Forum Activity for @john-henry

It is with sadness I have just been given the sad news re Johnp.    I shared with him music, a love of our West Country, and my home !   I also lay claim to having introduced him to this our site, where he gave his knowledge and experience freely and never in a disparaging manner.   He was a quietly confident player of our shared instrument......I just wish he had shared more recorded music with us !

Indeed, Rest In Peace Johnp

JohnH

Oh wow. This is a shock. He helped me learn a few things. I will miss him. I'll be saying prayers for his family. I am thankful that his music and posts are here. :(

Info on Dulcimer U is now up--I've decided to go (I'll be in Nina Zanetti's morning class) and my husband, Craig, has surprised me by saying he wants to go, too.  He'll be in the dulcimer building class all day, but will attend some of the jams and all the concerts at night.

http://www.wcu.edu/engage/community-resources/conferences-and-community-classes/dulcimer-u/dulcimer-u-summer-week/index.asp

I've been several times, so if anyone has a question, just ask!  I'm looking forward to meeting some FOTMD members there!

Jan

Oh, I am shocked and saddened by the news of John's death.  I treasured both his friendship and the wonderful music he made.  I'm reminded how through sites such as FOTMD and Soundcloud (where I am one of John's followers), John's music lives today. 

I offer my deepest sympathy to John's family.  He will be sorely missed.  

Rest in peace, John. 

John's contributions here on FOTMD were always friendly and civil as well as knowledgeable and he was considered a good friend by many.  I hope that his charts--The Dulcimer Compass, (showing organization of the modes) and "Lengths of Intervals (In Semitones)"--will remain on the site.............because one day I may actually understand them!

My condolences to John's family at this sad time.  I hope they find some comfort in knowing his love of music was shared worldwide.

Wow, I am so sad to hear this.  John P was a good friend of mine here, and a good FOTMD Citizen as well.  I will miss him.

I have been contacted by a good friend of his and by his son, and I've been asked to share the very, very sad news that John Phillips (FOTMD member John P ) has passed away unexpectedly at home from a heart episode.

John has been an active and respected member both here on Friends of the Mountain Dulcimer and on Everythingdulcimer for many years.  His amazing musical knowledge, his humor and diplomacy, and his generosity in sharing and helping others has truly enriched the entire dulcimer community.  John loved being part of our FOTMD 'family' and his absence will be profoundly felt.  My heart is heavy today.

Please share here as we pause to reflect on John and on his family in their time of loss.

That is so steam punk!

Thank you! Very pretty!

I've finally graduated to Planxty Eleanor Plunket, Steel Guitar Rag, Country Garden, and playing around with blues scales/riffs, or pieces of these.

It not only sounds good, it's good for you too...you'd definitely get a work-out playing it!

Wow.... that's it.... Wow.

The original question was how to play grace notes.   I am not sure it is helpful to bring in accidentals, since grace notes may or may not be accidentals. 

As Ken notes, grace notes are often ornamental in nature and not an essential part of the melody. As Robin explains they are usually written much smaller than regular notes in standard musical notation.

Grace notes always appear just before a note and they receive no counted value. The note just after the grace note sounds on beat, so the grace note actually takes away some of the duration of the note preceding it.

On a stringed instrument, a grace note would be plucked with the right hand, but the left hand would employ a slide, a hammer-on, or a pull-off to play the main note after the grace note. I do not think many of us could actually pick both notes fast or smoothly enough. But the important point, again, is that the note following the grace note falls exactly on the beat, so the grace note precedes it without itself receiving any counted value.

Below is the first line of my arrangement of the old Quaker hymn Beech Spring.  Notice the three grace notes.  In each case, I suggest playing it as a hammer-on.  If this were arranged for noter/drone play in DAA, I would suggest a slide in the first case and a hammer-on in the second and third since the grace note would be the open string.  And note that none of these grace notes are accidentals.

Really impressive, I am fascinated and plan to watch those videos.

Now I may have this wrong so don't quote me!  But I think of grace notes as the quick augmentation notes that you hear around the melody in many types of music.  They are not part of the melody but usually just a passing flash of an adjacent note.  They tend to be in the key of the piece being played.  This tune I recorded this week uses a lot of grace notes on the downward melody runs:

Now 'accidentals' I think of as notes in a tune that are not 'in key'.  When written in notation they are the notes that have a sharp, flat or natural sign next to them on the staff to show that particular note in different from the key signature.  There are a few tunes I play that have accidentals.  Here is West Virginia Hills.  The tune is in the key of D and the accidental is an F natural.  The tune goes 'Oh those West Vir ginia hills' and the accidental falls on the Vir...

http://k003.kiwi6.com/hotlink/jxhmqvq1bo/West_Virginia_Hills_-_Jeffreys_-_15_Jun_14.mp3

 As I play with a noter there are certain techniques I use for both grace notes and accidentals.  I've outlined then in this video:

That is crazy

VSL and Scale are two different ways of saying the same thing. The string only vibrates between the nut and the bridge, hence VSL. I've played bass for years, so I'm used to a 42" scale instrument!

