Can you provide pictures?

Does anyone have any ideas in how to fix a warped dulcimer? It has a concave bend in it. Attempting to take the bend out of the body of an old teardrop kit dulcimer. I was able to remove the fret board that was warped as well, and now wanting to somehow flatten the instrument out. If successful,  I'll  install  a new fret board and continue refurbishing it.

Thank you everyone for the info!

In 1960, my brother and I had one guitar between us and it was frustrating.  We wanted to play together, but we couldn't afford another guitar.  Since this was the time that The Great Folk Scare was in full swing, we had a couple of Sonny & Brownie LPs  and Hohner Marine Bands were about $2.00, so we each bought a harp and tried to sound like Sonny, with little success, until we read an article in Sing Out! magazine where Tony Glover explained cross harp, palying in the key of E with an A harp.  Suddenly it all came together.

Here are the harps that I play regularly.  The little box fits in my guitar case.

@Rachel, yes, on a lot of social media platforms such as Instragram, Facebook, and YouTube, and even business software such as Teams, the @ symbol is a way to express that your comment is specifically a response to one individual. At FOTMD, if they allow notifications, members will receive an email when someone identifies them in a discussion.  You may receive one when I post this comment. But if you have subscribed to the discussion, then you would get one anyway.

Here's a tune on the Tiple that I recorded for a ukulele group I belong to.  I had been fooling with the tiple and a 14 string banduria, which is why I credit the tiple with 4 more strings than it actually has.

Here's one I learned from The King Of The 12-String Guitar, Lead Belly.  Alabamy Bound
I love playing the call & response.

I don't own a 12-string, but at the start of COVID I borrowed my brother Bob's Epiphone 12-string for a couple of weeks which turned into over a year because of COVID.
Here's a sample of Carl Martin's Vegetable Dance , played with a flat pick.

This is a test run. Sorry

I promise I won't ask anymore questions after this one that doesn't pertain to starting a new discussion!! Responding to comments - I want to respond to each of your comments. I tapped Ken's name and saw the circle thing that that usually has words in it. Does that mean when I go to the top and type my response and post it, it'll have the @Ken which notifies him he has a response to his comment?

Oops, Dusty and i were posting at the same time... thank you Dusty for your excellent post which covered all the basics!

Hi Rachel.

What you 'see' and icons/buttons etc... will depend on whether you are using a desktop/laptop, a tablet, or a phone. On mobile devices, site action options are typically found in your phone drop-down menus for the site, rather than as visible buttons on the pages. Personally I find it easier to navigate the web version of FOTMD, on a laptop or desktop.

Groups have both a Comment Wall and their own group discussions. The Groups section of this site has groups that address particular focused subjects that might not be of interest to most members- such as Galax Dulcimers, Fingerpicking, Dulcimer Builders Group, Chromatic dulcimers, California players... you get the idea. Remember that a member will not see all the Group discussion replies until they JOIN that group.  Groups are independent and completely separate from the site's main Forums area. Groups are meant to be 'focus groups' for those who share special interests. There is a little overlap since nothing is perfect.

The "Forums" section of this site has general subject areas, and in each of those areas you can create discussions/threads. It is always fully visible and you don't need to 'join' it. It functions similarly to typical traditional online forums.

You can 'follow' both Groups and Forum Discussions to be notified of new posts in that discussion.

It's a good idea to search a subject to see if you can find answers that have already been given. If not, then feel free to create a new discussion thread for your specific post.

I do realize a tutorial on how to use this site might be quite useful to some folks.  However, it would take me weeks to create a tutorial. Aside from my not having the time to devote to that, I know from many years of experience that most people wouldn't read through it anyway- they'd see a big tutorial and then they'd just go ahead and skip that and post their question directly, as they do now.  

The closest we have to a tutorial is this "How Do I..?" forum discussion... which does seem to help answer some of the more common questions, and it gets revised from time to time. It seems to work 'well enough' from a practical sense.

I hope this helps!  😍

@Rachel, I'll do my best to respond here, but for the most part, I think you got it.  And I certainly appreciate you making the effort to learn how the site is organized rather than just posting willy nilly all over the place.  Thank you!

Groups, as you say, pertain to specific interests.  Importantly, you have to join a group to see all the posts. There is no cost to join nor a vetting process, but the idea is that group conversations are more intimate in that they only involve those with that special interest.

Forums are available to all members of FOTMD and address more general issues than those handled in Groups.

Inside a given Forum and inside a given Group are Discussions on specific topics.  In either a Group or a Forum, if you find a Discussion on a topic you wish to engage in, you can post in that Discussion thread.  If you look around and there is no Discussion on a topic you wish to talk about, you can create a new one.

