Forum Activity for @ellen-rice

We begin in a fog

For starters, for someone who has no real music background, Middle C is as mysterious as Middle Earth. So one pings a string, reads the tuner and says guess it needs to go up to C and then to D. SPRONG. Oops. Wrong C.

And the way to fix this? No one says download a tuning app and Middle C = 261.6 Hertz. Nope, this is a hardcore McGyver crowd that does things the adventuresome way. Tuning is a scavenger hunt. First, its Find a piano, then See those 88 keys? . . .

Then theres an inversion

Any dulcimer book labels the strings from the bass string down. If something is labeled Dadd, youd think that big D would be a big deal. But turn the page to the first tune. See those numbers on the line for the noter? By gum, we start with the melody strings as the important ones.

And theres that French stuff

The chap on the instructional video says were going to be playing Gallic style, only he seems to spell it with an X. That dulcimer hes holding has lost her waistline! Well, after two kids and a Thanksgiving dinner, I can relate to the dilemma. But wait. OMG! Hes playing with a feather . Nobody told me thered be turkey farming as part of this music making. Oh, wait, he says I can strum with a pick.

That leads us to Flatpicking

Pretty quick a video or book says something like, Heres a tune for flatpicking. Sorry, honey. But all picks are flat. Ive got one that looks like a sharks tooth with bumpy edges and another thats curved on one side but they are both flat as can be. But thats not nearly as confusing as . . .

Frets

The dulcimer world is full of nice but very odd people. Ive lived with babies. The less fretting, the better, in my book. But Dulcimer World likes lots of fretting. And its something special if its colorful, because then its chromatic, just like Kodachrome film used to be.

And Tons of sugar

Dulcimer people do a lot of Jamming. And Fudging. Sometimes they Jam and Fudge at the same time. I sure hope folks are flossing, because thats a lot of sugar.

Dont Get Fresh with me

Then theres those on a special forum discussing their Vibrating String Lengths. I kid you not. Add in a bottle of Chianti and Ill bet thats how that French girl lost her waistline. I didnt fall off the turnip truck this morning you know. And Im smart enough to know about:

Capos

At first I thought this was those green salty things that get listed in magazine recipes. But thinking about it a moment, I realized it stands for Calcium. Ca+ or "Ca positive". Thats because you need lots of calcium to have strong finger bones for all that fretting. When it says Capo at 1, then that tells you take the calcium right after lunch.

But things do get mislabeled .

The video instructor says hes going to play the song slow, medium and then fast. These are not the correct names for what is shown. Heres the proper translation:

Slow = If you work really hard you might be able to keep up

Medium = NASCAR version

Fast = Intergalactic Warp 10. This is the version featuring space aliens with twice the fingers of humans.

Sooner or later Im going to figure out which river those bridges are for.

Until then, Happy Holidays!

Those kids need a standing ovation. They sounded great. Absolutely amazing.

Where there's a will, there's a way...

Human creativity and music just have to come out one way or another. It's wonderful to see and hear what can be done when someone is resourceful and imaginative. And all the kids get to share in the creation of real music with whatever is found nearby.

Reminds me of the first time I encountered a cardboard dulcimer. After playing it a little, I wondered why I work so hard with different woods to get the same sound you get out of an inexpensive instrument.

Then there's the cardboard-box bass that Elderly Instruments sells. Doesn't look like much, but it sure sounds like an upright bass fiddle!

Amazing! And I fret over having several dulcimers so I can get just the right sound. Inspirational that you can make something as amazing as music from a garbage pile.

Very amazing little clip, it'll make your day...

Can't wait to hear the Bear Meadow....especially with you playing it!!

Yes, Robin! I should be in town for several months... it's supposedly finished and ready to be shipped. I'll post pictures when it arrives!

Always good to catch up with old friends ! ( friends !!! we have never even met !!! lol) Great to have you back amongst us Guy, still not sure about that dulcimer you play, why not send it over to me so as I can assess it first hand ? Might take a year or three

best wishes

John

Welcome back Guy.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Trip was good, very hectic but lovely. Then I came home to a LOT of work. Those are the times when I just can't get online as much. I really missed everyone though! How have you been Carrie? How's your playing going?

