Forum Activity for @marg

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! 

Not yet.  I'm going to have her change both the bass and middle strings, since I think they are original to the instrument.  After that, we'll see if that gets her back to where she was this time last week.  If that doesn't solve the problem, I'm going to wonder what has come loose and started vibrating sympathetically with the middle string.  "Damping" the middle string does stop the wolf tone....

@spineloccio Any change in the unwanted tones your wife's McSpadden was giving?  

Well, thanks everyone for the informative replies!

I do plan on attaching an end plate & nut and get it strung up!  Will definitely use brass pins of some kind rather than a wood dowel.

Tung oil is an oil from the tung nut tree in Asia.  Better than boiled linseed oil!  Yes, it hardens.  Get as pure of tung oil as you can -- some manufacturers adulterate it with other things.    It works fine with stains that are dried.

Nice catch on the paper with the notes. I made that, and like everything with me, it is a bit more than 20 years old. It has also been in and out of that placement more times than I care to think about. I will double check that. Thank you Ma'am :)

Tung oil. Never heard of it. But it is something I will be looking into now. Deep gloss is nice, but not all the time. Does this "harden" at all? Also, how does it act/react with stains?

Wolf tones like that can be notoriously hard to cure.  However.  This is probably something that has crept in from having the instrument used -- tuned, re-tuned, changing environments, etc.  Start by slacking way off and then re-tightening the middle drone string, making sure that you have a snug fit in the notches at the nut.

FWIW, since strings can be tuned to any of 8 notes in an octave, we generally refer to them by their "course name", not the note they are tuned to.  The dulcimer has a Melody course, the middle drone course, and the bass course.  Each course can be 1 or 2 strings.  

Finish -- I'm a big fan of Tung Oil.  Rub on 4 coats of tung oil and call it good!  But then I don't like deep mirror glossy finishes on anything.  

My wife has a McSpadden that is about four years old.  The other day as she was practicing she started noticing what she thought was a buzzing string when she played the low D on the second fret.  I started looking at it this afternoon, and there is no buzz when the string is played by itself.  Instead, when the low D is played and the A is also played, there is an octave undertone on A.  It just happens to be very obvious when the D is played on the second fret.  Any ideas, please?

Um, when you are making a note of what each strings was tuned to, be careful: 
I'm thinking that someone inadvertently REVERSED that paper naming the notes for each string.  The notes should be going LOWER, not higher, as the strings get longer. Your slip of paper is currently oriented the opposite way.  --> Try taking the paper out and putting it in the opposite way.  Starting with the shortest string, it would then go: C, B, A, G, etc...

There is going to be some manner of brass used in this project. That black piece where the stings run over the courses is plastic. Sure, a hard plastic, but I think brass would be a better option. This was not a high digit instrument. But with some careful consideration, it can become mighty fine. Just need to exercise the necessary care to make sure the brass is good and straight, no kinks allowed. A soft 'bow' maybe, but that is it.

Brass would be good at the tail, but wood would look better...decisions, decisions... Either way, there should be some "shaping" to get the piece to look right.

Ah, the strings. I have done a LOT of rooting about the net on that. I do believe I have the gauges now. It is also fairly apparent that the strings are indeed ball end guitar strings. There is a place I go for my dulcimer strings that can set me up with what I need. ~L~ At that point it is choosing the correct TYPE of string. One site I looked at likened the strings to gauges of piano wire.

As a retired machinist and tool maker, I know WD-40 quite well. But using it on a tuning peg in wood? Maybe a q-tip and daubing? But a goof tip. Not one I would have considered, but it sounds like a plan.

"Make a note about the note they are tuned..." Hoboy, done. After that, there is the world of confusion that goes into all of the alternate tunings. Is Draconian an type of tuning?

Then, after all that, clean the poor baby and have a look, eh?

There WILL be sanding and refinishing. This is something I enjoy quite a lot. There are some nasty looking marks on the edge of the face that need to be addressed. Short of the playing once the work is done, the wood working part of this is going to be one of if not THE best part of the project.

The more I look at this thing the more I am convinced that the "finish" is about as minimal as it gets. "Student" instrument was mentioned. Sounds about right to me. I am leaning toward a lacquer or shellac for the finish. Needs to be water based though as I do not have good ventilation and cannot access a spray booth. Yup, spray. ~L~ I do NOT have the arms to do a French rub.

To stain or not to stain...

I want to thank you all for the ideas and suggestions. I have never worked with an instrument before. Not a decent one. I can use ALL the help I can get.

It slides off laterally.  Either towards the head stock or away from it, depending on how it's orientated. Sometimes they are very tight and you need to wiggle it a little while sliding it.

My mandolin had a similar tailpiece. It was also very tight. I very carefully bent the sides out a tiny bit to lessen the tightness of the fit and it was much easier from that point on getting it off to change strings. It didn't need much, you still want a snug fit. I took it off the instrument when doing it, because you don't want to put any pressures on the other parts of the tailpiece or instrument when doing it. Again, ever so slight, not even enough to feel a movement.

Yeah, I've never experienced that before, but it is a cheap import a friend picked up at the thrift store. I adjusted the action and put on new strings.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."