gallery.

BUT if your goal is to ask if people know who made your dulcimer, then you'd get a lot more responses if you just ASK that question in a new discussion in our Instruments/luthiers Forum:
https://fotmd.com/forums/forum/instruments-discuss-specific-features-luthiers-instrument-problems-questions
Notice that that forum has quite a few discussions asking who might have made a particular dulcimer.

Many people don't notice descriptions in a gallery or a photo. But a forum discussion, with pictures, WILL get more reads and more replies. A photo or photo gallery is not a great place to try to start a discussion or ask questions. Mostly people will just say "beautiful dulcimer!" when they comment on a photo. Discussion are easiest to conduct in Forums.

I suggest you create your new discussion in the appropriate forum (as I linked above), and then read the following thread for instructions on how to add your photos into your discussion posts :

https://fotmd.com/forums/forum/site-questions-how-do-i/33874/how-do-i-attach-photos-to-a-post

Go to your page.  Click on boxed word Photos below the dark yellow bar.  A page called Photo Galleries comes up.  Click the +  then give the gallery a name, and select pix to upload (you can only upload 6 per day).  I just did that with my Burnsville Holly Leaf build.

I have 1 photo in my photos section that I somehow acquired from the Berea Gathering.  I have 6 photos I would like to post and ask if anybody recognizes who made my Swan-shaped Dulcimer.  I can select them from my files & they range from 87.5 KB to 181 KB, so that should be smaller than the 1.5 MB it says is the maximum.  I click the Select Images to Upload box on my Photos tab, open the photo in my file and drop it on the Select Images box, where the title appears in a green box (but no photo).  There the size goes from 87.5kB to 0.2MB with all but 1 of the 6 either 0.1 or 0.2 MB.  What step am I missing?  While I'm at it I'd like to group all 6 together, titling it Swan-shaped Dulcimer and in the gallery description say where I bought it as a clue & ask if anybody recognizes the signature & logo on it and the instrument.

I am curious to know if Black Mountain Instruments out of California is still in business. Does anyone know? I looked online and have the impression that they are not still making dulcimers. Thanks

Yep...that one was made by Morris, Jethro's son.  Jethro was my 2nd Great Uncle, Morris my cousin.  My Aunt Mavis has one of Jethro's and I have one of Morris' - mine is dated 5/27/99 #190....

Yes that is my mother! Glad to hear she found you!

That was my Grandfather! So glad to hear you enjoyed it!

Yep.  The Stew Mac calculator is pretty good. 

I also use WFret a free program from the Musical Instrument Makers Forum.   I like WFret because it allows you to print out a paper pattern that you can tack-glue to the fretboard and literally cut-on-the-dotted-lines, rather than mis-transferring numbers from a spreadsheet to wood.  

For Just Intonated fret spacing on my Traditional dulcimers with staple frets, I use the calculator developed by Rob Reinsal here several years ago.  It's discussed here:  https://fotmd.com/strumelia/group_discuss/2457/latest-ji-calculator

Kim, how exciting that you are investigating your family history. I enjoy learning about the early dulcimers and builders. I really like the traditional sound.