Forum Activity for @strumelia

Looking for article by Ken Hulme

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Ask and ye shall receive.

 

I've replaced the old pdf in that thread with the revised PDF that gives the correct octave in the tuning instructions. 

Here's the link to it in FOTMD's Resources forum, and I pinned it to the top position:

https://fotmd.com/forums/forum/dulcimer-resourcestabs-books-websites-dvds/17129/i-just-got-a-dulcimer-now-what-article

And I also put one in the Beginner's Group, here:

https://fotmd.com/strumelia/group_discuss/2316/ken-hulmes-i-just-got-a-dulcimer-now-what-article

 

Additionally, I pinned Ken's "Get Noterized" article thread to the top of the Traditional Playing Style Forum, here:

https://fotmd.com/forums/forum/traditional-style-playing-drone-and-or-noter-discussions/4616/get-noterized-article

AND I put another thread with the Get Noterized article in the Old Style Noter Drone GROUP, here:

https://fotmd.com/strumelia/group_discuss/2317/ken-hulmes-get-noterized-article

Balalaika, the most Russianist of Russian instruments

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

The original balalaika was a diatonic fretted instrument, but that changed, IIRC, in the mid- late-1800s.  If you can find a diatonic one, hang on to it!

Looking for article by Ken Hulme

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Here's the current, corrected version...

The version that Lisa mentions is stored here under Dulcimer Resources, and I can't delete it, or replace with the correct version.

Favorite albums

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

@hoodoo If you are a fan of the music of Phyllis Gaskins, check out decades-old recording by Bonnie Russell and the Russell family. 

Favorite albums

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I've had interest in the use of mountain dulcimer in a string band context. Two records, both released this year, have been delights:  

-The Long Point String Band- Piney Woods 

-Roger Netherton 

The mountain dulcimer player in both recordings is Hunter Walker.  Though dulcimer isn't played on every cut, when it's played, it is tasteful and in the service of getting a great overall ensemble sound.  The Roger Netherton record was recorded at the home old-time musician Rachel Eddy with friends in support of Netherton, a fiddle champ at Winfield in a recent year. 

 

updated by @robin-thompson: 12/12/18 03:55:26PM

Looking for article by Ken Hulme

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Sorry. I was not aware of the mistake. I will have to save the correct one once someone posts it.

Balalaika, the most Russianist of Russian instruments

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Cool!  E E A, eh?

Well it's wonderful that you are exploring both the balalaika in its native state and the mtn dulcimer!  If you ever can post a video of a simple tune on your balalaika I'm sure we'd all love to watch it!  

Looking for article by Ken Hulme

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Kevin (and others), please be aware that the pdf you attached is an older version of Ken's article which contains a problematic mistake when instructing how to tune.
At the bottom of page 8 it says to tune the Bass string to D4, the D to the right of and higher than Middle C (C4) on a piano.  This is incorrect and you will break all your strings if you start there and go up.
Instead, be sure to tune the Bass string to D3 ...the D LOWER than and to the left of Middle C on a piano.  Thus, tuning to DAd is actually D3, A3, d4  (d4 being the high melody d string)

I believe Ken has since corrected this error in his article.  But there are incorrect versions are still floating around out there in internet land.

Here's some more links to tuning assistance:

https://dulcimer-noter-drone.blogspot.com/2010/12/what-notes-do-i-tune-my-strings-to.html

updated by @strumelia: 12/12/18 03:17:25PM

Balalaika, the most Russianist of Russian instruments

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

It was very much to play traditional Russian folk music so I've kept to the E-E-A tuning with two nylon and one steel string while playing with the flesh of the index finger as opposed to a pick. Nowhere near getting to a level of pizzicato or double pizzicato but I can muddle through The Peddlers (the Tetris song) and The Moon Shines Softly. Being in north Texas there's a Russian folk society in Houston I've contacted but nothing local(ish) and not much of an English speaking online community. There's 152 of us in all of Reddit. So, I'm excited about also dipping into the dulcimer cause this seems like a lively and supportive community and not quite so alone with an instrument as I've been with the balalaika. 

Marc Bolan Dulcimer?

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

I heard back from the maker- there was no connection. The dulcimers date from the early 80's. He worked for Gibson in the early 70s, Bolan was a Gibson endorsee and Nick serviced his guitars as part of the contract.

Looking for article by Ken Hulme

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Thanks a bunch!

 

Phil

Balalaika, the most Russianist of Russian instruments

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Well I think one important question would be ...what kind of music do you want to play on your balalaika?  They look to be chromatically fretted, so if you 'don't' aim to play specific Russian kinds of music, you could just tune the 3 strings however you wanted... in intervals like mandolin/fiddle 5ths, like a dulcimer, like 3 strings of a guitar, or like a 3 string Uke.  The only limits are the fact of only 3 strings.  The scale length would tell you what gauge strings to put on once you've decided on the tuning you want.

