Are the bridges in the right place(or movable). The distance from nut to 7th fret should be very close to half the VSL.
There is an old guitar makers fret spacing based on 'The Rule of 18' that produces a slightly flattened scale.
I have a calculator somewhere that generates such scales if you want to check (requires a lot of measuring).
It will also do Equal and Just temperament if you want to check those as well.
Otherwise, it's probably what Ken says, or some combination of problems.
john p
"Not spaced properly" - if they are old dulcimers they might be intonated with just temperament spacing not equal temperament fret spacing, which was very common in the Olde Dayes.
How old is "old"?
Are the actions higher than "nickel-dime" That is a common cause of going flat as you walk up the fretboard, and was also common with older dulcimers...
Can you tell us who were the builders of these "old dulcimers". Even some more modern builders used just temperament into the 1980s.
Yes it's OK to post instruments for trade or sale - as long as you do it in the Instruments for Sale forum...
They say a mind is a terrible thing to waste, but for me, a waist is a terrible thing to mind!
Paul
Heck I've always suffered from CRS then. One of my high school teachers told me I had a Swiss cheese for a brain. This particular instructor couldn't ever figure out what I could or would be able to remember. I knew what I could learn, I just couldn't remember what it was. But back then I called it DRD or Don't Remember Diddlysquat.
My mother would never have let me use that "other" word. ;-)
Jim Fawcett said:CRS occurs for me just about everyday, folkfan. It's an on going thing and I just have to deal with it. I know that alot of people have it and don't want to admit to it. It's "Can't Remember Sh--".
So if you have it, it's best to come out of the closet and admit it. You'll feel so much better.
If I figure out how to do it, I'll post it here first. Then I'll start training my finger picks!
Paul
Seems like "Reading Glasses Memory" might help me more. I remember where my muscles are,but if I can just train my reading glasses to come to me whenever I'm awake.....
Paul
Heck I've always suffered from CRS then. One of my high school teachers told me I had a Swiss cheese for a brain. This particular instructor couldn't ever figure out what I could or would be able to remember. I knew what I could learn, I just couldn't remember what it was. But back then I called it DRD or Don't Remember Diddlysquat.
My mother would never have let me use that "other" word. ;-)
Jim Fawcett said:
CRS occurs for me just about everyday, folkfan. It's an on going thing and I just have to deal with it. I know that alot of people have it and don't want to admit to it. It's "Can't Remember Sh--".
Seems like "Reading Glasses Memory" might help me more. I remember where my muscles are,but if I can just train my reading glasses to come to me whenever I'm awake.....
Paul
I have a suspicion that there is some sort of counting goimg on when I play too, some sort of feedback between the number of fret bumps on your finger and the brain.
I've just picked up a 6+ instrument, and for almost the first time in 30 years am having to retrain myself, invariable undershooting by a fret whenever I cross the 6+.
Don't like the three frets so close either, doesn't sound quite right somehow with the extra fret sounding on a slide.
Did play 'Black Eyed Dog' and thought the 6+ added something even though it was never played. So not all bad, but doubt it will last and I'll be back to the diatonic.
john p
Sad.............. but so true!
What is? 
Jim, what was it we were talking about..................?
JohnH
(Completly Right............... Sometimes!)
CRS occurs for me just about everyday, folkfan. It's an on going thing and I just have to deal with it. I know that alot of people have it and don't want to admit to it. It's "Can't Remember Sh--". So if you have it, it's best to come out of the closet and admit it. You'll feel so much better.
CRS is a terrible thing. Affects me all the time. But in the long run I win out over it.
I love it when I struggle for an hour or so with playing some tricky thing, and I just can't for the life of me seem to make it click or get my fingers to do something....and then I go to bed and the next day as if by magic i can play it right off the bat. I like to think I got sprinkled with fairy dust while I was sleeping.
(but then there are also times when I go to bed and then still can't play it the next day... D'OH !!!)
Randy, a pretty good definition of muscle memory as I understand it, is given in WikiPedia which says.....
Muscle memory has been used synonymously with motor learning , which is a form of procedural memory that involves consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition. When a movement is repeated over time, a long-term muscle memory is created for that task, eventually allowing it to be performed without conscious effort. This process decreases the need for attention and creates maximum efficiency within the motor and memory systems. Examples of muscle memory are found in many everyday activities that become automatic and improve with practice, such as riding a bicycle, typing on a keyboard, playing a melody or phrase on a musical instrument, playing video games, [ 1 ] or performing different algorithms for a puzzle cube .
Muscle memory is a popular term amongst string instrument players, especially beginners. But it's a misnomer.
If you are waiting for your muscles to remember where to put themselves on the fingerboard you may be waiting for a while! : ) It's brain memory right? Your brain tells your fingers, and the muscles in your fingers, where to go when to go how long to stay there and when to move to a new place.
I don't want my muscles to act independently. I want my brain to send signals to my fingers at the speed of light. "Reverse course we have a new and different idea!"
Get those synapses and neurotransmitters and
proprioceptors
firing in the right order and play music!http://www.lovinglife.org/brain.htm
McSpadden dulcimers are made by a group of people. No one person makes the instrument from start to finish. The person who happens to attach the top to the back and sides is the one who signs the label. In all likelihood, every one in the shop had a hand in building each instrument that is made. Just and FYI.
Would you share your serial number? I'm contemplating buying a McSpadden signed by Larry but am not sure how old it is. Thanks.
