Forum Activity for @robin-thompson

I've seen photos of some of Niles's creations so get what you're saying, Strumelia.  

A lot of the instruments he made over his lifetime were inventive hybrids of various instruments or instrument parts (like in one case using a cello body) in varying combinations. He was a big experimenter in design.

Many also had very creative fret pattern arrangements.  I think if an instrument has a diatonic (or partially diatonic) fret pattern, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a 'dulcimer'.  

Many of his hybrid instruments were quite showy, clearly intended to impress. Certainly JJNiles was well known for making 'grand flourishes'-  in his concert music performances, in his writings, his luthier output, even in the multitude of composed (and posed) photos taken of him. He was a unique person.

@Banjimer Greg, I think I can only take JJNiles's singing in homeopathic doses.  :) Yet would like to hear, on a good recording, how he used plucked zithers. 

Try Googling "John Jacob Niles You-Tube".  There are a few selections from his recordings available there.  Be forewarned.  His singing will need to be listened to in small doses.  It's not for everybody.  

I sampled three or four of his songs and didn't hear much dulcimer playing.  Although the dulcimer may have not recorded well considering the emphasis was on his voice.

Personally, I couldn't take his singing, so there may be some dulcimer playing buried in the available recordings.  Good luck if you intend to listen to the recordings all the way through.  

I'm interested in hearing plucked dulcimers used in various contexts.  And know Niles made some wild instruments. . . I'm up for hearing some wild.  :)

The Grumpy Old Men got a private showing of Niles' instruments last spring during our Gathering in Berea, when we took a road-trip to Lexington.  Dr. Revell Carr, director of the John Jacob Niles Galley and the Center for American Music, and his staff, graciously removed all those instruments and more from their display cases so that we had a room full of dulcimers to fondle and measure.  Yes Niles played the "dulcimer" but many of his instruments were larger than a dreadnaught guitar body and carried as many as 10 or 12 strings!!

Folks who attend the second First Annual Berea Traditional Dulcimer Gathering, May 16-19, 2019, may also have an opportunity to visit the Gallery and Center and see those instruments.

Robin, virtually all John Jacob Niles's recordings have his dulcimer-playing on them. He used his dulcimers strictly for song accompaniment. They were huge, low-tuned instruments and he played rhythmically free arpeggios, strumming across the strings with either his thumb or fingers.

After starting this discussion, I followed up on the suggestions, writing Ron Pen, visiting him and Niles's instruments at the University of Kentucky, meeting and spending a day with Jan Potts touring the area, and writing a piece about Niles and his dulcimers for The Dulcimer Players News. It was published a couple of summers ago. Unfortunately the version which made it to print had some errors. If anyone would like to see the corrected version, drop me a line.

Robin, I'll need to pull that CD out and look it over.. it's been quite a few years now since i wrote that review.  I can do this tomorrow around midday.   :)

@Strumelia Was there much play of Niles's dulcimers on the cd you reviewed some years back? 

I remember it well------my wife and I were walking through "Heritage Village" in Largo Florida shortly after we moved there in 1991 and saw a lady playing an instrument that we had never seen. She told us all about her mountain dulcimer and said she was going to be giving some lessons, so with my vast musical knowledge (absolutely none) I said why not. I bought a cardboard dulcimer kit, assembled it and started out with "Boil them cabbage down" which started out my wonderful journey with the dulcimer. Many thanks to Camille Hospadaruk for her patience in teaching me and to my poor wife that had to listen to all my mistakes.

Thanks for the responses and ideas, I appreciate it. Love hearing about others' instruments too. There are many options out there for makers. I contacted Master Works and found out a little more about wood choices with theirs. Decisions!  

As far as marking notes, I've used little short pieces of colored tubing that slip tightly over the tuning pins.

