Thanks, Ken!

I started building dulcimers in 1974; 50 years ago. At that time none one plans I found had a 6 1/2 fret. So, become popular? I guess sometime in the early 1980s or perhaps even the late 1970s.

Precursors of the mountain dulcimer, those built like their European ancestors, sometimes had "odd" fret patterns. These patterns sometimes represented a different starting place for the "do" of the scale. Sometimes they just represented the "bad" ear of the builder.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

I have a friend who built a fretboard so that the Nut was 4 notes below the normal Open notes of DAA.  

I just finished watching-- a real gem!  

Thanks, KenL and KenH, for the information which pointed me to where I could watch the program.  

Dusty, the link between using the 6.5 fret and also fretting on the middle string is exactly what I was thinking. 

Ken, that is cool and informative I had never even considered that other fret layouts could be used.

If you have PBS Passport, the entire Ramblin series is available there.  Jean's episode is Season 1 episode 104.   I'll be watching it later tonight....

Not sure about staple 6+ and 1+ frets but there certainly were some unusual fret patterns used by some builders, certainly!  For example fret patterns to play the Major DAA Scale from the Open fret not the 3rd fret.

1-5-8 is the numeric designation for Mixolydian Mode tunings, so yes, it was used ages  before the 6+ fret came along.  Those of us without plus frets  change tunings from Ionian to Mixolydian to Dorian or Aeolian and the other Modal tunings simply, by changing the open note of the melody string(s).   'Way back, many of the old timers tuned to either 1-8-8 (bagpipe tuning) or 8-8-8 (unison tuning with all strings the same gauge, all tuned to the same note -- a.k.a. Galax tuning.

I doubt it. But that's a good question.

Yes. Absolutely. You cannot play tunes based on the mixolydian mode otherwise. So "Going to Boston" and "Old Joe Clark, " for two common examples, necessitate a 1-5-8 tuning.  My guess is that people referred to the tunings by common tunes. So 1-5-8 might have been referred to as "the Old Joe Clark tuning" and 1-5-7 might have been "the Shady Grove tuning."

More generally, I think you are right to connect full-length frets with extra frets.  The 6.5 fret allows the 1-5-8 tuning to get the major 7th note of the major scale, but melody notes below the tonic have to be played on the middle string.  So the 6.5 fret alone would not necessarily allow a drone player to play in the ionian mode.  (Not trying to scare anyone with fancy terms, plagal melodies require using the middle string in 1-5-8 but authentic melodies do not.) My point is merely that only if we are fretting across the strings can we make full use of a 6.5 fret.

Having said that, some drone-style players do indeed make use of extra frets.  Don Pedi has both a 1+ and a 6+ on his Modern Mountain Dulcimer dulcimer, although he often uses more traditional dulcimers for demonstrations.

A related question I have is: are there any historical examples of dulcimers with partial/staple frets that also include a 6.5 or 1.5? Also, was 1-5-8 in use before the 6.5 was added?

Jerry, I don't think there is a specific time.  It was a slow evolution. According to dulcimer lore, sometime in the late 60s Howie Mitchell and Richard Fariña both independently put 6+ frets on their dulcimers. Slowly over the next 40 years or so, it became more popular and is considered standard today. 

I wonder if the same evolution will happen with the 1+ fret (which I use).  It is still in the minority now, but some luthiers are offering their standard dulcimers with the 1+ and 6+ frets, and you have to specify if you want a traditional diatonic fretboard.

I once asked Neal Hellman when he started using the 6+ fret and he couldn't even remember.  He acknowledged that his first dulcimers were all diatonic and that his later ones all had the 6+ fret, and yet he couldn't remember when he first starting using the fret.  Apparently the change for him was no big deal.

I hope this conversation can stay focused on the timing of this change rather than turn into a debate on the merits of different fret systems and styles of play.

Hello friends!  Most of the dulcimers in my collection are "traditional" -- that is, without the 6 1/2 fret, and I've never felt shortchanged, because I mostly play noter style, with a little bit of chording (kind of like Richard Fariña). My question is ... when did the 6 1/2 fret become popular?

Here's a song I love to play on my concert uke tuned gCEA .

Walkin' My Baby Back Home

Yes, Richard, it's a little late for me too. Worship starts at 9 a.m., so I might get 5 or 6 hours sleep if I'm lucky.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Thanks Ken.  A little late for me. Maybe I can find a recording of it later.