Nice to be back on FOTMD! Looking through all the wonderful posts makes me so happy!!!

How is everyone doing?

I should have also mentioned this interesting dulcimer stand I own because it is very sturdy and will also hold your music while you practice! The top part can be removed if you don't want to use it. The pegs at the top can be adjusted to fit the width of your dulcimer and there is cork on the heel rest at the bottom. Little "feet" on the heel rest keep your dulcimerslanted back and cradled between the pegs. Well-made!

It's currently on eBay, item 141132457952

Gin, I own the one by Doug Felts that Wayne Anderson recommended and I am very pleased with it. It will accommodate quite a variety of instrument sizes and shapes, the pegs are padded with something that will not harm the finish on your instrument, it's sturdy and folds for easy transporting to a class or jam. And, yes, Doug and Lee are great folks to work with!

Hope this helps!

Thanks Wayne. That's the best one I've seen so far. Wonderful!
Wayne Anderson said:

Hello Virginia; check out this Mountain Dulcimer Stand I have one and it works very well for Hour Glass or Tear Drop shape. These folks are great to deal with also. Hope this helps.

Thanks Dusty. I do have a separate apartment now and am able to have most of my instruments out so I can play them more frequently. The MD is still #1

Dusty Turtle said:

Virginia, I've seen the picture of you surrounded by all your instruments. A stand won't be enough. You need a separate apartment.

Virginia, I've seen the picture of you surrounded by all your instruments. A stand won't be enough. You need a separate apartment.

Most everything I see out there (and there's not much) looks flimsy and not something I want to trust to hold my 900.00+ instrument. Either it has only three legs, or there's no holder for the top part to keep it from being knocked off center. Can anyone recommend a good, stable, well made stand specific for the MD? Very much appreciated. Thanks.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, Jerry.

Merry Christmas Jerry

Thanks everyone for your comments! I will try to keep up the rhythm of posting about my DulciBlog giveaways, and later today (Wednesday 12/18/13) I will be sending out my newsletter from my web site (jcrmusic.com), where I will try to give something else away. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

Jerry

That's kind of you to share. I haven't tried to play it yet, but it looks like there are lots of arpeggios involved.

Thanks so much.

A challenge for someone that plays noter drone. Guess I should step out of my comfort zone and try it.

Thanks Jerry!!!

Hi Folks!

It is Friday and I'm going to try and always give something away on my Dulciblog:

http://jcrdulcimer.blogspot.com/2013/12/southwind.html

Enjoy!

Jerry Rockwell

That's the "on top of it" phenomena. When you're playing, and right on top of the sound, you hear things differently than you do even a few feet away.

AS I read you second paragraph I was going to suggest strumming the melody strings nearly vertically and using only the side of your little finger to brush the middle drone string and bass string.

One thing you've quickly discovered is that "there is no right way, or wrong way to play the dulcimer" -- just YOUR way. I've been an 'outie' strummer for nearly 40 years, influenced by Jean Ritchie. So firmly an outie strummer that it was probably 15 years before I even accidentally strummed out and back. Others emphasize strumming inward. Whatever works best for you.

When you back and forth strum, try to make the major notes of each measure the innie strums. Personally I think tablature which tries to teach you which direction to strum for which note is mostly a waste of time. Play a tune in a way which sounds good to you.

I find it interesting that your middle drone string has so much more sustain than the other strings; but 'stuff happens'. That might be solved by changing the middle drone string to a slightly larger gauge.

Onward and upward, as an author friend is fond of saying.

William,

First of all, in common parlance, what you are calling the "tenor" string is referred to simply as the middle string. "Tenor" makes sense to me, but that is not common practice.

Second, strumming in will accent the melody string only if your strum moves downward rather than upward. It may be that you are too new at playing to be able to fully control your strums in this way, but in the same way that Ken described how to strum out in such a way as to de-emphasize the bass, you can do the same thing strumming inward. In other words, strumming inward per se does not stress the melody notes. It is your specific method of strumming inward, and as you progress you will gain greater ability to alter your strumming in nuanced ways.

