Forum Activity for @monica

Thanks Ken.

This seems to be a pretty good explanation of what it means to "play by ear".  There are folks who think that the term means a person has a "good ear for music" and has memorized hundreds of songs. 

Memorized?  I can't even remember a phone number!  But nearly everyone has tunes that they hum or whistle....tunes they never set out to memorize.  I have never, yet, observed a person start to whistle and then stop and look up the music for whatever it was they were going to whistle...........

Mine is a 1943 Wm. Kratt Co. "Mello-Chromatic Professional Harmonica" 10 hole that I got from my father.  Still works just great!

I do the same -- use a knife to cut a thin line on either side of the bridge.  Biggest thing to remember is never take all the strings off at once.  Replace them one string at a time and you won't lose the bridge or mess up the intonation.

I use a 6" tube for narrow old style dulcimers, or 8" for wider instruments.  I have trouble finding 6" tubes, but they do exist.

 I know what you mean Robert, I used to soak my Marine Band in a glass of water before I'd play.

KEN:  Thanks for this idea.  I see these tubes come in different widths.  I'll take my dulcimer to Lowe's to check it out, but what do you usually use?   

Haha..a knife !!

Thank you

Monica, if it sounds and plays great. I would mark the bridge with a knife edge... Best of luck with your new dulcimer... Robert.

It is a blue lion..the store clerk recommended that i mark the spot with a pencil...I guess i will find out in a couple of days,hasn't shipped yet

Monica. I inlay a wood stripe where the bridge is centered, so the owner can always start off right. I'm sure your dulcimer has something similar... Robert.

Thanks for posting the video Dusty..I am a bit nervous about the floating bridge, though I am sure it won't be half as complicated as I imagine..or that I might lost it!!

Some folks thought it too complicated to adjust the bridge, so now I  only use fixed bridges unless requested movable. I cut a 5/16" saddle slot and install a 5/16" rosewood bridge. Then I have 5/32" north or south to carve in compensation if any is needed. The bridge is still removable so it can be changed out or raised for N/D playing... Robert.

Ken I play some of the same instruments (not guitar however) and I do have a problem with fret spacings and different instruments.  I guess it's what you are most use to?  When I started wanting to teach myself bowed instruments I started with the violin and had nothing but trouble.  I then found that my fingers were wider than the spacings between frets if the violin had any.  In other words I had to move my finger before placing my adjacent finger on the fingerboard.  This made it very inconvenient to say the least.  Then after a measure or two, I found that my mandolin VSL if you will was 13 3/4", which happened to be identical to a viola I'd been looking at.  Sure enough I picked it up and immediately started whipping out tune after tune.  I didn't have to look at the fingerboard any longer, just place my fingers and play.  Made it so much easier.  Kevin.

D, think about resizing your pic to large so we can see without downloading it.  we wouldn't want to miss a cute pet shot!

 I still play the old wood and brass Marine Band models. Never tried the new fangled plastic models. The old wood models would swell up from playing and gave them that distinct sound you hear on old recordings from the 50's and 60's.... Robert.

I'm very fond of the made-in-the-USA Bushman Harmonicas

I only held my first dulcimer on January 20th, 2015 and I already caught the DAD bug. As I learn new peices amd become better aquainted with the current 2 dulcimers I have. I do prefer certain songs played on each. Also the more dulcimers , you won't ever get bored of playing when you can just reach for a different sound. 

wow, amazing cabinet lora. Montreal is quite humid in the summer and damp in the winter. I already feel like I am in a temperature controlled cabinet..but brilliant idea.

Oh my, that is beautiful. Your dulcimers look like they are on display in a museum. Thanks for sharing.

Ken, you crack me up!

I made a double dulcimer stand for the two dulcimers I play all the time. it's out of the way of the grand kids, right by my computer table...

Playing guitar, banjo, and (occasionally) mandolin besides my dulcimers, I am always dealing with different size (length) fret boards. It's never been a problem.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Some folks need a belt and suspenders.  Some just a belt.  Personally I've never had much trouble keeping my dulcimer in my lap.

I hope every one who is displaying their instruments is also keeping track of indoor humidity. I read on another thread of someone's Rockwell "developing" cracks. That is what happens when wood gets too dry. Also the fretboard shrinks and the fret wires start to stick out. To make sure my dulcimers have the proper condition year round but can also be easily accessed for playing, I had a custom made display cabinet created by Case Sensitive. They make beautiful guitar cabinets for guitars, but this is the first one made for dulcimers.

 image.jpg - 112KB

That's the idea!

"Your brain keys your fingers"

I hear coffee is good for the brain, I should always have plenty on hand 

Marg -- in reality, once you have some experience,  it's not much of a problem -- as long as you're not swapping from shortest to longest with each song! 

