Forum Activity for @nigelbleddfa

They have arrived and look very pretty but, as anticipated they are rigid. I can discern no difference in the sound that they make individually but that may change over time.  Their dimensions are identical and they are polished. I would imagine that experienced players would adapt and use them properly but, for now, the more conventional picks, Dunlop Tortex, Herdim, Everly Star, Gibson etc make a nicer sound when I play. Nevertheless, I will persevere. I like this "dulcimer stuff". It's good, isn't it ?

 Thai Sindoro.jpg - 117KB

Robin, thanks so much!  Your descriptive word for this sound, "flatfoot" is perfect.. I can close my eyes and see someone dancing in old leather shoes on the wood floor...  

Thanks to all for the replies and special thanks to Robin for taking the trouble to make a new video to show the fat felt pick.

My wooden picks will be arriving on Friday and I will report back.

Strumelia,

Here's a new video.  If the percussive sound doesn't come through enough, feel free to let me know.  :)

Strumelia, I did have a video yet must've taken it off the internet awhile ago.  Maybe I can do another demo sometime.  

Hey Robin- didn't you used to have a video on here demonstrating your felt pick?  It was great...where'd it go?  

When putting simply the word "picks" in our site-wide search engine, it pulls up a veritable feast of pink adventures to enjoy exploring:

https://fotmd.com/search/results/all/1/25?search_string=picks   

I wrote a blog post a few years back describing my own fickle adventures with picks as well:

https://dulcimer-noter-drone.blogspot.com/2009/03/take-your-pick.html

Like Robert, I make my picks from various plastic lids and containers.  (I cut them into a big kidney bean shape.) They are big enough I have lots of points of contact so can have a very loose hand to hold one.  Unless I'm strumming the daylights out of something and I hold tighter.  :)

The harder the wood the better.  Harder wood can be sanded much thinner and played longer before the tin edge at the tip wears away.  Maple is good, myrtle also (nearly as hard), and I really like bamboo splits from a culm that is big enough that  you don't have to deal (much) with the curved surfaces.  Bamboo, of course has a lot of silicon in it, which makes it particularly tough.

Oak is hard enough, but not pretty.  Walnut may be pretty and tough, but the thin edges wear out quickly.  Hickory, Birch, Ash are also good.

Ken H, when you make your wooden strummers does the type of wood you use make much difference? Are there any you definitely would use or definitely NOT use?

I make my picks from various plastic lids and containers. They fit my loose style of strumming. No matter which pick you choose always be sure they can't fit into the sound holes. I'm always amazed how easily a pick can fall into one.😂...Robert

On guitar and mandolin I use small hard hard picks made of Tortex, a material which gives a sound similar to the traditional tortoise shell picks of the past. One gets a big sound from a hard pick. I tried stone picks, wood pick, and even coins, but discovered I want a little bit of flex in the pick. The problem with using a really stiff pick is learning to roll the thumb so that one can play softly. 

I have never wanted to play dulcimer loudly. I have noisier noiemakers for that, resonator guitars and five-string banjos. That's why I like a more limber strummer or my thumb for the dulcimer.

But by all means experiment. Discover what sounds good to you. In artistic circles, this is what's call "finding your voice."

Wooden "picks"  called 'strummers' were fairly common in the Olde Dayes of dulcimer and well into mid-20th century.  Robin Clark in Wales uses one periodically as do I and several others I know of.  He found an old video of someone (Nettie Presnell??) playing with a strummer.  

I make my own strummers from a variety of hardwoods -- maple, chestnut, yew, oak, bamboo, myrtle, etc.  I have a Lignum Vitae noter, but not a strummer.  The strummers I make are about 3-4" long and 3/4" wide -- roughly index finger size -- and are generally used with broad sweeping motions mostly.  Thickness varies from 1/8" to a feather edge, averaging about 1/16".