Van France said:
I bought a 1992 M12W made by Larry McSpadden and it is a very fine instrument. If you don't like yours, let me know and I'll buy it! Good luck and enjoy! BTW, if you need anything for it, send or take it to Jim Woods at the Dulcimer Shoppe and he will go over it for you and put it in tip top shape. He worked over my M12 while I waited (and played with some great players!) and that instrument looks and plays like new. Congratulations on your purchase.
John P has given the correct response. The slot in question is the black space in the tail stock in the picture. It is hollow. It just doesn't need filled and it also allows additional 'sound hole' function. It belongs there on a McSpadden. It is the way they are designed and built.
As for the base string buzz... try this: Carefully cut a 1/4 " inch square of black electricians tape and fold it in half, sticky side out. That's a small piece of tape and hard to handle, you may want to use a tweezer. Then loosen your base string just enough to slide the tape under the string, at the nut, not letting it extend past the nut toward the bridge. Retune the string. The tape will space it up enough to let you know if you have a high fret or a nut problem and then you can effect a more permanent repair.
Congrats on the purchase. I'm sure you will love your McSpadden.
Hi Goshi,
McSpadden's have a high fretboard that is hollowed out. The high fretboard helps certain playing styles (thumb-on-top noter)and the hollowing both make the instrument lighter and more resonant - and to some extent the shape also helps stop the fretboard warping as it is a strong cross section. Many veryold dulcimers had hollowed out fretboards, and many didn't. From my experience the higher ones were hollow. The arching that FolkCraft do has a similar effect (as you have mentioned). I think that arching is a fairly modern (late 60s) development as I can't remember seeing a pre-revival dulcimer with arching? But there could well be some out there LOL!!!!!
Robin
Sorry for adding a (perhaps) "off topic" question here:
I have noticed that gap (resulting of the fact that the McSpadden soundboards don't meet in the middle) on photos of their dulcimers before. As I am generally interested in maybe ordering a McSpadden some day, I would like to ask the experts here:
What reason is there for that "gap" between the sides? Or to put it in another way: what's the advantage of that?
The dulcimer I have got now has a one piece soundboard and three cut out "arches" under the fretboard (the folkcraft dulcimer have that as well, I think). Up to now I always fancied that a construction like that (i.e. with arches and a one-piece soundboard) allows a better resonation (because it sets a larger area of the soundboard free for resonation).
I could not find any information about the construction McSpadden uses on their website.
Are there any opinions or experience about that? :D
(Sorry if that has been discussed here already anywhere else. I used the "search" function but didn't find anything. If I missed it, I'd be greatful if someone could lead me to the right place to discuss this.)
john p said:
Or did you mean the slot that runs across the tail.
This is a consequence of the soundboard being made of two pieces of wood that don't meet in the middle, but extend only a little way under the hollowed out fretboard.
This leaves a gap made up of the end cap on the fretboard(top), the two edges of the soundboard and the pin block at the bottom.
I guess McSpadden feel it is unnecessary to fill this, or perhaps it has some effect on the sound.
john p
So that slot is normal then, John? I've seen my instructor's McSpadden a few times but never really looked that closely at the tail.
Oh yeah. The rust issue amazes me. Apparently the strings havent been changed in 20 years. This is a dulcimer that's crying out for a new home IF the price is right.
Or did you mean the slot that runs across the tail.
This is a consequence of the soundboard being made of two pieces of wood that don't meet in the middle, but extend only a little way under the hollowed out fretboard.
This leaves a gap made up of the end cap on the fretboard(top), the two edges of the soundboard and the pin block at the bottom.
I guess McSpadden feel it is unnecessary to fill this, or perhaps it has some effect on the sound.
john p
Bet you don't get many French subscribers to the 'Show Us Your Pets' thread either 
john
This kind of inter-linguistic confusion can be offensive and comical, too. Years ago while i was living in France the family I was staying with welcomed another American for a dinner. She had just spent a few days in Paris on her first trip to France. They asked her how she liked Paris, and she responded that Paris was the city of joy--"Paris est la ville de joie"--and she wanted to say that she was ajoyous girlas well, so she said, "Et je suis une fille de joie." Horror fell on the faces of the French family. You see, "fille de joie" may literally mean girl of joy, but it the common name for, well, shall we say . . . una puta.
No offense meant or taken. Just a gentle reminder that we are an international community here and not everyone is cognizant of Anglo-American-Canadian slang, abbreviations, and such, which can be mis-taken.
I do not speak or come in contact with Spanish in this island nation where the word is common as a diminutive for computer that I believe is in homage to Mircea Puta the mathematician.
No offense was or is intended and it just goes to show how careful everyone must be especially if like me you have lead a sheltered life.
I have heard of the Roman Goddess and a Town in Baku, a retaurant in Gothenburg,a New York record company, even a moth found here in western europe but until I googled for the Spanish definition I was blissfully ignorant.
Silly really as our daughter lives in Northern Italy where the language is somewhat similar and my grandson is a follower of Anime and has had a schoolboy giggle at the yellow-green Keronian painter Putata!
I now know why!
P.S. I thank you for inadvertently pointing me towards an education in expletives I will never again speak of that carnivorous shoaling fish that lives in Brazilian rivers by name!
Well, folks I posted that link nearly two years ago. Time change, so do websites. I'm sorry but I don't know where it's gone.
BTW Dave, 'puta' in Spanish is very offensive.Not really a good abbreviation of 'computer'. In Turkish it's the name of a type of Ottoman Empire archer's bow.
Seems like us folks here can not access this or is it just my puta?
I can find two pages of google links but they all lead nowhere and show as 'Not found on this server'
Drat !
Thanks for that link! I was looking for Cats in the Cradle and that is in the list.
I don't know if this is the same collection, but here are 200 songs: http://singalongwith.us/ .