Third, notice that you refer to "principle" strum. Although some folks only strum in one direction, most players eventually begin strumming in both directions. The key is to keep a steady strum, with your principle strum occurring on the down beats and your other strum occurring on the up beats. So if your principle strum is in, the as you count 1-&-2-&-3-&-4-& you will strum in on the numbers and out on the &s. If your principle strum is out (as is mine) then you reverse that, and you strum out on the numbers and in on the &s. But melodies are not limited to down beats, so as you begin playing more and more advanced melodies, you will have to play melody notes when not strumming in the direction of your principle strum.

In short, the long-term solution to your problem cannot simply be to strum in instead of out. You will eventually develop the technique to emphaize certain strings in either direction. Admittedly, de-emphasizing the middle string is a problem.

How new are the strings? I would suggest putting all new strings on and getting slightly heavier melody strings and bass strings. Why not try .024 on the bass and .012 on the other strings. That change alone will emphaize the bass and melody strings more than they are now inyour current set-up. And if the strings are old, they might indeed have aged differently. Wound strings can sometimes go dead or flat faster than unwound strings, and since you finger the melody strings, the oil from your skin might have encouraged the melody strings to age faster than the middle string which remains untouched. Both new strings and changing the gauges might help with the problem you have.

Finally, if changing string gauges does not help, try changing the tuning a tiny little bit. Every dulcimer has a tone that finds extra responsiveness in the wood. Some players and luthiers sing into the sound holes of their instruments to find what that tone is and then they tune accordingly. It is possible that the A note of your middle string is simply more resonant in your dulcimer than other notes. What if you tuned CGG instead of DAA? You will still be able to play all the same songs in all the same fingerings that you've already learned, but it's possible that getting the middle string off the A note will bring it back in line with the volume and sustain of the other strings.

Good luck. And let us know how things go.

William, Ken has given you good advice about how to alter your strumming to either stress the melody strings more than the drone strings. You may not be able to master strumming technique right away, but keep working at it.

You should also not be afraid to change string gauges as you suggest. Although you might not want to go smaller than .020 on the bass string, especially if you are tuning to DAA, you might as well try .012 on the melody strings. That will increase the volume of the melody string a little bit.

I won't say common, but I will say it's something a new player recognizes quickly and either accepts or learns to circumvent when desired. Nothing wrong with the sound of drones; IMHO it's an essential part of the whole Dulcimer Sound. But it's not something most Westerners are accustomed to hearing in heavy doses.

The more you play, the more you'll find your personal balance of drones and melody, usually on a tune-by-tune basis. Some tunes cry out for a heavy drone background, the way some tunes cry out for a heavy drumbeat. Others, not so much, and at times, no drone at all. Some phrases of some songs want a drone, others don't; especially the farther up the fretboard you play -- the higher frets with the drones are often uncomfortably discordant, so you learn not to use the drones above, say fret 9...

The easiest way to lessen the amount of drone sound is to change how you strum. From your description it sounds as if you are strumming either very flat across all the strings, or perhaps even across and down as you get to the middle and bass drones, which would emphasize them.

So... learn to strum "up and out, in and down" so that the melody string is emphasized in each direction, not the drones. When I strum outwards, I basically brush the drones with the little finger of my right hand (the finger itself helps to mute the drones somewhat), as my pick plucks the melody string almost exclusively (and the drones as I want to pluck them). strumming inward I often don't touch the drones at all with the pick, but again brush them with my curled fingers in passing.

If you can borrow a tuner from a friend, either the same make, or a different make of tuner, try it, and see if the "out of tune" changes. I suspect it's less critical than it looks on a tuner, and probably not far enough to hear the difference. My guess is each tuner is probably more sensitive to certain notes, or a certain part of it's range, and less sensitive to others. If the dulcimer sounds good when you play it, don't let the scientific lab equipment bother you.Tune the open strings, and let your ears decide the rest.