You know me, Dusty -- although I play a few Common Ground tunes, to another dulcimer player I'd play something that shows off noter & drone at its best -- long ringing slides; crisp notes; a fast dance tune -- something like that.  Maybe Maire's Wedding or Jock O Hazeldean.

Thanks, Dana.  "Lee's Waltz" is a pretty special tune. 

Actually, Bing Futch's "Rosin the Beau," which he says he learned from Stephen Seifert's CD, was the first tune I learned on the dulcimer.  Even before I had my own dulcimer, I watched Bing's video so much that when I first got a dulcimer I was able to play the tune almost right away.

Dusty, you're such an amazing player, anything you choose will be a gift to the audience. As for your questions, my answer would still be Lee's Waltz. It's what makes my heart happy and I played it a gazillion times just to smile so naturally it stays in my fingertips.

When I hear songs that I play or those which I'm familiar with the tune, I still thoroughly enjoy hearing the player's take on the song. Bing Futch playing Rosin the Bow isn't the same as another's and so on. I actually really like hearing various ways to showcase a tune so if you played Lee's waltz and I heard it, I'd be listening (and picturing tab in my head) to each familiar note, listening for any nuances that made it your own.  Then I'd go home and try to copy you. :-) 

Let us know what you ended up choosing and if there's a video, then that too! 

Fascinating indeed. I showed the video to my daughter, and the more we watched it and understood the variety of sounds the machine was making the more impressed we became. Aside from the detail that went into construction, it is the original vision of this thing that astounds me.  How do you even come up with this idea?

It's great to hear of the "go-to" songs people rely on.  Many of them are standard fare for dulcimer players, meaning songs that would be commonly heard at dulcimer jams. Others are more idiosyncratic.  Several are on my "to learn" list.

Maybe I could change the original question a bit?  Originally I asked what your "pocket tune" was, meaning the song you play when someone asks, "Oh, you play the dulcimer?  Play a song for us!"  What if the person asking the question is her or himself a dulcimer player?  Does that change your choice of song? I mean, if another dulcimer player requests a song you don't play Bile Dem Cabbage, do you?

The reason for my question is that I will be playing a very short set at a dulcimer festival later this spring, so the audience will be other dulcimer players.  While I want to stay within my "comfort zone" to reduce performance anxiety, I also want to play something other than the same tunes everyone else plays.

Wildwood Flower, is my #1 go to song.  Southwind;  Cripple Creek;  June Apple. 

Thanks Ken, I'd not heard the term "grace" before. As for accidental notes, simple key the string with the noter touching the fret board to play the half note. Robin Clark demonstrates this technique in his advanced noter video.  

Someone was recently asking about how to play grace notes.  That's one of those "depends" questions.  "Grace Notes" encompass a wide variety of musical ornamentation types. So, it depends on what kind of grace or ornamentation you're talking about.    In SMN grace notes are written in smaller notation to indicate that in many cases grace notes are 'fill ins' between notes used to fill up pauses or rests or sustained notes.

The most common dulcimer grace notes are those we use to cover the fact that the tune we're playing contains one or more 'accidentals' that aren't found on our fretboard in the tuning we're using.

As a traditional dulcimer player, I get the occasional 'accidental' when a Tab shows that I need to play a 6+ fret and my dulcimer simply doesn't have that fret. 

So how do you play a note that isn't there?  One way is to play the two notes above and below the missing note -- in the time of the missing note.  Say the accidental is a quarter note on the 6+ fret (and I don't have one).  In place of the missing note I would play the 6th fret and 7th fret as eighth notes.  Need a Bb and don't have it?  Play a B and a B# in the same time as the Bb is supposed to be.  If the tune is a familiar one, the listener will even hear the note that isn't there, because their brain expects to hear it.

We can also 'cover' a missing note using a grace note slide between the notes that are there, with the slide occupying the beat of the missing note.  A sort of syncopated hammer-on or hammer-off cane also be a grace note for something that isn't there.

Dusty, look on YouTube for Wintergatan and you'll find some videos on the construction of the machine. This is fascinating, thanks for sharing Strumelia.

By now you know that on FOTMD there are lots of opinions on any given topic ...

For me, the day I picked up a 23" VSL McSpadden "Ginger" was a total game changer.  It was January, 2011, and I found it for sale in the vendor area at Kentucky Music Winter Weekend. Maureen Sellers was selling it and there was a box placed next to it for the buyer's check.  I wasn't feeling very well, having gone through 2 grueling operations in the previous 2 months and was sitting out one of my classes that Saturday afternoon.  I had never seen a dulcimer this size, much less held one, and I was instantly enthralled with it.  Everything that I had struggled to do on larger instruments (with longer VSL's) now came easily with the Ginger.  My confidence grew as my fingers easily found the notes for song after song. I played almost  non-stop for 2 1/2 hours, wrote out my check, dropped it in the box and took my new Ginger to my final class of the day. 

The Ginger remained my favorite instrument for several years.  It was set up to be tuned DAd, so I used it in both my private playing and in classes and jams.  Eventually, other instruments caught my interest and as my collection grew I had a variety of sizes and VSL's to choose from. I found that I was now comfortable with VSL's up to, but not exceeding, 28 inches....but I still prefer a VSL around 25-26 inches.

