Thank you Lexie, that is the song that bewitched me first, and now playing that simple 5 note song, I'm even more convinced there's a lot of magic in that strange instrument...I think you might just have some fun with a 5 string. I may actually learn to make them. Never know...
Cynthia, I loved that song, very pretty to hear the bells.
You are really going on that Kantele and love hearing you play.
Keep em coming!
Here's s sweet Finnish folk tune trad. played on 5 string kantele, which I'm playing on my 10 string as I don't have a 5. This is something not so do-able on a noter/drone dulcimer!
and my first song played a couple of days after I got it:
I'm having fun with my 10 string kit from Musicmakers made by Lynn Austin.
Has as much to do with availability as anything else I think Grahame.
Where did you get a dulcimer from back in those days? It took me nearly a year to find one, and I was really looking ... and it was crap. I ended up almost rebuilding the thing.
Joni Mitchell broke hers on tour and her Road Manager was near to desperation trying to find a replacement. There just wasn't that many instruments around.
As I remember those days, Irish bands were more interested in adding mandolins and bazoukis anyway.
The other side has more to do with what the record distribution companies put out, Steeleye Span were one of the few and Tim Hart got featured. Otherwise it was small lables like Bill Leader's that carried a few players, Roger Nicholson, Pete & Chris Coe, Stephan Sobell etc.
I have always wondered how Richard Farina's music would have developed had he not died so young. Compare their two albums, the second one is much rockier with more conventional instrumentation, and dare I say it, a more straightforward writing style. Would he have given up the dulcimer altogether and become a rocker!?!
Grahame
Right you are, Ken. I don't think there would have been a California dulcimer scene back in the 1970s had it not been for Joni and Richard.
Ken, you'll be happy to see that Faria is using a noter. And I have to smile when Pete Seeger asks "What key? D?"
By the way, many years ago Neal Hellman put out a book in which he transcribed every dulcimer tune by RichardFaria. The book is long out-of-print, but Neal has made a pdf available online free of charge. Follow the links in his blog called LiberatingFaria .
Joni Mitchell although she was a solo performer. Richard&Mimi Faria duo (she was sister of Joan Baez)
I wouldn't call it folk/rock, but Cyndi Lauper has been playing dulcimer on stage and TV for the last few years.
Kenny Loggins current group Blue Sky Riders uses a dulcimer, the Rolling Stones song Lady Jane used a dulcimer, and I think Take Me to the Other Side by Aerosmith did as well.
David Schnafer played with the Judds on some of their country/rock albums. also John Foggarty has used one
of mine on several albums in very brief lead in solo's
Grahame, I can't think of a folk rock band in the US which used a dulcimer. My 1st record with a dulcimer on it was Steeleye Span's "Below the Salt." I had no idea there was a dulcimer on it nor what a dulcimer was 'til a trip to Mt View, Arkansas the next year.
Of course I am forgetting Gay Woods of Irish duo Gay & Terry Woods. She played dulcimer in their duo and also on "The Woods Band" album, notably on "January Snows" . G &T were also in briefly in Dr Strangely Strange but never officially recorded with them though there is a very poor quality tape of them playing a gig in Bunjies. London, which shows that the two acts just joined repertoires.
Grahame
Val, I would love to hear that recording! Paul Brady on dulcimer with Mick Moloney - wow!
Linda
Grahame it was used sparsely down through the years by different bands and musicians. I gave examples of it's use by different musicians from the 60's to the present day some years ago. My first encounter with the dulcimer in Irish music was Paul Brady backing Mick Moloney on a 1969 LP by the Johnston's. Mick Moloney played The Kilfenora Jig on the Mandolin and Paul did the backing on Dulcimer.
While there seems to have been plenty of UK folk rock bands using dulcimer occasionally in the early 70s (Fairport Convention/Steeleye Span/Strawbs/Trees/Mr Fox/Five Hand Reel etc) is anyone aware of it being used by Irish bands or US folk/rock bands? I can't think of any! Am I wrong? Why do people think this is? Why has the dulcimer never taken off in Ireland when it so obviously suits their folk music?
Grahame
Thanks! I just saw this now....and I just put it on the calendar to reserve the date for Bing's show. We'll be there! :-)
Sarah Hobart said:
So sorry I didn't see this.
I got too late a start to do a workshop event this year, but we are bringing Bing Futch in for a concert. Hope you can join us!
http://www.whippoorwilltheatre.com/events.html
Just curious, any updates? My husband is currently trying to peg me (just this morning during breakfast) to give him a run down of my own summer schedule to coordinate with his summer plans and time off, etc....and I told him that I don't wanna miss anything in regards to this. Bing doesn't have any Iowa dates confirmed quite yet.
