Forum Activity for @ken-hulme

Hi Lisa;

From the Home Page, click on Forums.  Select a Forum with lots of posts.  Select a Discussion with more than (I think) 25 posts.  When the Discussion opens the oldest posts will be first and at the bottom of the page is a Page Selector.  When you select Page 2 you see the most recent post(s).

Same thing happens if you start at the Forums Master Page and you select Discussions or Newest Posts.  When a Discussion with more than about 24 or 25 entries opens, you are seeing the very first entry, not the most recent...

Thanks Sam. I appreciate that. 

Ok, I'd like to start taking a look at this issue, but i need to have an exact step-by-step description of how you get to this point where you arrive at the oldest posts of a forum discussion (which is what you don't want).  

Please be very specific about where you start from, and what you click on in the series of clicking that you are doing.  

Start from the beginning- where are you starting from?  Outline each click step for me please.

Hi Gladys,

Glad you took over the jam in Pineville. I played with y'all several times and missed the group. Still playing the 2nd Saturday of the month at Jean Lafitte National Park in Lafayette. Come pass a good time with us and please keep me up to date on your Pineville group. joebesse@aol.com

Hi Kristi,

Welcome to the FOTMD. I play with the Cajun Dulcimer Society in Lafayette and Lagniappe Dulcimer Society and Red Stick Strummers in Baton Rouge. Hope we can get together sometime. Club info listed on the EverythingDulcimer website. Come pass a good time with us, LOL!!!!

Oh, here is a link for my Ibanez,  http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PFT2NT

I must say, thank you for your clip. In a way, I feel responsible for you getting one, as I got 2 in the past winter, a vintage Harmony tenor guitar that was refurbished, and my Ibanez PFT2 - Natural, a mini dreadnought style, as opposed to the parlor size which you had gotten.  Both Ibanez' are super value for there money.  As I'd shared privately, and will say publicly, if Joni Mitchell played the Ibanez George Benson model electrics live in the late 70's and early 80's, then you know that Ibanez is a brand to be trusted.  I simply can not say enough good things about mine.

The one thing Cynthia and I discovered is that the best strings for these tenors believe it or not is the La Bella tenor guitar strings.  The strings D'Addorio makes supports GDAE tuning, but are way too heavy for the standard tenor tuning of C G D A.  I emailed the guy I bought the Harmony from to ask what strings he used, and he told me La Bella, so there you go.

What a nice deep tone your new guitar has Cynthia....Anither nice addition to your collection...ENJOY!!!!!

Whew Bob! that rascal is some kind of purrrrrty!

Cynthia, I very much appreciated your review of your new tenor guitar. Loved your playing and singing of Precious Lord. I'm pleased that you are so happy with this new addition to your collection.

I love that! Thanks for sharing!!!

This is my current "go to" instrument.  Mostly because it is sitting conveniently close to the sofa.  It is all walnut with a Sassafras top.

Ibanez Artwood parlor tenor guitar. 5ths tuning, but tuned down a step. I like this tenor guitar quite well and did a short bit of review and play of it.

Tish Westman, a member here, has a luthier shop and also teaches dulcimer and psalty at Tamarak near Beckley. She is a wonderful ambassador for the mountain dulcimer (gifted composer, singer and player as well). 

I've seen them at the Kentucky Craft Center, just off I-75 in Berea. There were a couple of Warren May instruments, and examples from a couple of other Kentucky builders

It also helps to keep the thumb on your left hand on the back of the neck, not wrapped around the side. Looks really nice Scott. Have fun with it.

I play tenor ukulele, and I was taught to hold the uke above my waist, at a slight upward angle, and to use my right forearm to press the uke against my body. (and relax!) No strap is needed. 

For stage work my Jerry Rockwell large hourglass, if I want to get jazzy, and old Jim Good set up like Alan Freeman's in Jim's weird G tuning, and for learning new tunes (in DAd) or jamming, a (supposedly) WV made small hourglass.

Scott, 155 tuning on a just intonated  dulcimer is as close to musical heaven as it gets in our world. Playing dulcimer without drones is like playing bag pipes with only a chanter. Its just not right... Robert.

"Coyote" John Blosser calls Ionian Mode "The Mode of the Gods".  He plays in it almost exclusively.

This may not be the best area to respond but I a firm believer in the 1-3-5 tunings.  The chord possibilities are endless and you can really do some very interesting chord progressions.  So D-F#-A or C-E-G or F-A-C can be a revelation.  I went to conservatory and "think" in keys and chords so it seems familar to me.

All that said I recently tried D-A-A and it was - in a word - thriling!  It does seem that the MD wants to have a drone that rings along with your melody.

