Forum Activity for @michael-vickey

BEGINNERS' OLD TIME JAM – DOWN THE PUB

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Robin, I downloaded your mp3 files, but I don't hear a MD in the mix - mostly banjo - very nice though. Is it the sound on my laptop that is keeping me from hearing the MD?Thanks for posting. I wish you were closer - your group and my band would have fun together!Michael Vickey

BEGINNERS' OLD TIME JAM – DOWN THE PUB

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Forget the food - I'd go straight for the draft Guiness!!!!It is good to hear you have a welcoming music scene in your town Strumelia.I think that we should make the effort to reclaim our bars and other public spaces for live music. We have had to fight a number of battles over here. And the musicians' political lobby has stopped draconian licencing regulations and amended by-laws on music in bars and other venues. We can now play "incidental music" without the venue needing a music licence. This basically means that you can get paid for a gig and as long as the venue is not selling tickets specifically for your gig then they don't need a licence. Pub landlords have become far more welcoming since this law change.We do have flat screen TVs in pubs over here (but we nick the TV remote from behind the bar at the George when we arrive so we can swich it off). Carrying one of those universal remotes in your MD case should solve that issue in most bars

BEGINNERS' OLD TIME JAM – DOWN THE PUB

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Robin, you might be surprised to learn that in our tiny little rural town, we actually have a Welsh style pub right on our one-block-long main street!

Brian and a friend and I used to play there once a month for free....but the food was lousy and we got a good paying gig instead somewhere else! lol! They still have once a month Irish trad and Bluegrass jam sessions there. Plus some weekend local rock groups, and an open mike.

BEGINNERS' OLD TIME JAM – DOWN THE PUB

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Hi Dusty, a nice thought, but a better statement might be "many British pubs.............." I live in a fairly big city, and would be hard pressed to find a folk based music session every night, and even when one does, they are not always welcoming. Ever tried joining a hard core Irish session? You need to know every note and play em in exactly the right way to suit that group. So most of us know that special pub where the session accepts just about anyone ( in my case, a hammered dulcimer) Having said all that, some of the happiest most memorable times of by later life were sitting in with others and playing whatever as it arrives!my regards,JohnH Dusty Turtle said:

OK, I have to confess that I have a large, flat-screen TV in my house and indeed watch sports and grill food, sometimes at the same time. But chez moi you can also find several guitars, a mandolin, a fiddle, two ukuleles, two banjo ukes, a dulcimer, two autoharps, numerous pennywhistles, a limberjack . . . and no amplifiers!

A sports bar is obviously not the best place to gather for an acoustic jam. But any British pub is (unbless a World Cup match is in session)! In general, the more Bud Light served the less likely acoustic folk music will be welcome, but the more Guiness or IPA around, the more the patrons might enjoy Billy in the Lowground or Blackberry Blossom or Flowers of Edinburgh or . . .

BEGINNERS' OLD TIME JAM – DOWN THE PUB

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

OK, I have to confess that I have a large, flat-screen TV in my house and indeed watch sports and grill food, sometimes at the same time. But chez moi you can also find several guitars, a mandolin, a fiddle, two ukuleles, two banjo ukes, a dulcimer, two autoharps, numerous pennywhistles, a limberjack . . . and no amplifiers!A sports bar is obviously not the best place to gather for an acoustic jam. But any British pub is (unbless a World Cup match is in session)! In general, the more Bud Light served the less likely acoustic folk music will be welcome, but the more Guiness or IPA around, the more the patrons might enjoy Billy in the Lowground or Blackberry Blossom or Flowers of Edinburgh or . . .

BEGINNERS' OLD TIME JAM – DOWN THE PUB

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

It's great you've found a place to gather and play. There's nary a pub in the my village that would have such a session. Actually there's nary a pub that I know of in the village.The town next to us has a sports bar and grill, but instruments wouldn't be welcome and they wouldn't be heard over the flat screen TV in every corner of the place.We just aren't set up anywhere near here for the type of music sessions you all do over there.

BEGINNERS' OLD TIME JAM – DOWN THE PUB

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

I enjoy this, Robin-- am listening now. Jamming with another musician or musicians is, in my experience, a great way to learn lots about tunes. Helps hone my listening skills, which are in need of honing. ;-)Thanks for sharing the recording, Robin!

BEGINNERS' OLD TIME JAM – DOWN THE PUB

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Hi Jennifer,A "midge" is a tiny gnat - I think that are known as "no-see-ums" in the US. They are ferocious and annoying. We get them in summer on still evenings.Glad you enjoyed the session recording! We had great fun!!!Robin Jennifer Ranger said:

Oh my goodness, you guys sound fantastic!!
I'm listening to your MP3 right now and I LOVE it!

By the way, what's a "midge"?

Thanks for posting this.