The other approach is if you want to tune it and play it in traditional balalaika style.  Sometimes there are youtube instructional videos that you can follow for beginners of any instrument- that are in another language but are not all that hard to follow- just listen for and duplicate the tuning being used, and then do along with what the video person is doing.

Balalaika, the most Russianist of Russian instruments

Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Picked a tourist model up last October, or rather my son found one in a pile of 'weird instruments' and convinced me to buy it. About three months later I did figure out the instrument was REALLY meant for the mantle and not to be played. Went ahead and ordered a Roosebeck and have been desperately working on learning to play it over the last year. Unfortunately resources in English are few and far between. Part of the reason for getting a Dulcimer was simply the wealth of help available as opposed to the book and meager videos available for the balalaika. Anyone here miss with the three stringed Dorito at all?

updated by @twogunbob: 03/08/19 02:09:00PM

Looking for article by Ken Hulme

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I am in need  of @ken-hulme 's article on I have a dulcimer, now what. Can't seem to find it. I just finished making a dulcimer as a Christmas present for one of my co-workers wife and I would like her to read it. 

 

Thanks, Phil

Favorite albums

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I came across Phyllis Gaskin's music. Exactly the type of thing I was looking for! Can't wait to read/listen to more recommendations.

Marc Bolan Dulcimer?

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

@grahame-wood

I did a quick search, and I couldn’t come up with anything that associates Mr. Bolan with a dulcimer.

Favorite albums

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Lots of good albums out there, but also lots of free stuff on YouTube and SoundCloud.  I learned my first dozen songs or so from watching YouTube videos.  With the videos you can see people play as well as hear the music, so its a great teaching tool.  Just a YouTube search for "mountain dulcimer" will lead you on a never ending but very enjoyable journey.

Show Us Your Pets!

OFF TOPIC discussions

They are, but so are we lucky!

Favorite albums

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

If you install Spotify (the free version) you can use the search box to find a fair number of albums that are mountain dulcimer recordings.  I saved mine to my Spotify play list and had about 10-12 albums stored.  Almost all of Jean Ritchies were on the list.  I figured I could find the ones I wanted after I listened to them. 

Show Us Your Pets!

OFF TOPIC discussions

Lucky dogs!  

Show Us Your Pets!

OFF TOPIC discussions

Yes, you are right. We love doing it for them, because when they run and chase each other through the maze, it's quite entertaining for us.

Favorite albums

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Did You?  by dulcimer Grandmaster Robert Force

Pacific Rim Dulcimer Project by various artists

Any CD by Jean Ritchie

Any CD by Kevin Roth

Show Us Your Pets!

OFF TOPIC discussions

Wow @susie , those dogs are livin' the life !

Favorite albums

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Masters of the Mountain Dulcimer Volume one features 19 selections by 19 different dulcimer players.  I bought it at a festival from Susan Trump.  Try www.susantrump.com.

Favorite albums

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

As I begin my dulcimer journey, i'm looking for some good albums to listen to. Are there any compilation albums out there featuring a variety of styles? I'll be honest, i know little little about the dulcimer other than I like the sound and I want to play one. I looked in the archives and I couldnt find any discussions covering this topic, so my apologies if it has already been done

Show Us Your Pets!

OFF TOPIC discussions

We get a lot of snow in Northern Michigan. So, our dogs get a custom race track (maze) out back each year.

I

updated by @susie: 12/11/18 07:38:14AM

Show Us Your Pets!

OFF TOPIC discussions

Thanks for the 'warm' comments on Gracie @susie @robin-thompson @strumelia  

updated by @sam: 12/11/18 05:54:28AM

Show Us Your Pets!

OFF TOPIC discussions

That Gracie is a real firecracker !!         What a terrific photo, Sam!

Show Us Your Pets!

OFF TOPIC discussions

It's obvious Gracie loves snow more than I do!  haha

Show Us Your Pets!

OFF TOPIC discussions

Aren't pets great!? 

Show Us Your Pets!

OFF TOPIC discussions

Gracie LOVES snow!

Hearts Of The Dulcimer Podcast In Its 4th Year

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Hearts of the Dulcimer Podcast - Episode 39
The Winter Holiday Dulcimer 2018

http://dulcimuse.com/podcast

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With music from all over the globe, celebrate the season with wintry seasonal dulcimer music from Butch Ross, Lorraine Hammond, Jessica Comeau, Don Pedi, Tull Glazener, Madeline MacNeil, Nina Zanetti, Aubrey Atwater, and Christine Shoemaker.