It's a mystery isn't it Patty? You probably oughta take it to someone who can solve it.

As an aside, but along the same lines. Early in my music playing days I got into trying to make sure every fret noted true..lasted for a few years though.....course there wasn't any little clip on tuners in those days. I'm a piano tuner and I'm thinkin' well I can hear the low side of a 5th and the high side of a 5th and everything in between and none of these stringed instruments are right. So I'd mess with the bridge and with the nut and change the strings and then I'd try a different material for the bridge and I'm thinkin' I can tell the difference....and I probably could... : )....

But the best thing I did was just start playing the instruments as they laid.....& if I thought one note was always a little flat well when I came to that note I'd push on it a little bit before it sounded and sharpen it some. And if there was a note I thought was always sharp...well I'd live with it. And you know what? Pretty soon I couldn't tell the difference. Or I didn't care....one or the other. All I know is my obsession with 'perfectly in tune' was thankfully lifted from me. Sometimes I think I should pay a little more attention to my tuning however... : )...

Nowadays with these clip on tuners I've read threads to where people just don't know where to turn.....this note ain't right or that one.

That's kind of where you're at Patty. Your chart shows things are messed up for no logical reason.....except maybe for different fretting finger pressure behind the fret. But I looked at your page and saw you're a guitar player so I'd give you the benefit of the doubt there.....and you probably know what things oughta sound like.

So....take it in...get it looked at? Good luck...f'real.....& I hope you get it to playing to your satisfaction.

Patty - because there is no consistency between fret tuning between the strings, I would suggest you first replace the bridge and nut and then replace the strings with known good quality strings. Then see how it is. The maker may well have economised on these things to keep the price down.

Patty

Everyone so far has made sensible suggestions but I guess you want ideally to take one definite course of action and see how it goes.

* I suggest you ignore for the moment the possibility that your maker simply got his fret spacing wrong and try to improve the intonation, not perfect it;

* Given the materials used, you need to replace the bridge (certainly) and nut (possibly, though it's a more delicate operation), and preferably in a hard material like bone or corian;

* The bass D string seems pretty much OK with your current set up, so use that as your marker (don't worry about the intonation of the bass string beyond the 12th or so fret - it's usually pretty unplayable up there anyway);

* The middle string is mainly sharp, which suggests you need that part of the bridge to be further from the nut (you make the bridge using three different facets);

* The melody string(s) - the pair won't/can't really be different - is mainly flat, which suggests the bridge facet needs to be nearer the nut. NB we are talking small differences in distance from the nut of maybe no more than 1mm between each facet.

* So far, so standard with a tuning of DAD and a 12/15/22 - 28 set of strings. But your bridge is floating I think you said - it doesn't have a fixed slot? This means you can fine tune the position of the bridge - and SLANT it slightly if necessary - to get the intonation across and up the fingerboard acceptable, if not perfect.

...It will of course be easier if you ask a luthier to do all this for you, but it's perfectly possible to do it yourself with a little care.

Good luck!

Geoff

Well that's a whole heap of data there Patty, like Dusty, I had trouble making sense of it all.

A couple of things come to mind.

Most likely it's a question of finding the correct position for the bridge and then finding the best combination of string thickness. You usually have to play one variable against the other to get this.

Are there any signs in the wood or colouration(fading etc.) that suggest the bridge was set at an angle across the fretboard.

The 6+ fret doesn't fit quite the same pattern of sharp and flat as the other frets. Maybe ignore results from this fret for the time being and base everything on the whole numbers.

You know what I find is interesting, there is no pattern in the variations. Looking just at the 3 A strings on many of the same frets the variation between the middle and melody are in opposite directions. Maybe caused by poorly shaped nut and bridge slots [along with the material]?

Does the MD have a zero fret or just a nut?

Now , now , Ken !

JohnH

(sorry Patty, just his first sentence, all the rest is fine! Wish you lived just a bit nearer, I'm sure that we could work something out ? Can you see gaps beneath a fret where it sounds 'off', can you depress such frets with pressure? JH)