BEGINNERS' OLD TIME JAM – DOWN THE PUB

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Robin,loved the photo, but can't help but wonder how it fits in with our current Health and Safety at work Requirements, provision of suitable handrails and the like! LOLregardsJohnH Robin Clark said:

Thanks Larry,

Playing live music together builds what the boffins would call "social capital" in our community - coz there sure isn't much of any other sort of capital in these parts at present!

Ken - I can't manage a narrow boat - how about a canoe! Just be careful paddling over the aquaduct at Llangollen, it's a long way to fall out of your canoe!!!

BEGINNERS' OLD TIME JAM – DOWN THE PUB

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Thanks Larry,Playing live music together builds what the boffins would call "social capital" in our community - coz there sure isn't much of any other sort of capital in these parts at present!Ken - I can't manage a narrow boat - how about a canoe! Just be careful paddling over the aquaduct at Llangollen, it's a long way to fall out of your canoe!!!

BEGINNERS' OLD TIME JAM – DOWN THE PUB

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

And we're certainly glad you bought that Session dulcimer, Robin! You've been a great contribution to the dulcimer scene.Now if you could just fins me a cheap narrowboat to retire to on the Llangollen canal, I could join some of your sessions!

BEGINNERS' OLD TIME JAM – DOWN THE PUB

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Hi Dusty,Yep - I do think that I was very lucky to find this group of players. And the beer is great over here!!!!It is Nick's fault that I started to play MD last year! I bought my good lady a fiddle for Christmas 2009 as a surprise present (she said a while before that if she ever learnt to play a musical instrument she would want to learn fiddle). We started to go to the beginner old time sessions Nick was running and I would take my dobro but quickly realised the instrument was not a good "fit". Nick suggested that I tried a mountain dulcimer as he had seen someone play one at an old time jam he had been to in the US a good few years back. So I looked the instrument up on Google and bought my Walnut Creek from a shop in the US - having never seen an MD in my life!!! I guess I bought the instrument specifically for playing with other musicians knowing nothing about its history or playing styles. I started with chord/melody as it seemed the most "musical" way to play but it didn't really cut through at mixed instrument sessions and got a little muddy and lost. Nick kept saying that the player he'd seen didn't play like I did but used a stick on the frets. So I switched to noter playing and everything started to come together. After some advice from folks on ED, I looked up Phyllis Gaskin's and Bonnie Russell's recordings, both of whom recorded with string bands, and discovered Galax style tuning d,d,d,d And that really opened up possibilities. It gave me the punch and speed I needed for fast fiddle tunes. Plus I could play in the keys of D and G without re-tuning and the key of A (major and minor) if I used a capo on the drones at the first fret. That d,d,d,d tuning is not a "pretty" tuning for solo playing - so I can see why it is not more widely used - but, when I play with another instrument filling out the sound it really comes to life.So I actually bought my MD specifically for playing old time with other instruments in sessions, rather than as a solo instrument - not knowing that session playing was not the "norm" for the instrument (I thought that's what everyone did with the darn thing!!!!) And perhaps not knowing anything was the best place to start !!!!!!Robin

BEGINNERS' OLD TIME JAM – DOWN THE PUB

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Wow, for a beginners group you all sound really great. I wish I had a similar gathering nearby to join. You write, "Playing collectively with good musicians is such an excellent way to develop your skills" but I would be happy to play collectively with poor (well, let's say mediocre) musicians. Instead, most of the time I play unaccompanied (I was going to say I play by myself, but that sounds weird) so the music doesn't sound as good and the beer is not quite so tasty.I am able to identify nearly every song you played and could probably play a version of each one, so if I the day should ever come when I find myself near the George III, I'll invoke a version of the Quartering Act, commandeer a place to stay for the night, and come join you.Anyway, I hope you appreciate the fine jam you have found. The fact that it is in a fine pub is merely evidence that you have found truly sacred ground. Enjoy.

BEGINNERS' OLD TIME JAM – DOWN THE PUB

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Our beginners old time session has been going for just over a year now and we held this week's session at the George III pub last night. The session is led by Nick who plays banjo (and knows hundreds of old time tunes) and Chris on mandolin and tenor guitar. The rest of us have been playing our instruments for about 18 months. Last night we had 2 fiddles, mountain dulcimer, guitar, tenor guitar and banjo. And we went to the George III pub for the session. We feel we are pretty much at the stage where we can (just) get away with simply turning up and playing in a public place.

Nick has been excellent at bringing on us new musicians not just teaching us the tunes but also aspects of jam etiquette, collective playing and general musicianship. And it has been the simple stuff like back off and play rhythm while verses are sung that have made the difference. As a result, we have all progressed far quicker than we hoped.

We played outside the pub last night for an hour or so until the midges chased us inside during Soldiers Joy! So we played for the second half of the evening inside the pub.

