Forum Activity for @dusty

Dave, you've received solid answers to most of your questions.  Aren't FOTMD folks grand?

I have one suggestion.  If the wood feels dry, it probably is.  You might try a product such as Howard's Feed n Wax .  You put a tiny bit on a rag and rub it into the wood. Then take another rag, wipe off any excess, and let it sit 20-30 minutes.  If the wood is seriously dried out you might need more than a tiny bit since the wood will soak the stuff up. But start with as little as possible. Use it before you put on new strings so you can get to the fretboard, too. My guess is the dulcimer will show its health and happiness by really shining.  I use it periodically on all my dulcimers except the one that has a heavy lacquer finish.

Welcome, Pondoro.  Sounds like you may play several folk instruments in depth before adding to your Instrument Zoo.  I  think you will enjoy the  dulcimer. 

As Strumelia mentioned, there are so many instruments I yearn to play well but it would take several lifetimes.  I haven't been able to restrain myself  enough to fit that playing well requirement.  Fortunately the dulcimer is forgiving of my dabbling.   I sometimes say this is what happens when you give a Girl Scout the Dabbler badge.  I still am one.  Several of us here are.  I think you will feel right at home, there's even a forum about Adventures with 'Other's Instruments.  Enjoy!

Cool beans, Dave!

Depending on when Keith started doing this as a standard thing, there 'might' be on your dulcimer a tiny hitch pin on the melody string SIDE of the fretboard, about halfway down. Mine has one, but my dulcimer is later, from around 1997 or 98 I think.  It was meant for if you want to temporarily switch from a double melody string to a single melody string.  You would just loosen the string nearest the edge and pull it down on the side of the fretboard, out of the way, in order to play with just a single melody string for however long you wanted.
I thought it might also be handy if you always play with one melody string- in that if you broke your melody string in the middle of a jam or workshop, you could theoretically have a 'spare' ready to just tighten up and keep playing!  
Me, I personally like the sound of double melody strings, so I never used that pin that Keith had installed on my dulcimer.

Thanks for all the help so far!

Poor choice of words on my part, as the bridge does seat nicely in the slot with no wobble. I was mainly concerned that it was at one time glued in and had come loose. I'm really impressed by the precision of the fit after all of these years (and the construction of the instrument for that matter - wow!). 

Your comments on the stringing configurations were especially helpful, especially if I can set this up as a three string for noter/drone. I've been learning my way through Jean Ritchie's book and was struggling with the prospect of changing modes on a four string with wooden pegs. I hadn't thought of just using three strings... 

I, too, have a KYoung teardrop--  mine was built in'77.   Keith made wonderful instruments!  The wooden tuning beads work nicely to make fine tuning adjustments.  

Keith's bridges have a SLOT into which they fit nicely. This is confirmed in the photos. In one respect, if they are not glued, they can be called 'floating' since they can be removed once all strings are off. 
However, talk about moving or determining the location of a 'floating' bridge is just not applicable here. Keith located the deep bridge slot exactly where it needs to be to be in tune with the fret placements, and the bridge drops into that slot. No need to figure out where to put the bridge.

Keith typically provided bridge and nut string slots that could be used to accommodate various ways of stringing, such as: Four equidistant strings. Three strings with a bass, a middle, and a single melody string. And 4 strings using bass, middle and a pair of melody strings.  You can see this string slot choices setup provided by Keith in your photos.

BTW If you choose to play with a noter and a single melody string, I recommend using the melody string slot closest to the edge of the fingerboard, which would give just a bit of extra space between the melody string and the middle string- this helps in avoding bumping into the middle string with one's noter.

Your Young teardrop is very much like mine (you can see mine in the logo at the top of this site).  You've got yourself a real beauty, a treasure!  It will become more valuable with time if you don't make structural changes to it.  Enjoy that wonderful dulcimer!

The notches on the nut are for setting the dulcimer up in one of two ways: 1st way - four equidistant string set-up or 2nd way - bass, middle, and double melody string set-up.

Keith put the wooden bead fine tuners on all of the strings.