Yes! I live in Cedar Rapids, but I have ease of travel to Des Moines, just 2 hours west, we go there all the time for various reasons. Bing Futch is preparing for a cross country tour. I suggested Iowa and he asked for suggestions, as he said he has always wanted to check it out. This would be perfect as D.M. would be the best city for it. I will let him know you want to start one there. You should be in contact with him! If I can be of any help to you at all from my locale, let me know. I'm an easy going and flexible person and open to helping with whatever your needs are. I can also help promote it especially around my part of the state, etc. If someone as inspirational as Bing can make it to the festival, that may encourage people to travel from surrounding states as well. I am studying his method book for chromatic dulcimer at the moment.....it is so wonderful. Anyway, looking forward to this!
Ok, I see it is offered free on Bob McNally's website, here:
http://www.strumstick.com/index.html
There was no name or author listed on the pdf.
...I like to make sure the author's name is made clear, and that they are giving their work out for free if we link to it here.
Thanks Babs That's a great find!!!! It looks like noter drone players heaven 
It is always exciting to find new tunes - I'm just having a go at Bonnie Tammie Scolla. I wish I'd noticed your post earlier this evening as I would have recorded a tune or two but it is a bit late now - I'll have to work one up for tomorrow.
FYI: this is the website entirely devoted to the 1-3-5 tuning: http://www.mountaindulcimer-1-3-5.com/ .
Sorry Babs - I see you're also from the UK! For my earlier replies I'm afraid I made the assumption that you are from the USA, like most members here.
Something else I should have said in my earlier replies is that, if you haven't already done so, it makes a lot of sense to familiarise yourself with 1-5-5 tuning (eg: DAA) BEFORE getting into 1-3-5. DAA is a beautiful, expressive tuning in its own right, and most old-time instruments were made with this kind of tuning in mind - with good reason. You may be familiar with Robin Clark's many brilliantly insightful writings here on FOTMD about his musical discoveries based upon his study of old instruments and playing styles, and with his many superb sound files. If you're not familiar with them, then give yourself a treat and look them up.
From a 1-3-5 perspective, a bit of DAA playing will familiarise you with where the notes are in this highly traditional tuning. Then 1-3-5 won't feel as strange, because your 2 outer courses are the same - and you just have to get used to all the weird chromatic notes on the middle string!
Hello Babs -
It's difficult for me to give you a straight answer as to whether I'm tuning down to CEG (or DF#A) from a Dadd tuning. The dulcimer I almost always use for 1-3-5 playing is my Sunhearth hourglass, which has a 27+5/8" scale length. I only have 3 strings on it, so I don't use doubled treble strings, and, as on all my various dulcimers, I use it for a number of different tunings. Amazingly - with the same set of strings - it works well in EBe, DAd and all the way downwards to AEA (and the various modal tunings within the same range).
You mention EG#B tuning. I use this quite a bit - it works really well.
Skip is quite right to say that 1-3-5 is no good for noter-drone playing (which I love), nor is it particularly helpful for nearly all of the folk-based music which most MD players want to play most of the time. Where it really comes into its own is opening the door to a more chromatic range of repertoire (show tunes, standards, some light classical etc.) than the MD can otherwise cope with.
Just in case you're interested, there are a couple of 1-3-5 pieces in the sound files on my FOTMD page, both in DF#A. They are "The Old Rugged Cross" and "We'll Meet Again" (a Second World War song which is enduringly popular here in the UK.)
I use DF#Ad [1358], equidistant, for now, along with DAD [I have 7 MD's], and have found it pretty nice. It's been fairly easy to learn to fingerpick/flat pick using DAd tab, I don't read SMN. You can also tune the melody D down to 'c' and have bar chord 7th's [or play 158 DAC]. 135 is really not for noter drone though, but is really good for chording and fingerpicking. I do use a slightly heavier string for the F#. I prefer the 4 string DF#Ad to the 3 string DF#A, which also allows using both tabs, 135 and 158. I also tried CEGc, which allowed me to get Dm [DFAd, 1011].
Hello Babs - I sometimes use 1-3-5 tuning, and, like Ken, I've never had trouble tuning my middle string down to F#. (Indeed there's one song I sing on which I accompany myself in 1-3-5 tuning in C. So that's CEG, and I have no trouble with that either, but it's probably at the limit of what the string will take from a slackness point of view.
I wouldn't particularly recommend FAc, because your bass string would be VERY tight at that tension.
I have and use a Hughes dulcimer and I find it has a nice voice or sound, other people at our dulcimer club have made good comments on it.mine is dated jan26,1989 its there model H38W4S and is made of solid walnut and spruce with crome tuners. I bought it new in 1989, and use it all the time. Hughes is no longer in bussiness. Alter all this time it was the only dulcimer I had. I just ordered a new dulcimer for Mike Clemmer on Townsend TN.
You're welcome, Lawrence.
I suggest you find other examples of dulcimers at a music store or at a festival, and compare them to yours.
The quality varies quite widely, from cheap cardboard kits to fabulous works of art such as Blue Lion dulcimers.
Some of us on this site recreate historically significant dulcimers of the past, so that today's enthusiasts can experience first-hand what it's like to play an old-fashioned instrument for a reasonable price.