We are members of WPSU, a PBS Station in Clearfield, PA associated with Penn State University. Not all PBS stations follow the same schedule, nor do they broadcast the same content, which is why I'll likely be streaming the show.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Way cool!  We're members of Ohio University's WOUB-- it's located the next county south of where we are here in Perry County OH.    

On an unrelated note, though I have never lived in Athens County OH one set of my ancestors married there in 1818.  

I received a notice today that WOUB, a PBS TV station) will broadcast a program about Jean Ritchie on Saturday, April 20, at 11 p.m. EDT. It looks like it can be streamed if you are not in their broadcast territory. All I know about this is what is in the link: Jean Ritchie on "Ramblin'"

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

[quote="NateBuildsToys"]

[quote="shanonmilan"]

[/quote] Does it also make it sound better that you use a specially coated string?

[/quote] 
Shanon, each material sounds slightly different, but I don't personally think any sound better than any others.Some are magnetic, which is useful for a dulcimer with electric pickups. Some use fancier metals under the premise that they sound better, but I personally like the different sounds of all string types. Maybe a more refined ear would hear more of a difference.
Nate

[/quote] 

That's a pretty comprehensive explanation on how stuff works.

Ah! I missed seeing Kawalek. I think I met him at last year's Nutmeg Festival, in Milford, CT. Fantastic work, and a very unassuming guy. When I asked him where he hailed from he said "I live in West Virginia, under a rock."

Dwain, Don Kawalek is also a vendor at Pocono this year. Although not known as a dulcimer builder he has been making guitars, banjos, and mandolins for many years. He worked for a guitar builder in New Jersey for a while and then went on to become a shop teacher in northern Virginia. I don't know if he does any repair work. I met him when I took a week long banjo making class from him.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Yes, the Pocono. I really appreciate your interest and willingness to consider the journey!

I'll be teaching a workshop on how to repair cracks in any surface of the body of a music instrument, including gluing in cleats across the crack, entirely from outside the instrument, using a soundhole for passing in the cleats and interior clamping gear. The workshop is listed as "Laparoscopic Crack Repair." Saturday, 9-10:15

There will be plenty of time to talk with me (unless people bring a lot of cracks to be repaired, extra fret installations and other refit/repair work) and the other builders there and exchange techniques, views on effective design, finishes, etc. Currently, David Fox, Bernd Krause and Gerry Heinrich are the other dulcimer builders registered as vendors. And as Ken mentions, he will be there for this workshop. Looking forward to visiting with you, Ken!

I am signed up for Dwain's workshop. The nice thing about the Pocono festival is that you can sign up for individual workshops rather than for the entire festival. Looking forward to seeing you at the end of the month Dwain.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Dwain,

Are you talking about the Pocono Dulcimer Festival?  It is a full day drive from Michigan, but a workshop where builders talk sounds fascinating.

Have you had these workshops before.  Who shows up, what day will it be?

Matt

Hi Beth loved your exclamation about the D.A.A. disorder. I had a slight out break myself here. I almost bought a beautiful Used Blue Lion Dulcimer.  But after adding up the cost of the instrument having it shipped back to Blue Lion to have a pickup installed and retrofit the fretboard with the one and a half  fret and having no idea what it sound like, the cost reality hit me. There's an old saying with people with a custom car, paint and Chrome won't get you home. I guess what I'm trying to say is the aesthetic of the instrument got the better of me, then the practicality sunk in. I'll just stick with my FolkRoots and just accept the reality I can only play one instrument at a time. I'm much better now and have managed to shake off the disorder for now. ;o)

A good summation, Dusty. It is much easier to have such a discussion about a music instrument with strict conventions such as the violin family of instruments. But even there it eventually defies mere words to show how to make a great instrument.

And fretted instrument builders are constantly innovating, experimenting and analyzing, with a huge range of effect (both desirable and miserable). I've heard that sound posts can deaden a dulcimer from several who tried, and here we read of two luthiers who got a success with them in dulcimers, one even defining exactly where to position the two sound posts!

That constant exploration creates a rich field of personal experience and deep knowledge, but it is not analytical knowledge one would expect from following scientific method. On the other hand, scientific method and analysis will yield any amount of numerical data on a musical instrument, but none of those numbers will tell you anything about what makes it a good instrument or a poor one.