Don't be afraid to try alternative tunings. I have one model tuned to C minor. Another in diatonic on right side matching my dulcimers. With two bows I use left side lower notes as drone notes. Upper strings tuned to flats. And another in classic chromatic. Enjoy your psaltery.... Robert

Hmm.. I'm thinking if one doesn't want to risk marring the finish by using stickers to indicate certain notes on the psaltery, then you could maybe just tie (or even wind and then tie) a small piece of colored yarn around certain zither pins and cut the ends short.  Once you got familiar and didn't need them anymore, you could just cut the yarn off... or cut certain ones off one at a time as you learn more about where the notes are.

Hi..i play bp..just got into it..i own a 2 octave spring creek ps made by terry kirby from ohio..it is lovely...i also have a 3 octave baritone that is like 3 feet long...it is amazing but big...terry kirby just puts a thin piece of paper down the two area where the zither pins are and has the name written next to the pin..you could also put a red dot where the c is and a blue dot where the f is as on a harp...use a sticky dot  to know the geography of the strings..pam

I found an old discussion about bowed psalteries, but thought I'd start a new (current) one. I owned a psaltery a few years ago and really enjoyed it. I ended up selling it as I got into other instruments. Now I'm jonesing for another. I know there's a forum specific to psalteries, but I wanted to stick around here for this discussion. 

I'm leaning towards a Master Works 30 string psaltery. My sister had one and I liked everything about it. My previous one was a Unicorn Strings. It was real nice and sounded good. I liked their plastic note guides for learning. I wish I still had those, because they were handy. Has anyone ever made their own note guides to help learning the note placement?  I read music, so that really helps in learning. We travel a lot in our motor home, so the size of the instrument makes it handy for traveling. Plus, some dulcimer festivals also have psaltery workshops that can be fun. 

Any dulcimer players out there who also play a psaltery?

Any discussion on the topic you'd care to share?

Since you seem to be interested in multiple/double screens, MS pro can do them using 2 tablets via it's 'slave' function. 

I really want an e-ink Gvido ( https://www.gvido.tokyo) but they are outrageously expensive.   I'll probably end up getting an A4 e-ink reader like the Boox Max2 instead if the double screens music readers don't go down in price ( https://onyxboox.com/boox_max2).

No problem, Ken.  I've benefited from many of your suggestions on noter-drone playing over the years, both on this forum and on the now defunct ED site.  Thank you for so willingly sharing your experience.

Thanx Banjimer -- that was a Senior Turkey moment for sure! 

I think Ken meant the following for a left-handed player:

The tuning head is on your right, and the melody strings are closest to you.

Use the Strothers Chord Finder:  http://strothers.com/chords.html

So I purchased another dulcimer. This time with a 1.5 fret. I know I can play c and f chords now but my chord book doesn't include a 1.5 fret so seeking help here. Thank you.

 I was so tired of lugging all those notebooks around and a little embarrassed to show up at a jam with them. I cant play by ear I need a little help getting started sometime. i'm tired of having to purchase all that paper and ink. The last jam I went to almost everyone had their iPads. I decided to take the leap and ditch the paper. I found Mobile Sheets Pro I feel like a bird freed from the cage i used it out the last three times I played it feels great not to have to fumble through all that paper.  I'm putting away all my folders and notebooks. With my iPad its right here in my hand.  

Now that I've learned how to embed a pic into my post (thank you Strumelia), and I didn't post a pic of my new McSpadden earlier, here you go! Still lovin' it! 

Definitely the one I just bought. The tone is so beautiful it made me cry the first time I heard it. I can't imagine owning another one that sounded better and also had a 25.5 VSL so that my fingers don't hurt. Love my Tony Vines Bella Dulcimer.

I started with notebooks categorized: Christmas, Hymns, regular. Then they got too full, so I put everything in dropbox then FourScore on my Ipad. I still use a printed paper copy when I'm working on a new song. Just too easy to have it laying out than pick up my ipad and set it out.

The plan:  Everything has been scanned and saved as a PDF.  Loaded into MobileSheets (Android) and the MobileSheets library has been backed up up to Dropbox.

