Forum Activity for @stewart-mccormick

Stewart, I think you can send him a private message regardless of "Following" status. 

Sure, you need it for noter play!  ;) 

PS- Randy Adams is the dulcimer player I listen to most!  I've got a playlist.  :)

Hey, I like it, Stewart!  Have fun working on it! 

Found this beauty online! Looks like poplar or pine? Hopefully with a little hide glue and TLC, and she will be my next dedicated Noter Dulcimer! What do you think?

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I was there a little over a week ago. Unfortunately a snow storm kept the shop closed and I couldn't hang around. I needed to get back to Pennsylvania. Next year (2019) in May we are having a noter drone festival in Berea. Some of the group did get to meet Warren.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

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Well, Dave, they can be tuned numerous ways.  When I got my 1st it was tuned DAdd.  Now, I usually use DAAd.  However DAdc is a good one for minor key tunes (Aeolian mode.)  Then there's always DAdA, the Jean Ritchie tuning.  Have I just confused you to no end?  Well pick either of the 1st 2 and start playing.  There were no beginner's books for 4 independent strings when I started, and I don't know of any now, either.  Janita Baker has some books for 4 strings using her tuning DABbd (I think.)  Seems like it would be a cool tuning for solo fingerpicking like she does.

How are they tuned, and any suggestions on a beginner book for that?

It really is a beautiful dulcimer, but it strikes me as a non-Stanley Hicks instrument.  It seems to me to be a dulcimer built in the Stanley Hicks style by somebody else (David Love).  The Stanley Hicks label inside the soundhole seems to be out of place somehow.  Maybe Stanley acquired it from Mr. Love, and put his label of ownership in it?   There is plenty of room inside the heart cutout to affix a label after the dulcimer was completed.  Just my musings...

Thats an incredible dulcimer!!

I can offer no information, William, but the dulcimer is a treasure! 

Help me out, historians and collectors.  I just acquired a Watauga Co. NC dulcimer with the labels of two known craftsmen: Stanley Hicks and David Love.  The Hicks label was centered in a soundhole where you would expect to see a Hicks label, but the Love label was almost hidden toward the center of the back. 

Hicks I know, as does every Foxfire fan, but Love was a new one.  I've only found one other dulcimer with his name in it, and it did not have the Hicks label.  Love was a woodcarver, and the stylized eagle effigy pegbox was one of his hallmarks.  

My hypothesis on this dulcimer, which has Love's eagle peghead and a body that just screams Hicks: the instrument was a collaborative effort between the two craftsmen.  The two lived in the same general area--Watauga Co.--and Love's sister Dovie was married to a Hicks; so a sharing of ideas and even efforts would be easy to imagine.  Either Love supplied the pegbox and Hicks built the dulcimer, or Hicks made the component parts and Love assembled them using his pegbox.

Historians, collectors, and Watauga Co. music aficionados: can you confirm a hypothesis or share something I don't know?  (This is my first venture into the rich musical heritage of Watauga Co., so there's a LOT of stuff I don't know!)  Do you know more about Love, or about collaborations or any other professional or social relationship between Love and Hicks?

Thanks in advance!

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Thank you, Dusty.

Here is the link: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/ .  I will also fix it in the original post.

FYI: The best way to create a hyperlink in a post is to use the hyperlink tool.  Just highlight the text that will have the link and click the hyperlink icon (the fifth icon from the right in the tool bar).  Then you paste the URL and can choose to have the link open in another window or this one (I always choose another window).

It does the same thing, Lois, just brings us back to where we started. Strange !

FWIW I just put in this. (Dunno if it's http or https.)   traditionalmusic.co.uk

Yes, Ken, I know and that is why I tried to edit it. It seems that this forum does not encourage links to other sites. Either that or I am doing things the wrong way. If you type in the words a browser will take you there. It's interesting to see that the dulcimer is not included in the instruments discussed and my own country, Wales, is completely ignored. Nevertheless there is some good stuff there and I am prepared to forgive these omissions 

I have just downloaded the sheet music for "Hewlett" . The only tune I play properly at present is "Wildwood Flower" and that I should seek to play "Hewlett" is an attempt to bury my failed efforts to learn the autoharp, these two tunes being my favourites when others played them on their autoharps. 

It will be a long time before any of my music features on this site, possibly years, but I am having a lot of fun and will persevere.

Nigel -- Trad Music UK is a great resource.  However, your link does not take us there; it takes us to a copy of this page...  There are 2 "diamond Question Marks which precede the link for some reason that may be causing the problem...

I would imagine that reference has already been made to this site

http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/

and that old hands are familiar with it. I mention it now so that absolute beginners, like myself, are aware of its existence without having to read every post on FOTMD. "Wood from the trees" sort of thing 

Thanks for your post, Rick!  

I just thought I would weigh in and clarify a few things. I am a member here and I can always be found that way. I do not have a website at this time.

I am retired from my previous vocation of doing graphic design and can now spend my time being a luthier. I'm currently devoting myself to making dulcimers (even if a uke sneaks in occasionally). I'm not trying to be hard to find, I'm jumping up and down saying “I'm Here, I'm Here”.

Great sound and beautifully played.

Adrian, What a lovely sounding instrument, and how cool of you to experiment like that with a Martin guitar. It makes me wonder how many instruments and their variations have started out this way. Thanks for sharing. 

I agree with John -- make a new nut & bridge and space the string as you choose.  Keep the old nut & bridge and put them back if you decide to sell.

You could make a new nut and bridge, carefully knock the other ones out, and cut the new notches any way you want.  This is assuming that you're handy with tools, measurements, etc.

I don't see how that modification would affect the historic value; you could always move the strings back to their original positions if needed.  Enjoy it....

So, I very recently found this 1973, Bob Mize, 4 string equidistant, Just intonation, nice friction pegs. Looks like possibly "Wormy Chestnut" top. Great sound to it, a real beauty. I am considering modifying it only as much as so it will be strung in the more common, 2 drone strings close together, and move the 3rd so it is fingered like a "modern dulcimer, but also could still be strung the traditional way.

 What do you think, I have some hesitation because of the "historic originality" factor. Believe it or not I found this on Etsy of all places. Never hurts to browse around!!

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That "beautiful", "warmer" sound is coming from the large interior volume of the guitar body.  Any dulcimer with roughly equivalent cubic inches will sound just as nice -- a Tennessee Music Box for example, or a Galax style dulcimer. 

Interesting idea, but there are real "dulcimer solutions" rather than partially converting something that isn't a dulcimer.  Last weekend the "Hindman in Exile" bunch visited the John Jacob Niles Center For American Music on the UK campus in Lexington, KY where we got to see and hold and measure some of the most unique dulcimers ever built including the one in the picture shaped like a cello.   

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Interesting... soundtrack?

I've had the pleasure of visiting Mr May's shop on a couple different visits to Berea. 

Thanks for the posting, Stewart!

Lorraine, what I mean is, a single $5 donation for any single sale of something for $100 or higher. 

Of course, if someone sells an $800 dulcimer through their FOTMD sale ad, it'd be awfully nice of them to make a donation of perhaps a little more than $5... but that would be up to them, as I only really request a $5 donation per sale.

If you are selling something like a CD or book, which are much less than $100, then I'd ask that you please make a $5 donation once (and if) you had sold $100 worth of them through an ad here.

I really enjoy listening to builders talk about their passion for the instrument, even after 40+ years!