A standard set of dulcimer strings should work just fine.  Bass string .020-.022, Middle string .012-.014, and Melody strings .010-.012.

Once you have located the correct position for the bridge utilizing the method give by Ken Hulme, you can mark the correct position on the fret board so it can easily be relocated if it shifts position.

Strings are dependent on the Vibrating String Length (nut to bridge distance) and the open tuning you want for the strings -- DAA, DAd, CGG, etc.

You can certainly leave things alone for now and see how it shakes out.  I don't remember what finish Keith used on his dulcimers, but someone here will know.  Probably linseed oil, but don't quote me on that.  

For now, clean with a water-damp cloth.

With a floating bridge, never remove all the strings at once.  Remove and replace one at a time to keep the bridge in place.  If it sounds really "off" once you've tuned it, it's possible the bridge has been nudged.  Take the distance from the inside edge of the nut to the top of the 7th fret, double that, and that's where the inside edge of the bridge goes, at least to start. The intonation can be tweaked slightly from there.

Welcome Pondoro!   I've been playing old time American and Anglo-Scottish folk tunes on the dulcimer for forty years (one of these days I'll get it right!)

Here's an article I wrote a number of years back called I Just Got A Dulcimer, Now What?  It's an illustrated glossary of dulcimer terms (so we all speak the same lingo); plus answers to many beginner questions about tuning, playing, care and feeding of your new acquisition.

I Just Got A.pdf - 1MB

Hi Pondoro!  What a wonderful Christmas present!  The dulcimer (in my book) is the best instrument in the world for Christmas songs and folk music!  Enjoy

You got a great find there.....Dave.  This will be a big learning time for you and you'll be glad you bought that dulcimer.  I'm interested in what those "fine tuners" are and how they work.  The notches at the nut side are for putting the strings in different places to what you're used to.  nice choice for a builder to make.  aloha, irene

Hi. I just bought this instrument and had some questions. It's a Keith Young #545, made in Nov 1980. It looks like solid cherry. Thought maybe someone who is familiar with these could help me out. I've attached some pictures. 

What strings should I use?

There are only two fine tuners on the instrument. I have some old cherry stashed away and I think I can recreate them, but were there originally one for each string?

The bridge floats. I assume it was built that way? (I find no evidence of glue).

One of the sides appears to separating from the bottom just a hair toward the base. Any reason not to just leave this alone for now?

The finish has what appear to be water spots. Not sure of the original finish, but the instrument feels 'dry' like maybe it was an oil finish. I'm pretty good with leaving the finish as is, but can I safely clean it, and if so, what with?

There a multiple notches for the strings at both the nut and the bridge. The setup for a four string is pretty easy to see, but why the other notches?

Thanks in advance for any help and advice.

 IMG_20181029_192435752 small.jpg - 125KB

Welcome Pondoro. You will find many new friends here. While this is a dulcimer forum, there are many who play ukulele and harmonica. Bodhran? Now you lost me. I'll have to Google it.

5 min later:  Now I know.  A one sided shallow drum.  Interesting. 

Hi Pondoro. I envy your years of bodhran lessons!  There are several instruments I yearn to play well... but alas I'd need three lifetimes to do so. 

How sweet that your wife is encouraging your music adventures!  I hope you enjoy it here on FOTMD.

Hi, I've played the harmonica for 45 years or so, the ukulele for twelve, and the bodhrán for three. I've actually taken lessons for three years on the bodhrán. Anyway I want to play an old time American instrument and my wife is funding a mountain dulcimer for Christmas. So I'll soon be trying my hand on that. I like pretty much all music, but I'm looking forward to old time folk tunes and Christmas songs on my dulcimer. 

I think you're probably right, Strumelia.  ED had a list of dulcimer clubs and instructors and other resources and gave the appearance of being comprehensive.  I will be forever grateful to ED for introducing me to the dulcimer and allowing me to ask all sorts of (what now seem to be ) ridiculous beginner questions.  However, I found some of the resources there outdated. When I searched for local dulcimer groups I found about 5, all of which had be defunct for years.  I hope these new resources will be kept more updated.

