I did check in the sound holes and all over the surface of the dulcimer for any markings.
I know that the man who purchased it lived in Vermont but he traveled extensively to craft/artisan shows for his pottery company so it could have come from darn near anywhere.
Doesn't ring any bells here, either. What part of the country does it come from? First time I've see an 8 string. I've fantasized abut making a 3 course 9 string dulcimer...
You did look in the soundholes for a maker's label or writing on the back, right?
It doesn't ring any bells with me, unfortunately.
I have recently purchased a vintage 8 string mountain dulcimer. It was built to the owner’s father’s specifications about forty years ago. I cannot find any thing on the dulcimer that would identify the maker. Does this seem reminiscent of any particular maker’s style?
Hearts of the Dulcimer Podcast - Episode 33
An Irish Music Special
In this episode we’re playing music from Ireland, all on the mountain dulcimer, of course. With music from dulcimer players Carol Walker, Aubrey Atwater, Neal Hellman, Jonathan Dowell, Mark Gilston, Linda Brockinton, Gary Gallier, Molly McCormack, Lorinda Jones, and Larry and Elaine Conger.
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/033.html
I guess someone didn't pay the omeka.net bill. Shame. Pretty good pics of some interesting instruments.
The instruments themselves are in the Tennessee State Museum. Vanderbuilt Univ. has The David Schnaufer Collection of his research and instrument database:
"Initially conceived by David Schnaufer, the database was designed as a "sound museum," exhibiting playable song clips played on historic handmade dulcimers alongside his research and documentation (gathered with Sandy Conaster) of historical dulcimers including photos, dimensions, dates where known, and other provenance information."
Hey, thanks guys, for your replies. That helps a lot. I appreciate your taking the time to respond.
Susie, Richard is describing the dimensions of the standard dulcimer that McSpadden has sold for years. However, a couple of years ago they began making another one with a shorter VSL. I think it's 26" instead of 28.5". If you play noter/drone, the longer VSL is fine. But some people who play chords prefer a shorter VSL because it's easier to finger some chords (although you lose some sustain in the process).
Micarta is a synthetic material that is used in place of ebony or rosewood. Since legal ebony is getting harder to find (and therefore more expensive) some guitars and other instruments are now made with micarta fretboards and bridges. I've read that it is as hard as ebony, but I don't know what it feels like to play. If you search the internet you'll find some high-end Martin guitars with micarta fretboards, so it must be pretty good.
One interesting note: since Micarta is synthetic, it can be colored. Most of the time it is black so that it looks like Ebony (though it probably doesn't have wood grain). But theoretically, it could be any color. Imagine a dulcimer with a hot pink fretboard!
Susie,
Length overall 36"
Width lower bout 7"
Width upper bout 5.5"
VSL 28.75"
Depth of body including top and back 1.75"
Width of fretboard 1.5"
Hope that helps. Perhaps you'll get a response for a newer instrument in case the measurements have changed in the intervening years.
I have no experience with the micarta overlay.
Richard
I have a couple questions regarding McSpadden dulcimers:
1. What is the overall length of a McSpadden dulcimer (I can't seem to find the dimensions on their website)?
2. I noticed on their website that a Micarta fretboard is an option. Has anyone ordered a McSpadden with the Micarta fretboard option and how does this compare to the Ebony fretboard option (I have had an ebony fretboard before, so I don't need information on that, just on the micarta)?
Thank you for your help.
So well said, Strumelia. Great thinking, understanding and putting it into words.
Sounds like lots of fun Robin. I hope you inspire some folks to make local music! 
There were many wonderful home musicians, and musical families, in the Appalachias before the time of radio. Regular people sang while they worked, they sang at the end of the day to unwind, they sang during worship, and in play. Jean was considered unique for sure when she 'burst upon the folk scene' in NYC in the 1940s! However, there were many others in her time and place who were formidable musicians, particularly traditional singers. Her own sister Edna came a few years before Jean and was a great singer/dulcimer-accompanist in her own right. These ballad singers were much respected in their communities. As Jean said, it was the songs that led the way among the music she grew up with- she considered herself first and foremost a singer, not a dulcimer player. Jean also played guitar, banjo, and recorder and I don't know what else.. likely some piano because she did some school teaching as well.
Jean described how she was disappointed to later discover that she did not 'invent' her method of singing the melody while playing the harmony... she came to realize it was something other creative music makers did as well. As a young person she thought she had invented the method for the first time... because she invented it for herself to solve the problem of not hearing the dulcimer when she played and sang the same notes in unison. Don't we all 'invent' things and marvel at our own genius, only to discover others invented the same thing long ago? 
