Thank you Ken for clearing the fingerdancing up....I play Noter/drone with a stick and have heard others say they play with fingers but refer to it as noter/drone. I know it makes a difference to my ears, I like the sound when playing with a stick best. I think these people play this way cause they also say the haven't got the hang of playing with a noter so they use their finger.
Kimberly, I responded earlier today to your identical question in the Ask the Moderators forum, where I posted a link to the DPN article. Check it out here .
Another legendary builder has passed from our scene. May God comfort his family.
Thanks for passing this along Ken. Heaven is gaining a wonderful Dulcimer legend. My prayers are with his family.
Lexie -- it can't be Noter & Drone style if you don't use a noter -- a separate stick, not your finger or thumb. Playing with finger/thumb fretting the melody string, but not playing chords, is usually called Fingerdancing or Melody-Drone style.
Yes Marg, we will never have just one and always want another! I am really into the history of the mountain dulcimer and enjoy the sounds of the early players and the early lutheriers and so admire the folks who build the replicas and the sweet sounds.
Some folks play noter with their fingers/thumb and guess it works, as long as you enjoy playing this is what is important. Thanks for posting this topic, I have enjoyed reading all the comments.
Lexie,
I can see we will never be finished. I was listening to some sound clips on a few dulcimers for sale, I couldn't pick the one I liked best but 3. I will try again and see if I still pick the same ones. I don't play noter so I like the tones more mellow but I do slide my thrumb a lot and like the silvery sweet slide sounds that can make. All too funny thinking one will ever do.
Let us know how you like playing with the peacock feathers. Hope you find them fun to play with.
Early in my "Dulci Journey" I chose to play Noter/Drone and purchase my Dulcimers from FOTMD friend's who build copy's from the ole' time builders and players.
My first dulcimer is an Apple Creek, it was an ok dulcimer to learn the basics from and then I purchased from Robert Schuler a butternut dulcimer based on A. W. Jefferies and then a copy of "Uncle Ed Thomas, made of walnut with a mean tone fret board setup by Kevin Messanger. Both these dulcimers are exceptional for playing noter/drone, they both have the silvery sweet old time sound and are beautifully made and really my dream dulcimers.
Uh no, I am not finished with purchasing other dulcimers, my wish list is to in the future buy a Virginia Hogfiddle by Bobby Ratliff, but I am not sure he is building again. Also I would love a TMB and a Just Intonation again by Robert Schuler. If I think on it the list would become too long so I will stop there.
Nice shot. We get some White Pelicans here too, but not this far inland (15 miles upriver). They're out on the ponds and bays of Pine Island.
I just read at Banjo Hangout that dulcimer and banjo maker, Clifford Glenn, has died. He was 79 years old and has been in failing health. I have not been able to indepently verify this at the present time. Just want to let folks know. Clifford's family and friends are in my prayers.
Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."
Ken,
I am from new orleans so I am not surprise to see a brown pelican but when several white ones landed on the pond, I was like a kid running around trying to get a shot of them. It's just with the phone but will enclose the pic. I love playing outside, it's the reason I got the dulciborn, to be hear over the pond and up past the sunsets.
Marg - yes I built and sold/gave away pretty close to 300 dulcimers over the years. I don't have any pix of my dulcimers here at the boat (too many other things to take pix of). I'll post some later.
We have spoonbills over at the Ding Darling Refuge on Sanibel island, not here on the Caloosahatchee. But we do have eagles, ospreys, night herons, GB herons, and two species of egrets, plus ibis, brown pelican and assorted gulls/terns that hang around the marina where I live.
Just don't get caught with an eagle feather. Technically it's illeagle (yep -- sick bird) to own real eagle feathers.
I picked a variety of sizes because I wasn't sure what size I will like. Now that it's on my mind, maybe I will spot a turkey feather on the ground. Although now that I think about it, we have a lot of bald eagles out at the lake. It would be cool to find one of their feathers!
Don't you love it when a problem solves itself? 
Boy if you had worded my post, I could have been a lot shorter. You've got it my friend. The two modes I made mention of even though I played in them both a bunch, now with the prospects of only one dulcimer I know immediately which mode will be chosen. I also have an offer to build a full size double and of course I'd be back at having both modes. Time and finances will tell. The one comes with a six month wait and I'm back to testing my patience on that decision so....... Kevin. (P.S. it really is a desease so you might as well catch it and enjoy the ride)
ken,
You say you have 4, 2 traditional and 2 modern but I read you have built 300, very impressive to have played so many fine instruments even briefly.