I was thinking Big Data is as dizzying as Big Mon .

What a cool poster!  I'm wearing one of my HOTD tee-shirts even now.  :)

And here it is! I love it. I don't wear t-shirts with designs on the front so it was wonderful that you made this into a poster. I haven't hung it yet. Looking for a special place.

 Kandinsky Dulcimer poster.jpg - 224KB

I think the demise of everythingdulcimer site may have had something to do with people feeling inspired to create new sites to house Tab collections, event calendars, club lists, teachers, etc... perhaps to help fill in the gaps that ED left behind. It's admirable that people are doing this. But it's no easy task, for sure!

Unfortunately, there's little money to be made from dulcimer sites in general. And running sites of any kind efficiently requires regular input of time, effort, and maintenance.

I've always liked to make FOTMD to be more of a social friends network, with discussions, groups, videos, audios, photos, and messaging. Not so much an archive for databases of information, or tab. In fact (unlike on ED, which did not offer video/audio/photo sections), I periodically delete members who are long inactive, along with all their site content. I want to keep things 'in the now', and I try to avoid accumulating a monumental amount of old information and multimedia files. This trimming keeps the site reasonably manageable in scope for me.

That's interesting that McSpadden is actually reaching and soliciting such information, Dusty.  "Big Data"... is that anything like Big Scioti ?  lolol

Stephen, I only learned about Eulberg's site when I asked him if I could list the Berkeley Dulcimer Gathering on your site.  I had no idea either.

Perhaps at some point you two could indeed coordinate the two sites somehow.  And Steve E. does not include regular dulcimer groups, so perhaps the two lists can fulfill different purposes.

I recently received an unsolicited email from McSpadden checking on the details of my local group for some kind of database they are gathering.  I guess lots of folks are trying to create big data on the dulcimer world.

I like that you can SORT that list by the column heads, like by State... or by start date. Seems like it has a lot of entries.

It's difficult when events don't have a way of very quickly seeing their location. (like if it's in the small print, OR if the poster only puts the local city or town...like we know where that is, lol)

I just learned that Steve Eulberg maintains a list of dulcimer concerts, workshops, and festivals at Dulcimer Crossing.  The link is  https://dulcimercrossing.com/dc_events.html .

Welcome to FOTMD @fredr

There are a lot of great people here that will help you!

You are beginning a wonderful journey!  Have fun!

Sheryl,

Glad you like the Kandinsky Dulcimer poster! Would love to see a photo of it framed!  :-)

@fredr Welcome!  There's lots to see and hear-- enjoy exploring FOTMD! 

Hi Everyone I am new to the group and also to the Mountain Dulcimer. Saw and heard my first one in July last year, the memory stuck. So a year later I Found a new to me McSpadden and here we go! I have never played an instrament before and there isn't a Dulcimer teacher near me.

That being said, I am thankful to join your group and look forward to learning from you all.

Thank you again

Just received my poster from Dulcimuse. I can't wait to frame it! So much more vibrant than I expected. Thank you! 

Glad to hear that the new strings are working out for you Clare. Have fun playing.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Sounds great, @Diane-R!  New strings look better, feel better, and sound better.  I know a professional guitarist who changes strings every month.  I try to do so every 3-6 months on the instruments I play regularly.  I am not sure why some people keep the same strings on for years.  They just get hard and start hurting your fingertips, as you can testify.

Thank you Strumelia!  I'm absolutely thrilled!  And all this time I was afraid I was losing my dexterity... 

That's wonderful news Diane!  Yay!  

Nice!  Happy strummin', Richard! 

So happy to say that I received my Folkcraft strings and the playability is so much easier!  I can actually do hammer ons and pull offs again!  Cannot believe the difference!  I can actually play the chords without pressing down with much force.  It actually sounds like a dulcimer again!     Thanks for all the advice and patience...

Boy that really is a beautiful dulcimer Atilwi!  And thank you Terry for the info on the pickups!  I appreciate it!  

Dulcinina I love that story! That dulcimer must be very happy to have a loving and appreciative new owner.