In fact, this Discussion thread is specifically about how to create a new Discussion in a Forum, so if you scroll to the beginning you will see efforts by Strumelia and me to answer that question.

Admittedly, there is some overlap between the Forums and the Groups.  Beginner questions, for example, seem to pop up everywhere.  But in general, keeping things organized with clear titles for Discussion topics organized in the appropriate Group or Forum makes it easy to find old conversations.  When I first joined as a beginner, I had dozens of questions, but most of them had already been asked and answered in Forums or Groups, so scrolling around the site allowed me to find those answers right away rather than post a question and then wait for someone to read my post and answer.

I will also admit that some of the Groups are pretty quiet.  You can see tumbleweed and hear crickets when you pop in there.  We could probably weed some out, to be honest, but sometimes all it takes is one person to pose a question or make a comment and activity starts percolating again.

Always best to use the Search function first before creating anything new -- someone else over the years may have already answered the question your have, or experienced what you have etc.

Forums are major categories of Discussions -- General Dulcimer/Music, Instruments, Resources
Groups are specialized subject areas -- Beginner Questions, Music Theory, History, playing styles etc.
Discussions are specific subjects/questions/observations which you create within a Discussion or Group -- What do you use to make your dulcimer shiny?  Where can I find a dulcimer from a certain maker?, Which strings should I use?

If you are asking a new question, start a new Discussion in a Forum or Group rather than add it to an existing discussion -- others may want to know the answer to your question but won't be able to see/find those answers easily if they are buried in a non specific discussion.

In a Forum Or Group Discussion, near the top you will find a white square button with a black + sign.  Click the button to name and create your new discussion question/observation/subject.

I need clarification of the differences between Groups, Forums and Threads. My initial impression is:

1.  Groups pertain to a specific interest. Within groups there are threads. I should choose the correct thread pertaining to the topic of my question/comment then make a post.

2.  Forums is a "Group" that pertains to multiple topics that contain threads. Again, I should search the appropriate thread that addresses what I want to talk about, then make a post.

3.  Groups do not contain Forums and Threads.

4.  You can start a new thread within both Groups and Forums.

 If there is a tutorial about how to use the different functions of this website I could really use the help.

 Any comments on my statements above will be appreciated       Thanks

Thanks for sharing your video Macy Jayne. It must have been a fun project. I enjoyed watching it.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

That is funny. I think it is the living who put the pressure on to preserve what our ancestors did.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

I read something funny today online:

"Tradition is peer pressure from dead people."   😂

A thread for drifting from subject to subject, just for fun!

Glad to hear it's working for you Macy Jayne.

And again... welcome back!  

Yes that worked, in the app I used Share to copy to a new window, then copied that lol.

OK I just now posted a test video, a YT video called  Clyde the Limberjack.

It worked fine for me.  As I wrote in the thread I linked to below, I pasted in the full browser URL link when adding the video. I did NOT use the "share" link that Youtube provides when you click on 'share' on your youtube video's page.  Are you guys doing this?

Macy's link that she posted in the first post of this thread looks like the Youtube-provided "share" link (it has a question mark in the middle of the link, but no "watch?" in the middle of the link... as my full browser link has.)

To add a youtube video, you have to copy and paste in the full URL address of the video that's in the window at the top of your web browser.

Please do that and tell me if it works. It just worked fine for me.  Do NOT use the youtube "Share" button link.

Thanks for any further details.

Yes but are you following both the suggestions in the thread that I just linked to?
It's hard for me to 'guess' what exactly you are doing.  Instead of posting a general link to your YT video here in this discussion, can you please copy/paste here the exact thing that you are putting in the site field that is resulting in your getting the error message?

I have had same issue same message  for month or so. Something changed.

Hi Macy Jayne, good to see you here again!

Can you please look through this thread and tell us if it solves your issue?:

https://fotmd.com/forums/forum/site-questions-how-do-i/17093/add-a-video-will-not-accept-youtube-link

Haven’t been on in awhile. Just tried to post a new YouTube video but got this message. Help please. “ Unable to extract the YouTube ID from the URL - please try again or enter the ID”. 
https://youtu.be/qmRQbQZTC7c?si=zdFG_4Prtlnf7p5S

[quote="shanonmilan"]

[/quote] Does it also make it sound better that you use a specially coated string?

[/quote] 
Shanon, each material sounds slightly different, but I don't personally think any sound better than any others.Some are magnetic, which is useful for a dulcimer with electric pickups. Some use fancier metals under the premise that they sound better, but I personally like the different sounds of all string types. Maybe a more refined ear would hear more of a difference.
Nate

@john-c-knopf I'm grateful for the music she left behind-- it continues to enrich my life! 

Jean Ruth Ritchie was born 101 years ago today in Viper KY.