Hearts of the Dulcimer Podcast can be found on most podcast apps.
Here's the link to Hearts of the Dulcimer on iTunes:  http://bit.ly/hotdpodcast

Don't use a podcast app or iTunes? You can listen to all the podcast episodes directly on our website:  http://dulcimuse.com/podcast

We also have a resource page for every episode, where you can find photos, videos, and song lists. Here's the resource page for this episode:  http://dulcimuse.com/podcast/resource/039.html

 

updated by @patricia-delich: 12/09/18 11:19:33PM

The Dulcimer

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

1)  Yes -- in that part of the world, at that time, caves were often used as stables -- a place to protect horses and mules -- among other things.  Cave are nice and cool, and require minimum labor to seal against the elements and dangerous wildlife (animal or human).

2)  Yes, short hair and beardless are health issues -- they hide fewer parasites and are much easier to clean.  Also, Jesus was Semitic, and did not look like a European with a tan.  

The Dulcimer

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Here are three interesting bits of information I learned this week:

(1) Baby Jesus was, in all likelihood, born in a cave, not a manger in a stable.

(2) Jesus did not look like a hippie and was short, as most men were at the time, unlike today's man. As was the Jewish custom, Jesus had very little facial hair, and short cropped hair. He would probably have been around 5'1".

(3) The KJV of the Bible is inaccurate, as in its use of the word "dulcimer."

It's been a tough week.

The Dulcimer

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

It may be that the biblical translators were just thinking of this term generically.  The two words of which the word "dulcimer" is composed are dulce (sweet) and melos (melody), thus indicating some kind of a musical instrument that makes a sweet sound or melody.  Just a suggestion.

About to start my first kit, any advice?

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

Hi Jools;

I've assembled, or helped assemble several of those kits, as have others here.  If I remember correctly, the only real "hard" part is assembling the top with the space between the two planks; and that's not difficult. 

My one suggestion is to use an appropriate size of Forstner bit, and a rasp, to open up the bottom of the tuning head slot, before starting assembly with it.  As it comes, that slot is three sided -- two sides and the bottom.  But as a player with many years experience stringing and re-stringing dulcimers, an "open" slot makes it a lot easier to run the string ends through the holes in the tuning pins preparatory to tuning.  A few stabbed fingers will convince you too!  The head works just fine without a bottom, many people make them that way.  There's never enough string pressure to both anything.  

About to start my first kit, any advice?

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

Hi everyone

I finally get my Folkcraft walnut teardrop dulcimer delivered to me here in the UK on Tuesday.

I intend to start building it soon after Christmas.

I wondered if anyone has any advice to help me build it as best as possible. I'm used to working with wood as I've been making doors, windows, staircases etc for 30yrs, but this is a first.

Thank you

Jools

The Dulcimer

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Biblical scholars tell us that "dulcimer" is a mis-translation. The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible contains this list: "horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum." There is no evidence that the "translators" of the King James Version of the Bible used any ancient manuscripts as a source. Their task was to put the Bible into an understandable English rendition of the scriptures. The NRSV, the NKJV, NIV and other "newer" translations use older and more reliable source manuscripts. There is no archaeological evidence for a mountain dulcimer-like instrument in the time of Daniel (400-100 B.C.E.). There are some depictions of hammered dulcimer type instruments during that time period. I realize that this is a brief and simplistic statement of a complex issue. It would take more time than I have at the moment to go in to the nuances of biblical translation, reliability of manuscripts, and biblical archaeology to do justice to this discussion. My point is that we do a gross injustice to lead people to think that people in the middle East in 400-100 B.C.E. knew of or even played a dulcimer-like instrument.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

The Dulcimer

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Yes, perhaps you guys are right. But we don't know for sure. It doesn't read, hammered dulcimer. It doesn't read, bagpipe. It reads, dulcimer. I'm going with 1 or 2 stringed dulcimer.

Interesting, to say the least.

The Dulcimer

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Well at least we can say that we play an instrument with one of the oldest names for musical instruments.

My understanding, Terry, is that what is referred to as a "dulcimer" in the Book of Daniel was probably closer to a bagpipe than the fretted zither that you and I play, which has much more recent origins, as we know.  The KJV was an English translation from Aramaic and Hebrew, so to really investigate specifically what instrument was meant by the term, we'd need to know those languages.

There are a handful of references to something called a "dulcimer" in literature, but again, our lap dulcimer was probably not what the authors had in mind.

One of the most well known is Samuel Tayler Coleridge's "Kubla Khan":

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssianian maid

And on her dulcimer she played

Singing of Mount Abora.