Forum Activity for @lilley-pad

Hello again kids, how's everybody out there in cyberspace? I hope everybody has survived. all of those fireworks. My dog went completely nuts. But that's not why I'm writing, I just stumbled across the song Deireadn Fomhair that I love. I'm not quite ready for finger picking and I don't know if there's any dulcimer tablatures out there for this song; it's composed for a guitar. looks like you need pretty Nimble fingers maybe down the road. the name of the song is Deireadh Fomhair played by Stephen Wake tuned to DADGAD. Do you think that there are any dulcimer tab. Out there

I have discovered Ultimate Guitar sonce this request. I use it in conjunction with Songbook Pro to upload lyrics and chords to my tablet. A great resource.

I realize this answer comes very late, but it might help you in the future. I always look for chords on https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/. Here's what I found for We Walk By Faith : https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/misc-praise-songs/we-walk-by-faith-chords-1774730

If you are a memeber of UU you will know that a baritone is not a proper ukulele.

Another Devonian era person, eh?  I joined that age myself back in June.  Welcome, welcome.  There are several ways to play the dulcimer, to accommodate a variety of 'issues'.  We have a number of UK players here, so you're in good company.  If all else fails you can build your own box-shaped dulcimer for just a few quid and a day's worth of minor effort, and at least get started learning while looking for a really nice instrument.   That's how I started off fifty years ago -- built one so I could learn to play it...

We know shipping to the UK is really expensive.  One thought is to have someone here make you a fretboard, which can then be attached to a dulcimer shaped box over there.  The fretboard is the  critical part, of course, to making the instrument sound good.  A good size fretboard is only about 65x4x2 cm and should not be too expensive to ship.

Do you know about the Nonesuch Dulcimer Club there in the UK?  it's been around for dog's years.   You might google it and contact them to see if anyone has a dulcimer for sale.   

If you go to the Beginner Players Group here, you'll find a PDF of a booklet I wrote years ago called I Just Got A Dulcimer, Now What?, which is an illustrated glossary of dulcimer terms (so we all speak the same jargon) plus answers to many beginner questions about tuning, playing, care and feeding of your dulcimer when you get or make it.  

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Hi Idle - I'm also UK-based, and an excellent source of Dulcimers in the UK is https://revelsmusic.co.uk/ . But also, lots of the US makers and shops will ship (McSpadden and Folkcraft both do quite quickly)!

Happy playing, all the best.

Rob

Jon, it worked both ways you did it-- I saw it in the first format.  And I liked seeing it both times!  

Well, idle, I'm looking forward to your questions. Many folks seem to migrate to the mountain dulcimer when having problems playing other instruments. I am having problems fingering chords on guitar, but don't have a problem with the banjo. Luckily I've been playing mountain dulcimer for the last 50 years and can still play chords on it although my preferred style of playing is with a noter.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

I don't know what didn't work, but I like the drawing. Always nice to see some FOTMD friends no matter the form, human or drawn characters. Thanks for sharing it, Jon.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

sorry looks like it didn't work :0(

Hope this brings a few smiles. From Jon Lilley

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Hello everyone.

I had intended to lurk in shadows while I gathered information especially as I don't have a Dulcimer - yet but I see that some of you already know I am here so decided to say hello.

I live in Sidmouth Devon and I am 76 going on 24 yet gradually winding down my type of instrument playing as old age and old mountain bike accidents come home to roost. I used to play acoustic guitar but I have problems supporting the necks now with my left arm. My pride and joy D28 also started to set off my tinnitus as did my fiddle and mandolin. Ended up with an octave mandolin and baritone ukulele that I still play. I just sold the OM so itching to buy a Dulcimer and still doing research on which one. Bit of a limited selection here in the UK but I think I have identified one.

I also have a lot of questions that I will post over time.

That's really cool. That would be a really useful thing for me to do on dulcimers I make with eye bolts for tuners, since theyre super finicky to fine tune

@dallas , I do apologize that we have veered a bit off track from your main subject. But your Dubroff dulcimer does have some very nice fine tuning beads!