Attached is a compilation from the evening recorded on my Zoom H2.

If you are thinking about attending old time jams with your MD I hope you find the encouragement and the guidance that we have. Playing collectively with good musicians is such an excellent way to develop your skills and stretch you out of your comfort zone (in a positive way).

updated by @robin-clark: 01/13/16 07:26:27PM

A Mixolydian "Yankee Doodle"

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

It's funny, setting the speed aside, the Mixolydian version sounds pretty musical to me.Bronson was suggesting this as a general experiment in mode shifts, and I don't mean it to apply principally to dulcimers and the sixth-fret issue, though of course that issue arises incidentally.Bronson would have agreed with you that for the modern ear, substituting a flatted 7th "just doesn't work", but he suggests that this wasn't always the case.In the same chapter (of The Ballad as Song) he looks at six versions of "Henry Martin". I'll simplify it to five versions to shorten the explanation:Ionian (natural 7th)Ionian/Mixolydian hexatonic (missing 7th)Mixolydian (flatted 7th)Dorian (flatted 3rd)Dorian/Aeolian hexatonic (missing 6th)All were collected between 1904 and 1908. Four are from England and one from Minnesota.Bronson makes the case that this pattern of variation is pretty common. One point he makes is that when you see a tune with Ionian and Dorian versions, you very often find Io/Mixo and Mixolydian versions as well. It's as though the tune changed one step at time by dropping, adding, sharpening, or flatting a single tone. Tunes are seldom seen to make a two-or-three step jump without leaving intermediate forms behind.Another point he makes is that these changes may have sounded more musically acceptable than they do today. (Much as we would regard a V-I and a V7-I cadence as being somewhat interchangeable. Though they are different, one is not perceived as more or less musical than the other.)So that, I believe, was why Bronson suggested the exercise. The Ballad as Song a great book, BTW, though it's tough slogging in spots.Out of print, unfortunately, but there's always interlibrary loan.

A Mixolydian "Yankee Doodle"

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

If the purpose is to play an Ionian tune in Mixolydian tuning on a dulcimer without a 6+ fret, I think the experiment has shown that substituting a flatted note just doesn't work...

A Mixolydian "Yankee Doodle"

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Thanks, Ken.I had no idea whether people would hear this as a sour or wrong note or whether people's ears would accept it as a reasonable variant.It might have been better to try it with a tune that is less familiar.

A Mixolydian "Yankee Doodle"

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Both versions are 'way too fast, IMHO, so the mood is "rushed". The Mixo version just sounds like someone keeps playing the wrong note making the tune sound flat. I get no real sense of a Celtic or primitive or backwoods feel from either version.

A Mixolydian "Yankee Doodle"

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

The simple flatting of a note wouldn't to me give a tune a Scottish flavor, but rather changing the rhythm of the notes to create the Scots snap or Scotch catch as it is sometimes call. A short note followed by a longer held note or the other way around, long followed by short. Scotland the Brave has examples of that particular Scottish musical beat.And when I think of the tunes that have a more primitive or backwoods feel, I think of those ballads which the mountain people sang in the minor modes, while the same tune might have been in the major mode when it first traveled over. Several of my English folk song books will have a tune like Barbara Allen in the major while in the mountain tradition Barbary Ellen is in the minor. Flint Hill said:

Keigh, that seems like an entirely reasonable response.

The Mix version sounded musical to me. To my ear, the flatted seventh gave it a Scotch or Irish sound, and made it sound more backwoods and ancient.

A Mixolydian "Yankee Doodle"

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Keigh, that seems like an entirely reasonable response.The Mix version sounded musical to me. To my ear, the flatted seventh gave it a Scotch or Irish sound, and made it sound more backwoods and ancient.

A Mixolydian "Yankee Doodle"

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

All I can say is that other than having to rush my singing, I can sing Yankee Doodle to the first version, and can't manage to do it to the second. The first version sounds happy and gay and the second simply sounds misplayed. But they both sound too fast to my ear.This is the speed and sound of Yankee Doodle I'm used to, so I guess that's what my ear expects to hear. http://back.numachi.com:8000/dtrad/midi/YANKDOOD.midi

A Mixolydian "Yankee Doodle"

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions


Bertrand Bronson said in 1950:

"Let anyone try the experiment of singing "Yankee Doodle" with a flatted seventh wherever the leading note occurs and he will know what a folk-singer with an instinctive leading to the Mixolydian might do to antiquate a modern major tune."

(By "folk-singer" he means "traditional singer".)

At the end of the post, you'll find files for the familiar major-key (Ionian) version and for the Mixolydian version.