I strongly believe that some of the more creative music makers within any broader population, no matter what their education or background, will experiment with playing, instrument construction, tunings, songs, strumming patterns, etc. After all, that's how the 6.5 fret came into favor. Yes for sure musicians can settle into a favored way of doing things, but just because people described them as doing things one way, I always allow that they tried out a few variations at some point...even if it's as minor as trying a different material for a pick. I know I do such experimenting all the time! When i stumble into a tune on the banjo where the notes are not easily accessible.. the first thing I do is fool around with the tuning to make it more playable.
Despite the scarcity of documented writings and recordings of very early dulcimer, I maintain my conviction that inquiring-minded musicians of any time and place will twist pegs and have their own 'eureka! moments'. 
Thus, you'll never see me saying that people didn't do this or didn't do that. I may say a tuning was 'the most common' (and ionian certainly was the most common, likely followed by unison such as used in Galax...one can play 90% of American folk repertoire in them), but I never will say something was 'not done' or never done'. :)
I have two epinettes des Vosges. Their fretting patterns and stringing are almost identical. Yet I keep one in major ionian and one in aeolian or dorian mode to play the simple minor folk tunes I love. I keep a Hummel in major tuning to play cheerful dance tunes, and I am having a bowed langspil made now that I'll be playing probably only in minor tuning. Interestingly, the oldest surviving Icelandic langspils in museums had variations in fretting patterns, indicating variations in tunings. And some are pure diatonic as we know it, and others are chromatically fretted. They were strummed, plucked, and bowed. According to what I've read, there is no documented 'original' traditional tuning that survived in descriptions, so people during a later langspil revival simply adopted the tunings that worked for them. Those revival tunings are now generally accepted as 'standard', but we don't really know how players may have tuned the earliest langpils.
I know there are many, many folks who only play major tunes, or who play only in one tuning. But i can't imagine not playing the soulful minor tunes of Jean's time! Ah, but I digress...(and blab...)
In any case, here's to our each having enough Eureka moments in our playing journey to keep us inspired!
Great idea, Robin; wishing you much success!
Sounds exciting. Let us know what kind of response you get.
heheh... Robin I think we'll just have to remain in disagreement concerning this groaning board of specifics and conclusions. 
Richard, the one thing I think we can all reliably agree on is that there is no 'one only' for mountain dulcimers- no one only tuning, no one only playing style, no 'one only' size, or shape, or kind of music... And that doesn't even take in to account the whole decades-long debate about what 'traditional' means in the first place! 
Strumelia - I think it is good we can have these debates. And I am more than prepared to shift my position as new information comes my way, because that's how we learn! Jean Ritchie was sooooo unique, in my opinion, in the way she used the instrument with her voice to play and sing the ballads from her cultural reference. But we can go into that another time!!!! 
What you say about a plethora of 'traditions' is so true - as is the debate about what 'traditional' means! Particularly when we are focusing on very few people over a very small period of time in a very young and dynamic culture! And that history has been clouded by the early folklorists lens on 'simple mountain folk'.
I made a box dulcimer just before Christmas (the story is here ) and I left it with the pile of scrap wood from the village shed build. A friend of mine found it and has tucked it away in a cupboard at the village hall. He said "You know that someone is going to find that box in 100 years time and write a PhD about it" 
That certainly got me thinking about 'tradition' and how it starts with something new. So I thought I'd see if folks in the village wanted to make a new Welsh instrument, based around what we've come to call the Tennessee music box (which David Schnaufer thought may have been distributed by the Romani families originally from Wales), but with some modifications such as zither pins, nut and bridge, to suit the Welsh hymns, folk songs and twmpath tunes carried to the parish where I live by the Romani Cymreig families when they visited each year. The flyers are written and will be distbuted this weekend - so we'll see what happens!
Robin
It feels similar for some notes, and of course notes go up as you uncover more holes from the bottom. But there are numerous fingering differences- enough to mean you have to learn a new fingering scale. BUT I think the PW is a little simpler than the recorder in terms of fingering. Googling fingering picture charts for both, and you'll see what I mean. 
Great John. I can't wait to see you again.
Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."
Great John; lookin' forward to meeting you!
Thanks folks..... that helped a lot.
I agree Strumelia. So glad for all the responses. They reinforce what I had thought was correct. What a versatile instrument we all love.
Ok, need some help here; I have missed something in my reading. Please explain 1-5-5? I do tune the dulcimers I build to Dad. Thanks for any help....
1 is the bass string. It can be tuned to any comfortable tension related to its mass. The middle 5 is the center drone, it is tuned to a perfect fifth above the base string. The last 5 is the melody string and it is also tuned a perfect fifth above the bass string. If you are setting your intonation to contemporary DAd, then you are tuned 1-5-8. With this tuning your melody string is tuned an octave above the bass string.