@nate , a few years ago, member @dave-d restored a Keith Young dulcimer and posted a photo here of the wooden bead fine tuners Keith used to make. (You can look up his 6 yr old thread) Below is the 'before' photo, showing the remaining two beads- one in place properly and the one on the bass string had crept under tailpiece into the wrong place. From the one good one showing, you can see how they were elegantly made and how they might work. They don't actually need to move all that much in order to hear the audible change in the note due to tension change. When moved all the way to the bridge, it should be pretty much slack and not change the note much at all... when slid towards the tail you can hear the pitch go up more. If you need to change the note more than just a little, you just use the main tuning pegs. These beads are only for very fine adjustments once you are quite close to the note you need.

It 'shouldn't' be hard to slide the bead, and it 'shouldn't' drastically change the break angle. The tuning leeway it gives is usually less than 1/2 half step... fine tuning the note. Well made fine tuning beads are (or should be) a pleasure to use... mostly useful if you have old fashioned (non geared) wooden peg tuners. Of course you need to have a flat fretboard surface between the bridge and the pin or the end of the tail, in order to have a place for them to slide up and down. An inch is not generally quite long enough. I like the beads to have a smooth flattened surface where they slide on the fretboard, so that they neither roll nor dig into the fretboard surface over time such as a spherical bead might do.

Nate, beads fitted properly are easy to move to make very fine adjustments.

I am curious about how that affects the break angle of the string. Is the bead difficult to move, due to the pressure on it, or does it slide easily?

Okay, I think that is what I originally thought ken H meant. So, the strings are always in contact with the bridge, and the beads do not change the VSL for intonation? The beads just redistribute the tension that is past the VSL, to allow small tuning adjustments to the open string?

My Keith Young dulcimer has the wood bead fine tuners as well.
Because the string sits high above the soundboard next to the bridge and very low as the string approaches the tail pins or tail end, when you slide the bead towards or away from the bridge, it raises or lowers the non-vibrating section of the string slightly, thus either increasing string tension or lowering it... which makes the note a tiny bit higher or lower, as much as a half step sometimes. Since the Vibrating String Length is not actually changed, these tuning beads simply change the tension of the string by stretching it tighter (with the bead close to the tail) or allowing it to be at natural tension as if the bead wasn't there (when the bead is slid close to the bridge).

Thanks to both kens and Robin for the explanation. The fact that it also has an installed bridge in front of them made that unintuitive to me. Now that I understand better, that seems like a very clever feature.

Yes.

Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Oooh, so are they basically fine adjusters for bridge intonation? Sort of like having a separate floating bridge under each string? Kind of like on an electric guitar bridge?

Walt Martin, of Sunhearth Dulcimers, put fine tuners on his instruments. Rather than using beads he made them out of ebony and they were pyramid shaped. A small hole drilled from one end in a slightly upward direction met another hole drilled from the opposite direction met in the middle so that the string moved over a slight peak inside the tuner. By sliding it forward or backward one could shorten or lengthen the string length. I believe Dwain Wilder continues to off this on his Bear Meadows dulcimers, the successor of Sunhearth.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

That's really interesting. So is it basically the case that sliding the beads forward and back slightly changes the amount of tension?

If this helps, here is an example of fine tuning beads used on a mountain dulcimer, a Keith Young built model (the instrument leaned against the back of the bench):

Nate -- what you show ARE dampers for mandolins.  But bead type fine tuners are/were common on dulcimers; especially the melody and middle drones -- the most commonly adjusted strings...

Could those beads on the strings be "dampers" similar to the ones on some mandolins and other instruments with a lot of string length past the VSL? Just a thought, I'm not familiar with that sort of fine tuners so I don't really know or understand how they would function.

Good Morning Ken,

Our email address is:

carlondj6@charter.net

Thank you 

Nice looking dulcimer.  Never heard of John (definitely John) Dubroff, but there there have been thousands of people who built a handful of dulcimers since the 1960s.  However -- he appears to have done a nice job on this narrow waisted hourglass design.  One interesting thing is that two of the strings have fine tuners -- those light 'beads' or whatever they actually are -- behind the bridge and before the strings bend over the tail piece.  

Send me your email address and I'll send you a PDF of my beginner booklet I Just Got A Dulcimer,  Now What?   It's an illustrated glossary of dulcimer terms (so we all speak the same jargon), plus answers to many beginner questions about tuning, playing, care and feeding of their new instrument.