This has been my experience.  As always in the dulcimer world, see what works for you!

Best wishes in your journey!

Mc Spadden Ginger , 23" VSL  

McSpadden, Schnaufer model with 29" VSL

That thing is insane. I am going to have to watch about a dozen more times to figure it out.  How someone could envision this is just beyond me.

This is so cool!

This has been a very educating thread for me. I'm still learning all the particulars! Dusty, you make a point I had not thought about. 

I wanted to keep the brain working and the fingers functional after I retired. I wanted something to do on cold rainy days and the winter nights, one can only tie so many flies for fishing. Death from TV or internet surfing didn't seem palatable. I had finished the dulcimer I started to  build over 40 years ago and wanted to learn how to play it. So it went on the bucket list. My aspirations change as I make progress - at first all I wanted to do was to play simple tunes and eventually use chords. I progressed enough where if I play in front of others I don't have to tell them the name of the common tune and it doesn't sound like one of the cats attacking the fret board. I can chord some now and have played at one open mike event. I play with other MD players and in front of friends now without the need of a barf bag. I hope to encourage others to take up the dulcimer and have fun. Having started my MD playing two and a half years ago at the age of 68, I have realized that playing fast Irish jigs will probably not  make my repertoire. The hardest part now trying to learn the tunes so that I don't need the tab sheet in front of my face and getting smoother playing. If I can make others happy, keep learning new skills and encouraging other to play, I will be satisfied.

I just enjoy sitting every night and playing for an hour or two, While I play fairly decently, I've never been comfortable playing in front of people. I mostly play because it helps me deal with depression issues.

Dulcimer is the voice of angels.

I aspire to keep entertaining myself and others for as long as I can.  Sitting in a shady park, playing for myself and watching folks pass by is as good as it gets.  I enjoy Open Mics and work at getting better as a performer not just a player.  I guess my biggest aspiration is that I'd love to get invited to teach noter & drone at festivals.

Outside my comfort zone, I'd like to become better at teaching others, and to occasionally perform in front of others without feeling like I'm going to throw up or pass out.

And loftier, still....to learn tabledit or something like that so I can tab out my own arrangements and compositions..........and one day get to hear a "dulcimer orchestra" play one of my pieces.

Ok....that's so lofty, I'm starting to feel light-headed....

Years ago, I had the typical daydreams about recording CDs or teaching at festivals, etc....  but as time goes by I find more and more enjoyment from just playing at home with my husband, and playing occasionally with a few friends.

Like Robin Thompson, my biggest love is playing home made music at home.  I also enjoy the learning process and consider that to be a lifelong pleasure.  My husband and I are able to learn a whole lot while playing music together.

I also do enjoy playing occasionally for events in my community- our village's Sidewalk Summerfest, a humane society fundraiser, and next to the Blacksmith/spinning wheel/candlemaking demonstrations in the "Old Timey" pavillion of our County Fair.
I still travel to one far away gathering (before I get too old)...an early banjo one in Virginia or Maryland.  I kinda like that one and don't want to give it up just yet.  

So, my goal is to continue doing most of the above.  

EDIT:  I want to add that another goal of mine musically is to be able to stop, or almost stop, working my day job (patent illustration) so I can have more precious time to explore and play and learn more on several different instruments that I would dearly love to get better at playing.  I simply don't have enough time while still working every day.  

I just want to bring a little joy to people's lives by playing at church or at home once in a while.  No big aspirations here.  And I like to supply others with the equipment needed to do the same in their own lives.  The instrument's history and traditions are what interest me most, not so much the playing.

I want to keep having fun making music at home-- it enriches a home to have music in it.  :) To that end, I aspire to become a better, more careful listener.  The better I get at listening, the more I'll enjoy, appreciate music and things musical. 

I play for a number of reasons.  I heard a dulcimer for the first time in the mountains of North Carolina years ago and I've loved the sound of them ever since.  I didn't really have much time to play until I retired 3 years ago.  My husband has some ongoing medical issues, so our retirement hasn't been what we expected.  I have found the dulcimer (plus playing some autoharp and fiddle) have kept my mind busy, brought me a lot of peace (well maybe not that darn fiddle), brought me together with others and allowed me to make some new friends.  I can't imagine my life without my music.

Like Terry, I play because I love it so much. My goal - going to a dulcimer festival! Dulcimer Day in Duluth is the closest...

Rob, Dusty, you are both pros, in my eyes.  

Well, I wanted to be on the Opry when I was young.  Then I wanted to find a blues band that needed a guitarist.  Now as a dulcimist I have 2 tab books in the cloud and on the hard drive of my computer that's in the shop (and quite a bit on a 3rd.)  I've taught and performed at festivals.   I'm working on a cd.  Shoot, I just love to play; all the other stuff has been wonderful icing on the cake, particularly the great folks I've met, along with Jim.  ROFL.  Just kidding.  Maybe I'm looking to finally be a pro at something musical.