Forum Activity for @hugssandi

Thank y'all!!!  SO MANY GOOD THINGS HERE!!!!  Let me read and re-read for awhile...  Y'all are a TREASURE TROVE!!!!

I've heard good things about Old Master violin polish (not to be confused with Old Masters, a brand of polish for furniture and woodwork.) I have yet to find it locally, but will order online and give it a try.

ahhhh, cool and wise comments.  My hand is not cramped up at the higher "shinny frets"...(loved that phrase)because I set my dulcimer on a Walmart T.V. tray table and that makes it easy to work any frets.  keeping the noter straight on the two or one wire is MOST important.  I saw in so many books that the early dulcimer players used little tables to set their dulcimers on.  I see on this site where the new builders are putting little "feet" on the bottoms of their dulcimers and I am doing the same thing.  the sound is so much better with it off the laps and on little feet on a flat little table.  At least that's what I've found for me. aloha, irene

Sandy, your Wren is a small dulcimer with naturally stiffer tension.  It will be a bit tougher to play up around the 10th or 12th fret.  You may be having to press down harder to play up there, and that will definitely pull the strings up just a little out of tune.  See if you can press down as lightly as possible when going up the frets higher.  You might also try tuning one step lower on all strings and play in a lower key-like in C instead of D for example.  This works when playing solo, and will give you less tight strings to work with.  OR put on strings that are one step lighter gauge than your current strings, if you think you want to stay in the same tuning you are now but the strings feel very tight when you get above the 7th fret.

Older types of dulcimers were usually played in the traditional (non-chordal) style, and if the fretboard was in the middle of the top of the instrument, a TALL fretboard made it easier to play with a noter in hand.  Rather than a tall fretboard being of solid wood (possibly lessening resonance), making it hollow allowed for more sound vibration and resonance.  In effect, a large tall hollow fretboard with its own sound holes was like having a very narrow scheitholt sitting on top of the larger body.  In fact, there are some old examples of mtn dulcimers that very much resemble a narrow schietholt built with a larger sound chamber body underneath it.  It's one of several possible paths of evolution or 'missing links' in the history of very early dulcimers and zitters in American.  More than one of those 'dulicmer evolution' paths may have occurred long ago in different regions.

As modern times approached, people began to play dulcimers more often in chording style, fretting all strings and making chords with the fingers, adding double melody strings- this all encouraged wider fretboards and the need for a tall fretboard that accommodated a noter was much less.  Dulcimer bodies became larger and fretboards became wider and less tall...and hollow tall fretboards became less needed for resonance or for noter comfort.

I have small hands, so I use my thumb a lot to chord on the lower octave frets. When I get up into the "shiny" frets, I don't use my thumb so my wrist is at a better angle. 

This is where a "floating bridge" come in handy.  Often it's out of tune just a fraction, but sounds more out of tune as you go up the fret board.  If it's a little sharp, then move that floating bridge a tiny bit away from the nut...if flat, then go closer to the nut.  If  you have no floating bridge, then do as Ken Hulme says to do....and to encourage yourself to play more up there.....PLAY your strumming IN THE STRUMING AREA....and your struming won't get that "flap flap flaping" against the fret board.  love playing Christmas music now a days.  

Often above the 7th fret a regular fretted dulcimer will start to sound discordant.  What I usually do, as a Noter & Drone player is to strumm less and less of the drones as I go higher up, until at about fret 10 I'm playing pure melody.  Then I add drone as I go down the fretboard.  

My JI fretted dulcimer does not seem to suffer from discordance as I go up the FB.

I am in love with playing the bass string on my Wren Feather Dulcimer!  Somehow it's easier than on my bigger dulcimer and sounds amazing!!!  Still haven't reached upwards of the seventh fret though....

If you're like me, I almost have to force myself to go to the high octave.  I have also be practicing playing the melody on the bass string in DAd tuning.  No I haven't done much on the high octave bass string.  LOL

Thank you, Dan!  I don't seem to get much practice on those high notes until I start practicing Christmas music, and honestly I'm always kinda glad of that!  LOL!

No tricks, it just takes lots of practice.  The position of your fretting hand is more across the body and a bit more 'cramped' for lack of a better word.  Just keep working at it slowly and you'll be fine.

Is there a trick to it?  Whenever I get above the ninth fret it never sounds so good.  Sometimes it even sounds out-of-tune!  Do you have any tips for me?  TIA!

Terry, please share pics of your ocarina when it arrives!  I used to want one very badly, so I will live vicariously through the many vids you will share....  

I use two holes in my tempered scale dulcimers and three in my Galax style dulcimers. My fingerboards are hollow and holes greatly improve tone. And most of all they look really cool... Robert.

And to add a PHOTO to your own photo section/Galleries, you would follow the same procedure as above:

Go to your profile page.