Much better than analytical method is the experiential method, otherwise known as the heuristic. Using the heuristic method is simply making an educated guess that some design change will make a certain desired difference. So one builds an instrument with that one specific change and assesses the results of the guess. If it seems to have worked, build 9 more instruments identically as possible and see if your result is repeatable. If not, dead end alley. But if the effect you wanted is found then try making 10 instruments with a little less of your change and 10 made with an accentuation of your change and see which direction, if any, seems headed more toward your 'goldilocks' point.

It is a very slow process, but it is evidence-based in a way that numerical analysis never is. And the longer you follow your intuition, the better it becomes at a deep but ultimately black art that one cannot write out as a rational explanation but can easily teach, in person. to a student who wants to learn by first-hand experience. It's all like learning how to sharpen a cabinet scraper properly so it will scrape a curl off a plank of redwood without tearing the grain. One can spend a decade learning that unless one has a tearcher, and most of what one learns is in the final year (ask me how I know that...). That's what 'black art' means to me: something I can show someone how to do, but they will not be able to do it from my verbal description, no matter how fine a description it is.

That makes these kinds of forums rather like rumpus rooms, each of us speaking from our own understanding of our craft but rarely meeting in a setting where we could actually demonstrate the validity of what we are saying.

Festivals would be a good place for dulcimer builders to hold workshops for each other. I'll be holding one in a festival soon, at East Stroudsburg, PA, later in April

The direction of this discussion exemplifies why Nate's original question is so hard to answer: there are a lot of variables.  He started out asking if modifying the way the strings attached to the dulcimer might increase the tension of the soundboard, thus increasing volume.   But the conversation moved on to the tension of the strings themselves and now how the fretboard is attached to the body of the dulcimer.  The "floating" tailpiece or, as David Beed calls it, the " decoupled tailpiece " surely affects the tension of the soundboard, but more importantly, by reducing its contact with the soundboard, it frees the soundboard to vibrate more, which changes both the volume and the timber of the dulcimer.  Again, that is adding another variable to the equation. Dwain and John mentioned bracing and sound posts, which add even more variables to consider

I am not a builder, and I haven't studied physics since high school, so I might be way off base here.  But I wonder if the issue is not the whether tension increases or decreases volume, but where the Goldilocks sweet spot is.  On guitars, too little or too much bracing will reduce the responsiveness of the instrument.  On a dulcimer, I presume, too much or too little tension (or stiffness of the wood) would not produce sufficient volume. If we were to map out the relationship between tension and volume, the result might not be a straight line, but something resembling a parabolic arc.

Yes my Keith Young dulcimer has that fretboard. (see the FOTMD logo at top of this site for a pick of that dulcimer)  Keith used to call it a 'floating tailpiece' I believe.
Randy, agreed it is a bit tricky to catch the loop ends over the brads underneath. I found that bending the string end slightly beforehand helped a lot.

Beth:

Send in the Music ( https://www.sendinthemusic.com/) is a Free Zoom music jam each Saturday out of Fla.  there is a couple 

Jan & Hamish Cormie who usually play Welsh music, Men of Harlech (DGD)  & Grand Old Duke of York (DGD) - Arr Jan Cormie

If you don't know them, maybe you could contact them - write to Pat, she could help you out ( pat@sendinthemusic.com )

This fretboard design, though somewhat different, is reminiscent of Keith Young's: 

https://www.newharmonydulcimers.com

Thank you Ken Dan Robin and Randy for the information, I suspect that investigating these designs will provide me with useful information

G -- GDG  Good on a short VSL dulcimer

You an me gots esp er something Robin. : ) jinx!

Edited to show Ben Seymour he shows view of cantilevered fingerboard look quick!

Nate I had a Keith Young dulcimer had a cantilevered fingerboard maybe 3-4" before end block was a bitch to change strings brads were on under side between fingerboard and the top.

Beautiful tone and big bass. No conclusions here though. 

Construction industry has examples of installed tension for strength and resistance. 

Makes me think of Keith Young's fretboards.  I think I don't have any photos of the end of the fretboard-- I used to have 2 of Keith's wonderful instruments.  

I'm from Pensacola, Florida, Barb, and I have encountered several of his instruments in my musical journeys! Loran Harmon was a local mountain dulcimer builder. Here's a little background about him: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/pensacolanewsjournal/name/loran-harmon-obituary?id=24325380

David Beede "de-coupled" tailpiece