I like your photos of the birds, I have herons, spoonbills, pelicans, an eagle and a few other types visit the pond behind my home. Haven't seen yours but would be nice.
I love eveyones replies, sounds like 'buying the next dulcimer' is just another part of learning the dulcimer experience. We don't know what it is we like, to we try them out. Some we keep, some find a new home while we try yet another till one day, we have the ones we have been searching for. Many years can go by and what we were looking for in the beginning is not necessary what we are looking for later on, just as our playing can change over time.
Thank you all, I think as we look for our next dulcimer it is all a part of where we are going with learing the dulcimer.
Well, that was easy! 
Skip, thanks, works for me too, if I rotate my kindle to vertical position. Problem solved.
The box moves up automatically on my p900. on the nook hd+ I just drag the text box up to clear the keyboard.
Well I've been the full gammut on dulcimer collecting. At first all I knew was the hourglass vs. the more traditional teardrop. Oh and of course there are different Modes that are played so I soon after starting acquired an hourglass in DAd and a teardrop in DAA. Those were the two modes I ended up playing in. Not because of those modes particularly (wait I just said tunings and not the Mixalodian and Ionian modes respectively), but because that's the tunings/modes that all of the tab books were written in. Now far as that goes I knew standard notation backwards and forewards, but early on I decided upon tab and to not care about what notes I was playing. By not caring I didn't have to count from the open string to what the note actually was. So another mode was not going to tempt me, but how about a different dulcimer?
Yep, that did it. I saw a book that had a courting dulcimer and I had to have one. I commisioned one to be built in solid cherry. Great large instrument and was rarely played as built, but for me solo, I now could play in the two modes I knew just by flipping the instrument around and having a go at the other side. Great! Then I messed around with a slide guitar and loved the sound only to find out that a dulcimer was made with "high strings" to be played with a slide. Yep one of those too please. Then I saw a "walking dulcimer". Strung backwards and nifty as all get out, that was the next insturment in my house. All this with three courses or four strings, Melody course was a pair of course. That was until I found out about a church or six string dulcimer (after which I only buy six string dulcimers). Then I heard about an octave sized one and then a baritone octave sized one (Ron Ewing here) as well as a true baritone. With Ron Ewing I found that the hourglass and teardrop was not the only two shapes. He lists a few of his own including the Aorell, which has an hourglass double bout side next to the player and a modified teardrop (higher bout in the center rather than lower on the instrument) opposite the player. With this instrument you get a larger sound body for deeper tones but maintain a close to the body hourglass for easy play.
There are reasons for each of the above mentioned variations on a similar theme and some you realize are really important (at least to you they are), both from a sound or looks department. The last variation I obtained was a double dulcimer. Like the courting dulcimer with two fretboards, but these are aligned so that both can be played by one person. No flipping or having to get your neighbor to play a tune. Did I mention electronic pickups? Our predecessors in this venture called DD dulcimer desease, didn't really have a problem as they (if they were fortunate) had one instrument and that's it. Changing modes meant changing tunings which meant occasionally breaking a few strings. And although with my courting and with the double I tried to do it with one instrument, it would not cover all of the reasons that my collection rose to 25 pieces. Each one of those instruments was different in some manner, be it modes, pitch (most were pitched in G a fifth lower than normal and the rest in D), and then the last problem for me was woods and finishes. Yep color made me buy it (I'd tell my wife), well that never went over at all with her. Now do to expensive problems I had and that of my family I was forced into a big instrument sell off, now trying to recapture the best of the best in my (what will probably now be) last instrument of dulcimer persuation. I don't know if I'll be able to talk the builder into it, but I'm sure going to give it a try since I know if I can get it, I'll not be tempted as before into a house full of dulcimers. Most of my fellow dulcimer players have around three to half a dozen. I was most happy with that same number as I had the two modes I play in covered and an octave one to be able to play on trips I had to do to see doctors. That worked out the best.