Click on your Photos TAB there.

Click on the large PLUS sign+ button to add a new photo gallery.  If you just want to add a new photo to an existing gallery you created, you'd go to that gallery and add another photo from there:

The Real story is that builders put tiny soundholes in the fretboard just so that people can ask  "Why".....

Hi Eileen,

That's very cool!  There's a fellow in New Zealand who makes wooden double ocarinas where opne side is a drone note, and they are made with an interval that sounds rather medieval...sounds so pretty!  -see the pure white wood one on the middle of this page, with a sound clip:  http://www.wood-n-bone.co.nz/musical_instruments.html

I didn't keep up with learning my ocarina.  However I did actually learn to play the bones in the end ok (yay), and I'm making progress on penny whistle now...which is sort of vaguely related to ocarina I suppose?...I mean, you blow into both of them at one end and cover the various holes to make music, right?  

I started out checking out the medieval and renaissance music forum on here, and somehow got segued into this double ocarina.  Oh dear!  They look beautifully made and this one is in F and C with similar fingering to the C and F recorders, with which I'm familiar.  Ah temptation yet again!  http://hindocarina.com/ocarinas/index.php?l=product_detail&p=84  and

Ruth, the oldest dulcimers have come from Virginia, and they had no strum hollow, but they did have soundholes in the fretboard.

And a few had soundholes in the back as well.  They were a separate tradition from the Kentucky-style dulcimers that are prevalent now.

They are a form of sound hole, actually fairly common on traditional teardrop/ellipsis-shaped instruments. My Kevin Messenger dulcimer has them. They are not an impediment to finger-style playing at all. 

Late in this discussion. I have a dulcimer made by the Walnut Valley Dulcimer Company, the 3rd one made in 1993 by L D Sacks. Mine looks like yours and is noted to be a Wildwood Mountain model. It still sounds good and has held up well all these years. It was my first mountain dulcimer. I saw the company represented at Epcot in 1991 picked up the brochure and ordered in late 1992 with delivery in 1993.

Playing a Galax style dulcimer with those holes was usually done with a noter. This keeps the fingers from getting caught in the holes (grin).

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Mainly the holes in the fretboard are to allow air to be pumped in and out of the box from the hollowed out area under the fretboard

I'm so glad for this post as I've wanted to write about it.  (someday I'll learn how to put photos up, I lost the post that someone told me how to do it and so it's late at night and I'll just write about it now without photos.).............ha, that was a long sentence, sorry. Okay, soooooooo I found this kit type of dulcimer ($50.00) that must have been made in the 70's, but it looked pretty good and played sorta in tune and I knew I could fix it. no name or date and the carving for the sound hole was not so good. I covered it up with an abalone heart and made another sound hole that I used to make for my bowed psalteries. It looked good. yep, had a fixed bridge and WAS NOT IN TUNE....so put a piece of wood in that slot, sanded it down and made my own floating bridge.  That slot was wayyyyyyyyy off.  It might have been in tune when first made, but time and air and other factors change wood.  I LOVE A FLOATING BRIDGE....and it's sooooooo easy to tune it.  I use these "fix up dulcimers" for loaners as some of the folks that live in Nauvoo, Illinois are missionaries and are only here for one year or two.  Follow the video above and that's the way to tune just right.  For the builders out there, you don't KNOW where your dulcimers age going to live....wet, dry, humid or whatever.......but all wood moves and it's a blessing to the owner of a dulcimer to be able to tune it with the movable bridge down the road of wood and instruments moving.  aloha, irene

I buy 12 packs of bulk strings from www.juststrings.com for $3.62 per package.

One lesson here, Dana, is to have extra strings on hand.  Just splurge and buy a dozen each loop end strings for each of your three strings.  Then you won't have to fight a ball end string anytime in the foreseeable future.

Well, I finally got that gosh-darn ball to give up the ghost. I first squeezed on it with some jewelry pliars. It was tougher than all get out. Then, I used two hands, squeezed my eyes shut and made a face and it still wouldn't squoosh!  

THEN, I went out to my husband's hefty man pliars (heh, heh, I'll show YOU) and gave a hard squeeze (face, mouth, eyes...all engaged). Do you know that little booger wouldn't budge!?

I then decided I was pulling out all the stops and threw some weight into it and finally, FINALLY it dented, I worked another five minutes and it finally succumbed. Seriously, somebody needs to put NASA in touch with this particular string maker.

That done, I spent the next 15 sweaty minutes, tuning. ding, ding, ding, ding, ding  DING...DING...DING...I have a B!!!  Honestly, it it just me??    The bridge was NO problem. It was tuned beautifully open and also on the 7 fret. The subtle smudge was enough of a guideline.