The reality:  Some of it like that.  Some of it in 3-ring binders.  Some of it in books.  Some of it folded inside gig bags.  Some of it sitting in a pile to the left of this keyboard waiting to be scanned (where it has sat for several years).  Some of it just a browser bookmark.  Some of it heaven knows where.

The irony is, I mostly play MD by ear.  But the stuff I've been meaning to learn and the gigbooks I don't have time to memorize and the music for club meetings... well it does accumulate, doesn't it?

I need way more than 1200 pieces of music.  The uke club alone plays more than 1200 different songs in a year of weekly meetings.  And now here come the holidays!

I use forScore on an iPad for music.  Does a ton of things and allows categorizing and sorting music in a lot of ways. It is updated pretty regularly and it’s capabilites keep expanding.  It makes gig lists, auto page turning, records etc. etc.

Started with loose leaf binders but after 100 or so pieces of paper gets way too clumsy.  Plus, collecting tab is sort of a compulsion and when you get to 1200 tunes you pretty much need an electronic collection if you plan on taking your music with you when you go places.

Do you need 1200 pieces of music?  A philosophical question!

I use a regular iPad, but a member of our group has a big iPad Pro which is the berries for visibility and readability.

Enjoying the responses and photos for this question. My new "favorite" that I likely would grab in the zombie apocalypse would be the chromatic McCafferty that I received this summer. Terry kindly customized the inlay pattern on the fretboard, which I LOVE and it has that loud, nice tone that Dusty described below. But I like my all-walnut Folkcraft for it's warm, full tone and I like my cherry/redwood McSpadden for it's happy sound, etc., so it would be a hard choice. 

Good call Skip.  What I do have is a 'cheat sheet' that has the names of the songs and their first measures.  I find it hard to remember how to start a song sometimes, when in a high noise environment with lots of other musicians playing away.

Great to hear from you again, Nimrod!  I'm glad to hear that your dulcimer in CGc has worked so well for the Sea Shanties and  other songs of the sea.  Do you know about the site www.contemplator.com??  She has an entire section of Songs of the Sea.   One of my favorite water songs is the great 1962 British ditty by Tony Hatch and Les Reed --  Messing About On The River.

Like so many others on this thread I am blessed to already own the dulcimer that I would choose...Bigfoot!  It is a Folkroots model by Folkcraft with a pick-up and a Galax back making it ready for any situation.  I have literally played hundreds of dulcimers from dozens of makers and have never loved the sound or feel of another dulcimer like I do this one.  Bigfoot is also very stunning in a visual sense with the zebrawood and ebony/sugar maple inlay work.  I am often asked about the inspiration behind the design.  The concept is a nod to the Rugg brothers (Howard and Mike) of early CapriTaurus and Folkroots fame.  They still own the original building in California where those early instruments were made as far back as the sixties, but it is now the Bigfoot Discovery Museum where Mike Rugg serves as the curator.  

Hello Everyone

This is by way a follow up to my original question of 3 strings or four.  I have now been playing for just over 2 years and have answered my own question.

I was advised to use four and to tune the dulcimer to C G C instead of D A D, which I have done, and this has proved to be right for the type of music I am most interested in which is Sea Shanties and Songs of the Sea.

At the same time as asking the question, I started a Shanty Band for people with Parkinson's disease.  You can find out more about them on face book by typing barum shanty/folk wailers in to the address bar once you have logged into your account at face book.

Prior to moving house, I was the vocal leader of this shanty band so did not play my dulcimer at the same time, but at home many of the songs that the band sings, I can now play on my Red Kite Dulcimer.

So my advice to my self and others is:  If you have four strings then use them.

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A recorder/player would be more useful with that ability I suppose. 

I just memorized a couple hundred tunes.  Not that hard,  since I play be ear.  Saves having to lug all that stuff around and spending 10 minutes looking for the tab to Happy Birthday or Mary Had A Little Lamb.

For our first grand daughter, all smiles and love!!!

DAN

www.dulcimore.com