I also have a pick made from Vegetable Ivory.  When I was out in the Pacific I picked up a number of Ivory Nut Palm nuts, and carved picks from them.  Most went to dulcimer and uke playing local friends out there.

I really should settle for one pick and practise more. Unfortunately, I allow myself to be distracted and when I am not reading different books about the dulcimer and watching YouTube videos I find myself moving in the direction of eBay to see what is on offer.

Tonight I found wooden picks. Being married to a Thai lady it was a given that I would buy a Thai Sindora one. I decided on two very hard woods - Lignum Vitae and Ironwood - as two others.

Is anybody able to give an opinion on these, please?

This is a link to a British website which has these on sale.

http://www.gear4music.com/TimberTones

I can easily understand how your American forefathers used quills, leather and wooden noters as plastic was not available to them. Having read a lot about noter/drone playing I am surprised that I have found no mention of wooden picks and the woods used to make them. 

I would imagine that wooden picks were used and that somebody here will know about them.

Now, I really must get that thing out of its case and apply myself.

Aw!

That one of the kitten and the dulcimer got me thinking of an old piano instrumental piece called "Kitten on the Keys" and how there needs to be one for Kitten on the Dulcimer -- maybe with some meowing.

As long as Sally Ann doesn't  mistake it for a scratching post, may she learn there are people's toys, too.😉

That's one beautiful cat. I know you will enjoy her. Thanks for adopting a rescue.

Precious! 

She's a sweetie, David!  Congrats!

We brought Sally Ann home Friday and introduced her to our dulcimers. Right now she thinks our house is one big cat toy. I'm thinking she's about 8 weeks old. She could be 9 weeks old.  

 4 (1).JPG - 243KB

I'm with Rob -- the tune of any song can be made into an interesting instrumental piece.  You as the arranger must like the tune or you won't do it the justice it deserves. 

Not that I  make instrumentals out of song tunes, I just don't sing the words and play the tune at the same time...

You just have to like it.  Any can be interesting.

Just a poll, and I hope this question makes sense. When making instrumental arrangements of a vocal/lyrical song, like any given country, rock, or pop song, does anyone feel that certain types of songs, with certain compositional attributes, make for better instrumentals, or can literally anything make for a beautiful or interesting instrumental with the right arrangement?

Good golly, is Sally (Anne) sweet or what!  <3 And I love the tune of the same name-- one of my favorites. 

Oh my.... sweetness OVERLOAD!  

Love the one little grey pinky toe.

This last Friday we were able to visit the kitten we're adopting. We're calling her Sally, or Sally Ann

Two days before Christmas our cat, Peachy, went to kitty heaven.

We're now in the process of adopting a rescue kitten.  We've made all the arrangements but can't bring her home until she gains some weight, the runt of the litter. I believe she weighs 3 pounds and has to weigh 4 before the rescue organization will let us have her. She's not a lot bigger than my iPhone 6

 3.JPG - 193KB

Thanks everyone for all the help!  It took a couple tries, but I got it.  The next time should be much easier!

Noah

Hi Noah,

The strings shouldn't be even touching inside the peg box. Perhaps you strung them incorrectly?

When I install the strings (I am using a 4 string model as example with a photo attachment), I do the two outer strings first; the tuner closest to the nut goes on first and the second closest would go next. Then the third and lastly the 4th string gets installed.

 strings.jpg - 784KB

If you know which goes where, it's pretty evident what the channel is

1.  Put on the Bass drone, go to nearest tuner far side

2.  Put on the Middle Drone; go over the bass tuner shaft if necessary to the farthest tuner on the far side

3.  Put on the outer Melody string, go to nearest tuner near side

4.  Put on the inner Melody string; go over the nearest tuner shaft if necessary to the farthest tuner on the near side

@cself, thanks so much for posting the direct YT links to Dusty's vids-  Dusty's older link was from when this site, FOTMD, was on another platform years ago, and thus the link did not function anymore.  I've taken the initiative of editing Dusty's old post to reflect the new links you posted as well.  Dusty's videos are SO worth watching!   Thank you!  