Whew...... thanks Strumellia!!! 
Richard, your FOTMD pinback buttons are in the mail! 
heheh... Robin I think we'll just have to remain in disagreement concerning this groaning board of specifics and conclusions.
Richard, the one thing I think we can all reliably agree on is that there is no 'one only' for mountain dulcimers- no one only tuning, no one only playing style, no 'one only' size, or shape, or kind of music... And that doesn't even take in to account the whole decades-long debate about what 'traditional' means in the first place!
1-5-5 tuning can be DAA or CGG or others where the middle and melody strings are a fifth above the bass string.
Ok, need some help here; I have missed something in my reading. Please explain 1-5-5? I do tune the dulcimers I build to Dad. Thanks for any help....
Glad to hear it John. Look forward to meeting you.
Wow. I thank all of you for your comments. I guess I wasn't confused after all. While I have not done as much research as many of you have done, it did seem odd that this gentleman insisted that DAdd was the "traditional" and only tuning for the dulcimer.
What a great community we have here on this forum.
Blondie I get them directly from Susato. They offer a couple of cheaper models in their whistle lineup, but I get their best model which is the Kildare, which comes in various keys:
http://www.susato.com/konakart/Pennywhistles/Kildare/1_144_-1_73.do
If you like the low tone but not too terribly long that it becomes difficult to play and reach, then I'd suggest their Kildare Bb (with no keys), and the Kildare in A (with one key). Those are the two middle whistles in my photo there. The low G is the longest in my photo, and for a beginner it begins to get a little hard to play even with the helpful key. I find it way easier to play the other three in my picture. 
If you order, be sure to clarify that you want complete whistles... not one whistle head and the various bodies that will fit it. Why?- because tho it's cheaper to keep swapping the one head onto two different bodies, I find it annoying to have to keep doing. On their "M" series Kildares, it's one size head that can be swapped among all four sized Kildare bodies. But maybe that wouldn't bother you, in which case you could save a few dollars.
Whatever you decide, be sure you order clearly- they automatically sent me one head and three bodies on my last order, when I had ordered three separate complete whistles. They had to send me two more heads afterwards.
Yes, Jean was exceptional. It was her I was thinking about when I picked the 40s (I should have gone earlier!). But she was exceptional - as a musician. And her teaching herself to re-tune for minor tunes sort of reinforces that in her community players didn't re-tune. Her father didn't re-tune and therefore neither did Ed Thomas (Jean sat at the feet of them both). If Ed didn't re-tune then neither did players in the areas he passed through. He was supposedly quite a player so you could be darn sure he would have shown an interest! The Mawhee family (1870s onward) never re-tuned - I got a message through to Don before he died who confirmed that. The Meltons never re-tuned up until Raymond, and it could well have been Phyllis Gaskins who showed him minor tunings. The Hicks, Presnell, Glens, Proffitts - N Carolina families never re-tuned; I asked RLS. And there are recordings of Nettie playing minor tunes from a major tuning. The Braxton County core of players never re-tuned beyond some of them moving from unison to 1-5-5 in the 40s (perhaps 30s) - that's in Play of a Fiddle.
I'm sure that someone would have worked out how to re-tune for a minor song somewhere. But in some respects the weight of examples we actually have where families/communities did not retune makes the instrument even more unique don't you think?
What I would say is that I don't think (due to the actual evidence we do have - scant though it is) that switching 'modes', particularly to minor modes, is part of a traditional playing style on the dulcimer. Remember we had this conversation with Stephen Seifert a few years back? He said he'd played a number of antique dulcimers and couldn't get them to tune to minor modes well. I was of the same opinion as you at the time - there must have been re-tuning because all the other mountain instruments re-tuned. Well I've changed my mind on that. I just haven't found any evidence (and I've looked!!!!). And, having played a number of antique instruments I'd have to agree with Stephen that because the fretting in not in equal temperament (usually closer to just intonation because it is easier to set by ear) the minor modes are 'out'. So, if you did tweak a tuner or two the end result is not going to be pleasing particularly in Dorian. I've not played a Thomas but I have played an Amburgey and that fret pattern was possibly OKish in Aeolian - which was where Jean tended to go for minor tunes.
I'm pretty convinced that the 'modes' as we teach them are just not a part of dulcimer history.
And interestingly I've noticed that I'll take say a Glen dulcimer away with me for a week in my campervan, play dozens of tunes every day and not move from 1-5-5 or unison if that's where I start.
Robin Clark, have you read "Folk Songs of the Southern United States" by Josiah Combs?
DAN
www.dulcimore.com
Bocs Can Idris - flyer.pdf - 318KB