Hi, My main instrument is the 5-string banjo. I recent did a book for Hal Leonard called Do-It-Yourself Banjo. Written during Covid, it's sort-of intended as a self teaching guide, complete with audio and video files to demonstrate what's being presented in the book. Been teaching since the mid-1970s, so feel free to hit me up with any questions. Naturally, I recommend the book, but I have been getting good feedback about it.

My uncle just gave me one of his banjos! It's something I've always wanted to learn.

 PXL_20231207_132201034~2.jpg - 124KB

@austinpmckenzie, that's an interesting piece on functional ear training. Having just skimmed it once, I don't know for sure that I fully understand it, but I do think that the way my ear hears music is similar.  I know what a I chord sounds like or means in a song. I know what a V chord means.  So I can hear in a piece of music when that chord is being played by the function it plays in the song.  The V chord creates tension that wants to resolve to the I chord, for example.  The same can be said of a melody.  Certain notes of the scale function as resting places, other notes as passing tones, and some create tension that needs to be resolved.  There are only 12 notes in a chromatic octave and 7 in a diatonic octave, so it isn't too difficult to get to know the notes from which you can choose to play a melody.  

Thanks! I encountered an article on functional ear training while navigating the ToneScholar app. Do you think this method is as effective as the one you suggested? You can read the article here: https://tonescholar.com/blog/functional-ear-training-explained

I have no evidence for this, but I suspect that many things we might consider 'traditional' now were done out of necessity at the time. This has always been a bit of a paradox for me. I assume the original developers of dulcimers were very innovative folks who were applying the concepts of older zithers to the materials they had in the Appalachians. This makes it hard for me to tell the difference between deliberate choices made by the 'masters of old' and choices made purely out of necessity. It's hard for me to imagine that they would have used staple frets if they had access to fretwire. Similarly, I have a personal hypothesis that noters were invented to allow a player to keep playing on super old grimy strings.

In both cases, the choices they made then shape what we consider to be the "dulcimer sound" and the "role of the dulcimer." I imagine that over 100 years ago, people may have made themselves all sorts of improvised zithers based on concepts they learned from European instruments. Probably what we consider 'traditional' are the ones that lasted long enough to be documented, but I suspect that with a time machine, we could go back and see all sorts of different 'dulcimers' with different features and roles. Mostly I think it's human nature to evolve and adapt, and I suspect that if you could bring those innovative inventors to the modern day, they would probably be ecstatic to hear how much the instrument has developed and grown.

Good point!The mountain dulcimer is a folk instrument and as such,capable of growth and innovation.Nevertheless my curiousity about its traditional role is well-founded.As a traditional singer/ fiddler I'm interested in where things come from,the history,the stories.Were I a cajon player I would research that as well....I'm not a folk purist,but old is often better than new.Not always,laugh.

It seems to me that the inquiry of "what the mountain dulcimer's role was in the area it came from a hundred odd years ago" is attaching undo importance to the instrument. It is a FOLK INSTRUMENT, something which can be made at home and used to create music.

We might ask the same question about the bones, spoons, shipping crate drums, cigar box fiddles, the washtub base, the monkey stick/Stumph Fiddle, cigar box uke/guitar, and many other musical devices. All of these have enthusiastic contemporary users and builders with forums, etc. and are used in public performances. I think all of them are also commercially produced and sold to a widespread market.

As a parallel to the current interest in the lap dulcimer, look at the cajón (Ca-HOne). It is a wooden box on which you sit and pound. In its modern version it is a Peruvian folk instrument, and you can easily pay $400 for a top grade one through Walmart's on-line shopping. You can find YouTube instruction on how to play it, ensembles, and get lessons at many music schools.

Enjoy your dulcimer, I enjoy my assortment along with other instruments. By all means, study its history. But we shouldn't make it into something of great world-wide importance.

I think it is better to have frets installed by a professional than to DIY it.

Yes, those are excellent books and must reads for folks who want to learn about mountain dulcimer history and context. One part of your question we have not addressed is the use of European predecessors of the mountain dulcimer. Wilfried Ulrich addresses some of this in his book The Story of the Hommel. There are many such instruments in museums in Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, etc.Unfortunately I am not aware of English translations of literature that describes how folks used these instruments. What is clear is that they were "folk" instruments and not considered to be of great value musically. Again, they were mostly played by folks in their own homes for their own enjoyment. 

I do what to respond to Kenh's comment about amplification. The zitters used in Pennsylvania Dutch communities had feet on the bottom and were often played by placing them on tables when played. This increased the volume of the instrument. Some dulcimers builders in the late 19th century (J.E. Thomas, C.N. Prichard) made dulcimers with feet on the bottom which allowed them to be played on tables as well. It may have helped when dulcimers were used to accompany dances.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."