Hi all,

I put some planetary tuners on my 1973 McSpadden scroll head dulcimer yesterday.  The installation went fine, but I'm having a Dickens of a time trying to figure out how to restring it, though.

Any videos or charts you can point me to?

To be clear, I know how to wind on a string and which string goes to which tuner.  What is stumping me is how to channel the strings so that they are not rubbing on each other.

Thanks!

I'd like to add a couple of points to this thread:

1) Any time cookies are cleared or removed in your Browser, you will be logged out of most sites, even if you have the 'remember me' box checked.  Once you log in again, a new cookie will be created for making logging in easier.  If you have your browser set to not accept any cookies, then you will be needing to log in every time you visit FOTMD.  Likewise, if you share your computer, the same thing will happen if other users clear browser cookies. Also, the cookie settings on your tablet or phone will be different than the ones on your desktop, so you can't expect the exact same behavior across your devices.

2) This site is set so that if you don't delete your cookies and have the login 'remember me' box checked, then that particular device will keep you logged in for a certain number of days, or perhaps as long as a couple of weeks.  But it's not set to keep you logged in 'forever' (which is a good thing) ...so there will naturally be times every week or two where you WILL need to log in again when you visit.  This is normal. I find that I myself must log in at least once a week, even though i visit several times a day.

The 'remember me' checkbox is convenient, but if cookies are cleared on your browser you will be logged out despite that.  And the 'remember me' setting is only for a certain number of days, not 'forever'.  If you have the remember me checkbox checked and you still have to log in every day, then the suspect cause is likely that your browser cookies are somehow being cleared or not being allowed.

Hope this helps!

**wave** I'm a new dulcimer player who is having trouble keeping the beat while strumming and I ran across this thread.  The link below to Dusty's three videos is broken, but I was intrigued so I did a little Googling and found the three individual YouTube links on Dusty's YouTube channel.  Thank you so much for taking the time to record these, your tips on how to hold the pick are already helping me strum a little more in time to the beat of the music.  Mary Had A Little Lamb will be sounding better soon!

Dusty's flatpicking guitar technique for modern mountain dulcimer

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Okay, caught my breath.  I'm happy the warning was unnecessary!

My exercise was based on the premise that the fret placement discrepancies were "errors" relative to equal temperament intonation (call it my hypothesis, if you wish), and the purpose was to determine to what extent these "errors" might be somewhat optimized (as you correctly understood) by moving the nut, and accordingly, the saddle/bridge.

As I said in a previous post, this exercise with its underlying assumption proved very useful with a courting dulcimer as the only significant error after an initial saddle/bridge adjustment was the nut placement.  But in the case of my Maxwell and your Tulip, one look at the initial "error" plot shows that the discrepancies are far and away beyond what one would expect from a respected builder.  I went on with the exercise and plugged in the data for a nut and bridge correction anyway.  While the theoretical correction "averages out" the discrepancies okay (the R-squared value of the regression showing the residual linear trend was now insignificant), the discrepancies remain intolerably large. Put another way, a nut adjustment would adjust the slope of the trend line but essentially do nothing in regard to the error variance about the corresponding trend line.  This came as no surprise, plotting a theoretical correction was purely an academic exercise.  The initial plot alone made it clear that the corrections required to nut and saddle/bridge would be much too large to be practical and would do far too little to resolve the intonation issues.  So the only path to correct equal temperament intonation would be a complete re-fretting job, a path I'm not in the least inclined to take (although I am aware that others have).