With experience, you aren't really playing 'fret position', so much as you 'know' where the next sound needs to come from and your fingers just go there.  When you pick up a different instrument, you just "run the scales" a couple times, or play your favorite tune, and your brain keys your fingers into the correct spacings.

"In having a collection of dulcimers if they are not all the same size, how much of a problem is it for your fingers to land on the desire fret?"

Try going from a 29" baritone to playing a 17" octave dulcimer and you'll be landing all over the place.

In having a collection of dulcimers if they are not all the same size, how much of a problem is it for your fingers to land on the desire fret?

Thanks Jan, I couldn't have put it any better myself and yes I too have experienced this very thing myslef.  To quote you:.....

"Now, with dulcimers--after a bumpy start-- I finally have a better focus on what I want (and why)--and that focus is narrowing all the time!"

My collection of 25 did nothing but tell me what it is I'm happy with and what it'd take to produce a viable instrument for self entertainment and for accompanyment with my wife or other instruments.  Woods again not so important, but durability and play is most important to me.  I've entrenched myself to the desire to own and play six string instruments (dulcimer that is) and have them tuned to the key of G or baritone in the dulcimer family even though I'll be as apt to play the melody line with harmonies along with it.  This is what made it so easy to select the features of my next Probst instrument and know what would be important to me in the purchase.  It's still hard to shake some of the interests of that collection namely the beautiful woods and laminations of woods found in a Nic Hambas dulcimer or the haunting sounds produced by His bowed dulcimer as well.  It just happens to be a truth that I do not exceptionally play a bowed instrument and that of a bowed dulcimer so I know to stay away from them as they are only an expense to an otherwise overburdened budjet of dulcimer collecting.

I'm still a fan of the unique and different and that produced many of the dulcimer examples in my former collection and is something I have to constantly guard against lest it happen all over again.  That and there are entirely too many dulcimers out there to collect (I'm talking types of dulcimers here) and if you only had one of each (doable unlike every mineral in the world) it would still be way to many different instruments to try and master.  A slide dulcimer, walking dulcimer, mountain dulcimer, hammered dulcimer, bowed dulcimer, may all have the name dulcimer in common and may also have a diatonic scale in common, but that is where the similarities end and then you realize that you have several entirely different instruments each of which have a learning curve that will not transfer to any of the other instruments listed here.  It would be like picking an instrument from each of every division in a modern orchastra and thinking that you'd be albe to play and excell at each and every one of thim.  As I've posted prior to this, my brother and I have had the oportunity to learn a number of different instruments, but that doesn't mean that we were good at any one of them.  No rather it meant that we were lackluster on every one of them and it distracted us from excelling on any specific one of them.  Now that I know this, I will keep my collection to one type "The Mountain Dulcimer" and one mode and tuning G of mixilydian mode and stick there for the next forseeable future until I get to where I actually can play a few tunes and play by ear songs that I've never attempted before.  Kevin.

(replacent knobs (pearlescent plastic) from Stew Mac for 88cents each. )

Thinking all of the others on the site are nicer looking, I'm going with Ken on this. Thinking since he had a dulcimer like mine and had knobs that needed to be replace, I would go with his choice. I only wish one of the music stores I visited today would have had a draw full of old banjo knobs.

 Jan, that's a scary thought. 

Sheryl, that Boston Terrier "guard dog" is very necessary, since there are other dogs around as well as a wildcat that terrorizes everyone and everything!  One of these days Dana will look up at one of the highest dulcimers on the wall and see that cat's head sticking out of a soundhole!

Colleen said, "I'm not sure what people with 10+ dulcimers do."

Here's one of Dana McCall's solutions:

http://fotmd.com/dana-r-mccall/gallery/3974/dulcimer-wall

Bob, I used to collect rocks and minerals.  I would attend shows and buy lots of specimens of ones I didn't have.  Then one day it dawned on me that I could NEVER own a specimen of EVERY kind of rock and mineral in the world.....and that's the day my R&MAD was healed.

Now, with dulcimers--after a bumpy start-- I finally have a better focus on what I want (and why)--and that focus is narrowing all the time! 

Ken, I like to hang mine from our Crape Myrtle trees. The Carolina wrens and chickadees love those little soundholes. 

Jan, yep, that's the photo I remember seeing. Thanks for your input. Love the Boston Terrier at bottom right, gaurding the dulcimer. 

Has anyone thought to make pvc dulimer stands, I am going to work this out maybe. Just a thought.

[quote="Sheryl St. Clare"]
I really like the old doorknob idea that someone posted photos of on FOTMD, and I am on the lookout for some at the Raleigh Flea Market.

I believe this was a reference to one of the walls at Dana McCall's home that uses antique glass doorknobs to hang part of her collection.  Since the room's decor incorporates other antiques, this is a great way to show these instruments.

http://fotmd.com/dana-r-mccall/gallery/3974/dulcimer-wall