When I go to search for past videos I get a message that says: Forbidden You don't have permission to access this resource. Apache/2,456 (Debian) Server at fotmd.com port 443 Do you have suggestions as to how to remedy this situation?
I picked up another flute from High Spirits. I've been wanting one of their ebonized walnut flutes, so when I found a generous coupon code, I just had to get it. The turquoise cabochons really look nice too. Crow flute in the key of A. It has a beautiful, warm tone. I also picked up a second Spirit Flute earlier this year. I'm at 5 now, I think that's enough. 
@dulcimerplayersnewseditor Fiona, so happy to have you here! Though I don't read tablature nor SMN to play music, I am a supporter/subscriber of Dulcimer Players News because it is a valuable resource.
Hello! I'm the new editor and publisher of Dulcimer Players News, so I wanted to chime in on this wonderful discussion.
To answer the most pressing question first - no, I do not eat spinach. My mom's a nut for the stuff, but I haven't been able to develop a taste for it. For my dark green leafy vegetable full of iron fix, I prefer pesto. :)
The other more existential questions are a little more difficult to tackle.
For a little bit of context, like many of you, I was deeply saddened to hear that Ashley would be winding DPN down. I reached out in mid-May about the possibility of taking it on and keeping it going, and the transition happened very quickly. By the end of June we made the transfer and I reopened subscriptions.
I plan to continue DPN as the full color, glossy, quarterly print publication that it has been for many years, because I think there is still a place for print in a changing world. That said, as many of you pointed out, the music and media industries have changed drastically even in just the past 5 years, let alone 50, so it is clear that DPN must adapt in order to remain relevant. Just as musicians have recognized the need to maintain multiple revenue streams and manage a multitude of platforms to reach fans, DPN also needs to find more ways to reach many audiences.
What exactly will that look like? Right now, I have ideas but no definite plans. Doing more digitally could take a few different forms. Several of you commented that digital magazines aren't exactly appealing. I agree; many tend to be hard to read and enjoy, and I don't think they've matured as an industry. Some print publications (like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal) have successfully moved into a paywall system, which may be a better fit for DPN. Will there be a DPN presence on TikTok? I'm sure there should be.
Another important existential question is what makes DPN valuable? Or phrased differently, what does DPN have that Facebook groups, other online dulcimer pages, and even this forum don't? The way I see it, there's a lot of information on the web, but what the internet often lacks is perspective and curation. I think that is where DPN can help. Connecting the dots between disparate threads and groups, seeing patterns in transient posts, and collecting it in a digestible, appealing repository.
For the moment, I am focused on getting my feet under me with the print publication and as a first time small business owner. To figure out what's next, I want to hear from readers and supporters. I promise to be transparent and communicative about any changes.
Great info- thanks so much, Editor! (and best of luck for DPN!)
You can also find backups up of EverythingDulcimer.com by using the Internet Archive's (Archive.org) "Wayback Machine." For those of you not familiar, "The Internet Archive Wayback Machine is a service that allows people to visit archived versions of Web sites. Visitors to the Wayback Machine can type in a URL, select a date range, and then begin surfing on an archived version of the Web." (see https://help.archive.org/help/wayback-machine-general-information/ )
You can go to web.archive.org and type in any web address to see if it has been archived. They don't have every website ever made, but they do have quite a lot, often with many backups for each, archived by date.
The most recent back up was June 6, 2023, here: https://web.archive.org/web/20230607130049/https://everythingdulcimer.com/ . There isn't any information about an impending shutdown, so perhaps this outage was unplanned or unintended
You can also find archives of Bruce Ford' farewell letter, with links to the downloadable tab archive, articles, builder and events lists, etc. The last time it was archived was Dec. 20, 2019, here: https://web.archive.org/web/20191202023935/http://www.everythingdulcimer.com/
The last archive of the full original website was on May 29, 2018, here: https://web.archive.org/web/20180529131557/http://www.everythingdulcimer.com/
There are many other dates when the site was archived - these are just the highlights!
Thanks Leslie!