Both are in the key of G, and the two versions are identical except that the seventh is F# in the Ionian version and F in the Mixolydian version

I'd love to know what you think of the Mixolydian version in comparison to the familiar Ionian rendering. For example: What moods do the two versions convey?

updated by @flint-hill: 06/11/15 07:25:14AM

Dusty, yes, please post some pictures. Sure it will be for your daughter

I'm looking forward to seeing the dolphin sound holes on a Beede.

Thanks, so do I

Leila Maier said:

I like it!!

That's a nice looking dulcimer, Frets4fun! I'm hoping that I'll be receiving soon an octave dulcimer by David Beede with dolphin soundholes as well. It's ostensibly for my daughter, but you know how that goes. I'll post some pics when it comes.

I like it!!

Here's a picture of my FolkRoots with dolphin tone holes. My dolphimer!

Robin Thompson said:

Hey, frets4fun-- feel free to share pictures when you get the dolphimer! :)

Can't wait to see it! I'm excited for you!!

frets4fun said:

I ordered a custom FolkRoots with dolphin tone holes. Should look great (haven't received it yet) and be alot of fun. It will be my dolphimer!

Hey, frets4fun-- feel free to share pictures when you get the dolphimer! :)

I ordered a custom FolkRoots with dolphin tone holes. Should look great (haven't received it yet) and be alot of fun. It will be my dolphimer!

I love the maple leaves on my Folkcraft teardrop.As Jennifer Ranger said, I like having something a little different. I think leaves are great shapesfor sound holes...the the aspen leaf is used in advertising as a very stylized design--and easy to recognize, I think! The last thing I'd want on my dulcimer would be something confusing...like when you dress up for Halloween and people (rude people) ask, "What are you supposed to be?" I guess the f-style holes are least confusing!

Sam said:

Have you considered a very sweeping script style letter of one of your initials? The 'M' could be done very nicely with slightly enlarged 'feet'. Go through the alphabet in different fonts in word or something. I bet you'd find some very attractive styles that would add that personal touch you are looking for.

Sam

I like the traditional look of the traditional soundholes as well, but I also think they can be reserved for the traditional instruments.If you are building a new dulcimer yourself, or if someone else is building one for you, then by all means, be creative and personalize the soundholes. I like the look of leaves and vines a lot, but sometime soon I'll have to have a dulcimer made with turtle-shaped soundholes.For you, though, I think you already gave us the answer: aspen leaves. If you play fast enough they might look like they are really quaking! The only problem is that a single aspen leaf is not too shapely and not nearly as recognizable as a maple leaf for example, so you might have to go with a small group, as in the attached photo (though certainly you could rearrange the leaves for aesthetic purposes). Other Colorado-themed possibilities would be the outline of mountain peaks, the shape of a blue spruce, or simply some climbing vines.Whatever you decide, you will have to post some pictures so we see how your new baby looks.

I only made 2 dulcimers, so "favorite" may be speaking prematurely. I used cactus, 2 kinds of birds, mountains, a butterfly and a group of leaves on a vine. The leaves are the soundholes, the vine is a curved line cut only partway into the spruce top, and filled with a putty made from walnut sawdust & wood glue. They were all fun to do, but I guess the mountain and the cactus are probably my favorites. They made it onto both dulcimers, so I musts liked 'em.Paul

One time I made a hammered dulcimer for my wife; and since at the time both of our sons were active high school thespians, I carved the little tragedy/comedy masks, as inserts or "rosettes" for the fairly large-diameter holes one makes on an HD. For a pattern, I borrowed a pair of earrings owned by my younger son's girlfriend (a thespianette). Basically, I just enlarged what somebody else had already worked out, in terms of stylization and contours.Sometime, I can excavate that instrument and photograph the holes -- but not at the moment. Also, at my limited skill level, it would be fairly hard to carve those at the smaller scale of most MD soundholes; but there are people in our community who could easily do it. They do make a nice pair, visually.

I know some people are a bit bored with hearts, but I just love them (either way up). I also really like diamonds. Many present-day dulcimers have sound hole shapes that are too fussy, busy and complex for my personal taste (vine leaves etc). Just my two penn'orth!

I like Harpmaker's comet sound hole, and his very delicate F sound hole. My personal favorite is one I cut, a unicorn head.

I echo Flint's choices and can add Bobby's f-holes, too. I like an old-timey look.If a builder has a signature hole, so to speak, I may order that-- it's what I did when I ordered my PVMB from Gary Sager.

Among the traditional heart shapes, I like the Weeping Heart,which has a sort of tail out of the point, leading to a drop.If you're going to personalize, I would pick something that has meaning for you - say your favorite tree, or if you like a kind of bird or other animal. Leaf silhouettes make nice sound holes, as do many animals like dogs, cats, bears ad birds. I once made a dulcimer for a lady was a real space nut, and the sound hole was in the shape of the Space Shuttle!

Round or Jethro Amburgey hearts . I like them because they look real old-timey.