At this point, I wondered if I'd have to relegate the Maxwell to being a "wall hanger" aka "DSO" (dulcimer shaped object) or if something else is afoot that could prove my original premise invalid.  Enter "Just Intonation".  When Ken Hulme essentially said in a post early on in this tread that the intonation of the tulip dulcimer might have been set "by ear", I knew he was referring to just intonation.  I had seen other references to it (hard to avoid) but had not read anything that provided enough meat to wrap my head around.  Because I was aware that just intonation poses some limitations on play-ability and the fact I had no just intoned instruments (at least not until I acquired those Maxwells, it seems) it was not something that I was inclined to research.  In hindsight, I guess I should have been more attuned to the role of just intonation in the history of the mountain dulcimer but my initial interest in the instrument, way back when, was focused mainly on integrating it with contemporary music. After a few years that first dulcimer became a mantle piece mostly, taken out only to dust off, perhaps humidify and (just maybe) strum a little.  That changed a couple years ago when I started playing more regularly and then was struck with the dreaded "DAD" (dulcimer acquisition disease).  My Maxwells are party to that affliction and my concerns about their intonation coincidentally coincided with Bridge's reported issues with his tulip dulcimer.  My initial efforts to seek remedy were based on a false premise - its like I was trying to grade apples with a standard applicable only to oranges.

Right on cue Strumelia suggests I should investigate just intonation (already in my mind) and also provides some useful references - alluding to Robin Clark in the process.  Then BAM!  In comes Robin Clark with a mini-thesis on just intonation.  The fog starts to dissipate, especially after viewing Robin's excellent video "Equal Temperamant v Just Intonation v Meantone on McSpadden dulcimers" (

@bridge - What blew me away in "running the numbers" for the tulip dulcimer was how well the data correlated with the data for my Maxwell.  Robin obviously saw it too when he said:

Summing up its become clear we're into the realm of human perception versus physics, thus just intonation is something where art meets science.  So my future path will be to return my Maxwells to their original state, except for new strings set to an appropriate tuning, then explore noter/drone playing style to see if I can develop greater appreciation for it. Should intonation issues become apparent in that context at least it will be clear that any effort at setup must be carried out with a just intonation "reference standard" in mind.

Don't worry, Jim. I will not be modifying the instrument at all. If I make a secondary nut, it will just sit there where the screwdriver was and be easily removable. Just a thin piece of bone. I am NOT going to change the instrument in any way. I have respect for the instrument and its builder.  :-)

YOU SHOULD BE SKEPTICAL!  DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING YET!

Sorry for the shout, but you're misinterpreting the results.  If you base any nut adjustment on what those results imply, things will only get worse!  I'll explain more fully in another post - but for now I just want to prevent you from wasting time chasing your tail or worse yet modifying your instrument.

I dropped one of my McSpadden Dulcimers off at Dusty Strings in Seattle yesterday to have it converted to a baritone.  I'm looking forward to its new sound!

Jim, thanks for plugging in those numbers. Does the line above suggest that simply placing the bridge at 702mm will "fix" or at least optimize how the notes will sound? I'm skeptical re that. I'll try it after I finish my morning coffee (but not before) and report back. I was telling Robin that I will probably make a tiny second nut out of some bone blanks I have and place it upstream of the zero fret.

Does it seem odd that the strings at the nut are pushed toward the melody side of the fret board? Look at the photo I sent of the screwdriver and note where the cuts are in the wood.

I will try what you suggest, Robin, though I think I will need to buy some single strings in other gauges before really drawing any conclusions. Clearly, this thing sounds much better with the "nut" in a different position, but the general build quality suggests that the zero fret was intentionally positioned where it is rather than that it is where it is by error.

I get the impression that this instrument was designed to play in two configurations. I even have a sneaky suspicion that there was a free-floating nut that has disappeared over the years. I think I will try to make a tiny nut out of some bone blanks I have using my nut files. That will at least keep me out of the bars and racetracks for a day or two. ;-)

@randy-adams

I hear you, Randy, but there are limits to how far out of tune you can get before EVERYTHING sounds awful.  ;-)

We're trying to understand what the builder intended for this instrument, and it has been very interesting and instructive, so far. Enjoy!