My least favorite part of owning a stringed instrument. Finally got the thing to DAD and after playing four songs, said, "Nah, CGC", and down it went. 

You might be able to just put the tip of the string through the hole in the brass and pull it up like a lasso.

I think what you mean is that you have a ball end string but you need a loop end string.  If so, gently squeexe the ball with some pliers. Once it has lost its shape it should be easy to remove it, leaving you with a ball end string!

If you have a mark on the wood where the bridge was, you are in good shape. Start there and just fine tune things the way Pristine2 suggests in the video I link to above.

Well, the GOOD news is that there appears to be a remnant of some sort of 'stuff' on the wood. I can clearly see where it was. I'll start from there but for now, only have bass strings with that darn little brass nut and I've gone and forgotten how to remove it. Twisting the wire is not helping at all. 

Yes, Blue Lions have floating bridges unless you request otherwise when you place your order.

It's really not that hard to position the bridge, but it does take some practice.  Pristine2 has posted a demo of how to do it.  Start by putting the bridge where you think it should go.  Then tune the middle string and check it at the 7th fret.  That should be one octave.  If it's off, you have to move the bridge.  Keep adjusting the bridge, retuning the string, and checking at the octave until the middle string is correct.  Once the middle string is correct, you will adjust the bridge by making it slightly slanted, pointing to the north-east, like a slash on your keyboard.  Start working on your bass and melody strings the same way you did with the middle string. Keep in mind that now when you adjust the bridge, you want the middle to stay where it is; you are only adjusting the slant.  Perhaps this is better understood in Pristine2's video.

Once you've found the spot for the bridge, you might want to make small pencil marks there to help yourself out the next time you have to do this.

There is probably a mark or faint indentation  somewhere where the bridge sat. Hey it could be worse. Imagine a fiddle where the bridge and bridge post falls away. Resetting intonation is real easy don't worry... Robert.

D..D..D..D....  How many times have we told people never take of all the strings at once?    I'll bet you dusted the fretboard as soon as that last string was off, too  -- didn't you?   Instantly removing almost all hope that there was a mark where the bridge had been....   Now yer gonna haft do things the hard way.

One thing that might work would be to call Blue Lion and humbly beg them, on bended knee,  to tell you how far it is between the inside edge of the nut and the inside edge of the bridge -- in millimeters would be best -- not many measuring sticks are marked in 10th of an inch.  Then get out your millimeter stick and measure down the distance twice -- once on each side -- and draw a line between them with a pencil.

Then, just to check how accurately you measured the first time, measure the distance from the inside edge of the nut to the top of the 7th fret.  Now go exactly that far from the top edge of the 7th fret towards the virtual bridge.  Hopefully the two measurement lines will be really, really close.  Set the inside edge of the bridge at the line Blue Lion told you and start stringing -- Bass and outer Melody strings.  With your tuner on, play a scale on both strings and check their accuracy against the tuner.  If both strings both look and sound good,  then add the inner two strings and tighten them.

I believe all Blue Lions have floating bridges.

Well, I'm bringing up this old thread. Today, I put on my big girl britches and sat down to restring my blue lion. Without knowing the bridge was floating, I decided to start with a nekkid dulcimer, and removed all the strings. Off goes the bridge!  Rut-Ro.  

So now, it's bad enough I suffer from string-changing-smack-me-in-the-face-phobia, but now....I've got a bridge in my hand saying,"Whatcha gonna do now girlie?!"

Do all blue lions have this? 

Lol John...!

Hoosier, it could be that although your action is not too low, maybe your strings are slack enough in your particular tuning to create whisper-fine vibration noises against the frets once released.  Try putting a one-step heavier gauge string on.  That would tighten the tension a hair and keep the string from vibrating so freely when you remove your finger.  This could completely solve your problem- just a slightly heavier set of strings.

Also- are you fretting and unfretting your fingers at a fairly straight down angle?  If you fret from the 'side' (like keyboard typing) then you could be very slightly pulling the string when removing your finger, causing that unnecessary vibration.  Check the angle of your fretting fingers here .

John, my husband is a novice level player and he totally cracked up at your comment!  Thanks for giving him such a good laugh!  (And no, I don't whine when he plays!)

Thanks! Something fun to do while waiting for visits from goblins and gools. 

Totally a last minute thing...

This morning I came up with a version of the theme from "the Munsters" so I thought I'd write it up and post it for download on my webpage. http://www.butchross.com

It's a chord-melody style arrangement but in order to get the weird notes to work, I had to capo at the second fret (and I still had to bend one string). It's a good answer to the question "Why you'd ever want to play in Locrian?"

Anyway, it's available as a .pdf or .tef file (for those of you who have tabledit) it's completely free, you don't even have to give me an email addy (tho' you certainly can if you want to).

Happy Halloween!