Second to that as I was liquidating my collection was to have the double in the two different modes. Again so I could play any tab that I had in a familiar mode. Lastly and what I will be content with after all those dollars went by by, will be to get a really special dulcimer that will most likely be converted and strung in G a fifth lower than the standard D and to have six strings, but not in unison as I'd done before. Rather this six string dulcimer with have octave strings on the lower two drones while the melody string pair will indeed be in unison. I will take pictures and show all once I have what will be my very last dulcimer that I'll be perfectly content with. Unless you can see ahead and ilimenate all the fluff in the dulcimer world and settle into what you know will make you happy, you'll be destined as was I to buy a bunch of dulcimers and keep them, or as you asked in the OP, to sell one in order to buy the next. That by the way is exactly was I was doing, but only when I happened to have 25 of them sitting in the house. Best of luck to you my friend and please be sure to post whatever you decide and end up with. Kevin.
I have 7 Appalachian dulcimers here at home and two out on loan. A few are diatonic instruments and a few have the 6.5 and 13.5 frets also. I use a variety of tunings; my box dulcimer is always strung with light gauge strings and tuned to ddd. Each instrument has a unique voice-- and I like that!
Hi, I am unable to see the text box when my tablets virtual keyboard pops-up. Is there a remedy for this?
I saw a stick dulcimer at the flea market on Sunday. It was pretty old, and someone had replaced the pegs with cheap plastic ones. That didn’t stop me; I figured I could replace them. It was pretty nice otherwise, but then I found out he wanted a hundred for it. I picked it up to look at it more closely, and maybe talk him down. But then I saw some cracks in the bridge. It needed strings, bridge work, and tuners. Thought I almost had dulcimer number 2…
I just pick up quills (that look to be of the sizes I like) when out walking. though most of them have, likely, been attached to a turkey, I think not all I collect are turkey feathers. And I'm not too particular. :)
I now have five dulcimers and a strum stick. I thought the more dulcimers I have the better I would be able to play. lol Didn't work that way! lol
My first was a used Apple Creek student or kit, not sure, I bought used. My next one was a McSpadden teardrop I ordered custom made. then I got a like new McNally strum stick off of Craig'sList. I bought a like new used McSpadden hour glass all walnut. My last two I made myself, a mini dulcimer and a ginger sized dulcimer. I am now making a stick dulcimer of my own design. lol When will it stop?! lol
It cost me a buck for five, so I’ll chalk it up to an experiment, and let you know how it works out for me.
Peacock quills sure are pretty, but they aren't particularly strong, and may not last long as a plectrum. Let us know how they work.
I have two traditional dulcimers, and two "modern".
The Traditionals have narrow, thin bodies for that 'high silvery' sound I love:
a John Knopf Uncle Ed Thomas replica. 3 strings, wooden pegs, footed for playing on a possum board
a Bobby Ratliff Virginia Hogfiddle. 3 strings, autoharp tunning pegs
The two Moderns are:
Harpmaker Student, slighly customized -- higher fretboard for N&D playing, special short head with autoharp tuning pins, and 3 strings
Til Holloway -- made by my dulcimer building mentor. Doubled melody strings, 6+ fret. I have this one in memory of Til.
Would I sell any of them? I dunno -- make me an outrageous offer!
A interesting post for us beginners world be where members posted photos of their favorites. Would give us an idea of how many are around and what it is that makes the dulcimer a favorite one.
Love it' 'just one more' and yes there are more out there and beautiful.
ok so I need to look not just for another but the next one.
Oh boy, I think I will need not just a space but a room.
Thanks
I once asked my brother what he wanted for his birthday. He said "CDs and Music Scores." I replied, "you already have tons of CDs and music scores." and ye said "yes... but I don't have them all."
Well, I'm probably not the best person to answer this, but I have between 25 - 30. They range from knock about loaners for beginners to collectables. Yes, I have some of the ones I play regularly tuned differently. How many do I need? Just one more, that's all. Actually, I am looking for "just one more" to share stage duties with my Rockwell as I've been taking around one that developed a couple of small cracks. On the table beside me is a small one tuned DAd and a larger one tuned DAA in case I need to try out a tune. Space, budget and desire are all considerations.
I have 3 dulcimers, 2 I play all the time and both tuned the same. The third, I lend out if someone is trying to decide if they are instreated. I am looking for another and that would make 4 but not thinking of selling any of the ones I have. I can't decide between a nice unique one for playing and having in a different key or a knock around one for practice, grandkids, travel or friends. I can see I will be looking for yet another soon after this next one. How many is too many where one would need to find a new home - Is it based on favorites or space and budget?
What is the advage number of dulcimers members have and once we reach the number that fits, if we would want another - would we than sell one or just have yet another dulcimer and a new favorite?
Cool, Sheryl! A quill makes a really nice sound on strings.
Picked up some peacock feathers at the flea market today