Hello Everyone,

My mother-in-law gave my wife a dulcimer back in the 1980s. It was built by a man named John (Jolm?) Dubroff of San Francisco in 1972.  I'm wondering if anyone has information on this craftsman, the quality of his work, a rough value of the dulcimer, and any other details that might be of interest with regards to said instrument.

My 12-year-old daughter who has dabbled in playing the violin, piano, and double bass is kind of excited about playing something new to her that had been hidden in our closet 😉.

Thanks for your input in advance!

Dallas

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John, I don't really do anything that special. I like to mix sweet fruits and berries with tart fruits and berries to balance it out to my own taste. I have a friend who collects wild honey so I use that whenever I get the chance, but usually I like brown sugar, and sometimes settle for white sugar. I leave all the pulp and skin in the mixture, then filter it out after fermentation. I use champagne yeast and a specific gravity gauge to measure the alcohol content and usually stop fermentation at 15% abv. I filter it with cheesecloth and allow the fine particulate pulp to remain, because I believe that a small amount of flesh and skin can decrease hangover symptoms.

I ordered a set of the tuners on Ali Express for under $15 for a set of 4. I used PayPal to avoid sending a credit card number. They arrived promptly, considering their origin in China.

They ARE 4 to 1 planetary geared units. I wouldn't give them the 1 in 5 rating another buyer gave but more like a 2. They look good but the quality is poor. Two of the four had flash on the castings which should have been removed before plating and needed clearing before the retaining barrels would insert. All four were a bit jerky in turning, and the barrel threads may or may not work to full depth.

Aside from quality, they have a downside in that without making special spacers, they will not fit wood less than 0.4 inches thick, and maybe not under 1/2 inch so they aren't good for side mounting. They are described as "banjo tuners," however.

I haven't tried fitting them to anything. I'll almost certainly put them on a stick before risking any bodied instrument on them.

Research is never free, and $15 isn't a big expense.

So Nate......Care to share your small batch recipe???? I'm "re attempting" my elderberry blossom "cordial".....Last time it ended up like rocket fuel....

Ooh, that is exciting Nate, you are a winemaker now!
we have blueberries coming soon on our backyard bushes. We already put the netting over them to keep the birds from eating them. The blue jays and squirrels would eat them all otherwise. 🤷🏼

@nate That's just doggone cool.  

Very excited to see that the Oregon grape bush in front of my apartment is ripening! Oregon grape is the state flower of Oregon, but a lot of folks here don't know that it's edible and makes a delicious tart wine when fermented. The flavor is like a pomegranate flesh with a plum skin. I am stoked to be starting a gallon of wine today!

Lilley Pad,

I build this dulcimer model that I call the "Peardrop".  The dulcimer pictured is a 6 string that is my own personal instrument.

I also build it as a 4 string.  This model has excellent sustain and resonance has a floating bridge.  I wanted even more sound

when playing in larger rooms , so I equipped the 6 string with the "K & K Twin Spot" pickup that Dusty mentioned.  The two

pickups are mounted right under the ends of the bridge.

The "Twin Spot" delivers a terrific, pure acoustic sound.

Jim Phillips

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Hi Lilley-Pad,

My favorite dulcimer is one made by Terry McCafferty. It came with a K & K twin spot pickup.  The twin spot has has two heads, and although I don't know how Terry positioned them, the fact that there are two means that you get a more balanced sound.  I can tell you that the dulcimer sounds great amplified, and I also know that Terry worked with Stephen Seifert for a long time testing different pickup possibilities before they decided on the K & K.  Just plugging directly into an amp or DAW provides a very clean, acoustic sound.  I have some other dulcimers with pickups, none of which seem as clean as the K&K, but in some cases I don't even know what they are, so I can't say for sure any of them have an LR Baggs. 

 I hope I'm not repeating a previous post but I could not find anything under search so here goes. It's just a general question about pickups wanted to get feedback. K&K pickup versus LR Baggs under saddle pickup. the little that I've been reading on the internet suggests that the K&K gives you a more realistic Acoustic sound. Do you guys find that to be true or what's your opinion in general? Thanks again, I hope everybody's doing well. A few months ago they operated on my left hand so now I'm doing finger exercises. I was getting what they call Dupuytren’s, contracture. I guess I'm just getting old. The good news is that everybody else is getting old with me. smile