So I guess you can have the best of both worlds tune a drone tuning for some songs - tune in a "chordal" mode when you want to do something else.

If nothing else I got over my fear of tuning my strings!

Well I yielded to temptation and bought the Dulcinet.  I wanted to experiment with chromatic frets and right now these are going for around $150.

So far it is a fantastic little instrument to explore with and it seems to have a sweet tone.  The chromatic frets are messing with what little fingering I had already self-taught myself.  I do wish it was more "dulicimer" like.  I still haven't figured out he best way to hold it.  I'm thinking of putting a leather tie or some sort of strap.  Any ideas or comments are welcome.

I tuned it to D-F#-A-A so now I have a fine instrument for adding chords to a jam session.  I just thought maybe someone else might want to noodle around with it as well.  Description below.

Dulcinet T, Rosewood, Hearts The Dulcinet™ is a very unique instrument. It is about the size of a tenor ukulele so it is small and light, easy to hold and carry around. It is strung like a dulcimer, but backwards. It has one wound string, and two other courses of lighter gauge steel strings, the bottom course is two strings tuned in unison. There are 19 chromatic frets. The scale length is roughly 430mm or 17". It can be tuned in different ways, but the sweet spot seems to be G3-D4-G4G4.

 dnlsrh.jpg - 26KB

As one can see in this previously posted photo, our three cats find my playing interesting. They seem to particularly like "Grey Cat on a tennessee Farm"

My 3 furry amigos . Usually one or two will wander in and plop down next to me or even rub the dulcimer as I try to play it.

You think that's funny?  Murray (the Manatee) wants to take the vocal solo and the instrumental break on Old Man(atee) River!

Ken, that's too funny!

James, it was made by Folkcraft.

My dog was jelous at first, of the time I spent focusing on playing, but after awhile she got used to it. 

Smiley Friend, does a humming type howl when I am listening to dulcimer music, he especially likes to hear Ken Backer and other deep male voices, then he really sings. Smiley just stares at me when I play. 

 DSCF1598.JPG.jpg - 93KB

Sally's dog and cats pretty much ignore my playing.  On the other hand, my pet Manatee and I are working up a duet set of water songs.

Ken, I didn't make myself clear on my response. I can play the song easily in Daa. No need for lower strings. The point I want to make in a general way is that I like to skip over and finger the bass notes. It adds a little color to some tunes... Robert. 

Robert -- Lisa gave you the simplest answer -- we re-tune. If the notes are not available on the melody string you are not in the right mode. In your case DAd would not be the correct mode.  Here's a link to a YouTube vid where dholeton plays Precious Memories in Ionian Mode (he uses Eb Bb Bb -- half a step up from DAA.  There is also contact info for the player and other information in the comments below the tune.

BY slowing down the video you should be able to pick out the frets he is using, and write your own tab from that.

I simply reach over and play the bass notes with my finger. Robert...

Hi Dan,

I have received your demand that your membership be removed from our site.  I will be happy to help do that for you, as soon as I get back from Sunday brunch with my friends.  Thanks!

How do your pets react to your playing? My older cat Fifi likes to sleep on my feet as I play . My dog Scout doesn't know what to make of it (that's her reaction to most things), and my young cat Baby is too busy causing mayhem, bringing in her trophys for us to admire , to care.

Have a good night, Dalton.  Sorry I wasn't more help.

I found "Precious Memories" on both the Dogwood Dulcimer and Jam'n Folks site.  It's written the same way on both, fo fingerpick/flatpick.  That may be one of those tunes that just cannot be played noter/drone.  Somebody a lot better than me might could do it, buit I couldn't.

Is that in a Michael Shull Book?  Is there anything written on the middle or bass lines?  I am now wondering if 'Precious Memoriies" is still under copyright.  It's not listed on Everything Dulcimer.  I'll see if I can find a better tab on one of the other sites.

Dalton, If the notes appear in a vertical line in your tab, it was also written for Chord/melody style.  Just ignore the other lines and just play the one on the melody string.  If the notes appear on the middle or bass strings, it was probably written as a fingerpicking or flatpicking tab.  If you give us the names of the tunes you want to learn, we can give you direction on where to find them.

Dalton, the short answer is- we'll often re-tune our melody string so that the melody notes we need are playable on the melody string and not 'missing'.

Here is a blog post I wrote about why I might be in a different tuning in order to get those 'missing' notes on my melody string...it's about DAA, but can be applied to help answer your question:  http://dulcimer-noter-drone.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-i-like-daa-tuning.html

I'm sure others will chime in with some great replies as well.  :)

Dan,

I'm sorry we were not able to fix your tablet problem and I'm sorry the site does not meet your needs.

Please let me know if you want to leave the site and if so, I can assist you in deleting your account.