Cool to note the link on that page to Bruce Ford's heartfelt letter to members when he decided to close the original everythingdulcimer site in 2018 (not the later copycat site created by an anonymous person). I'm glad someone chose to preserve Bruce's letter of intent.
I accidentally found an Everything Dulcimer Archive of all of their tabs. Here is the address. It looks like one of their members saved the tab archive.
https://hakapiksmerlinwizard.wordpress.com/dulcimer/
I'm going to my favorite monthly contra dance tonight! I usually attend 2-3 dances per month, in various nearby towns. I'd go every weekend if there were dances every weekend. Tonight I'm giving a ride to two neighbor twins who'll soon be headed to college.. they are wonderful dancers, very enthusiastic and upbeat to talk to. Usually there are people of all ages at contra dances, from age 5 to 85. Tonight's dance is in a very large old community center building with a wood-floored Hall with a stage, like a typical Grange Hall. This dance usually has anywhere between 60-120 people. Fun tonight! 😊
Chances are there is a monthly contra dance within an hour's drive of where you live, closer if you live in an urban area.
I love that film! It's fun to get a sense of the various personalities.
I always wish people danced more, just in a social setting. It puts a light in people's eyes.
When I'm making a long slide with my thumb, I often pluck the string partway through the slide. Sometimes at half the distance I'm sliding to, sometimes wherever it fits into the rhythm nicely, sometimes to emphasize a specific not along the way.
Dusty thanks for the recommendations, I'm working on the song with all the suggestions made so far. I may have to break up the slide with a hammer-on
Barb, Please create a new thread in our For Sale forum for selling your dulcimer. This location is not for selling items. Thanks!
Hi Tippa, yes I still have it. I've been dealing with some hand/health issues that stopped me from listing it here again & on eBay & with a couple of folk music teachers in my area. Rick seems to have adjusted his prices a little since I bought it & a couple of things I paid extra for now are standard so that's good. :) As I've said....it is in showroom condition & I have extra strings, etc. so let me know if you are interested. I don't know about you but I really struggle with connecting conversations here on FOTMD so could I ask a favor and have you message me directly. I saw your posting early this morning but have been gone all day & only had time to respond now so please excuse the delay. Thanks for your interest. Barb
Hi, have you sold this dulcimer? I might be interested.
Some loss of volume when employing multiple slides or hammer-ons consecutively is inevitable. A pickup goes a long way to solving that problem, and some dulcimer fretboards are more responsive than others. So a lot of this is out of your hands (so to speak).
However, if you slide more deliberately and sharply from one fret to the next, you can create some extra pressure that will increase the volume and make the move sound more like a hammer-on. That is hard to do if you are sliding across several frets to get to a single note, however. This is something to work on.
In general, I do not consider the tablature indications for the left-hand legato techniques (hammers, pulls, slides) to be mandatory parts of the tablature. Depending on your fingering, a slide may be more appropriate than a hammer or pull or vice versa, so you have to take the tablature as a suggestion and develop your own approach. You might simply break up that long slide and pick the string again at some point to get the volume you need. You might also reduce the volume of the rest of the tune so that the loss of volume from the extended slide is less noticeable. And since good artists deliberately vary the dynamics of their playing, you might embrace the loss of volume as an expressive part of the arrangement.
Here are Boo-Boo and Teddy chillaxin' on the couch. (with Teddy's little mini-me 'tiny teddy' stuffed cat peeking out from the cushions)
Bubba looks so comfy!!
I remember Sally Ann's little kitten pix.
Thanks all for responding. Yes, Ken I am playing across the strings & the downward slide is on the Melody string. I've also texted Brett & based on what you & Brett are saying I need to work on my slide skills for this tune. It's beautiful so now it's a simple matter of working to finesse this tune.
I only play with a noter and it is challenging to me to get the exact sound I want when sliding to a lower fret. It is a balance of noter pressure with speed (I'm talking getting a nice "falling away" sound on a slower tune) to get the sound I want. I don't do it well consistently-- it's hit and miss for me.
@jimws -- The effect you describe is not related to the dulcimer or it's maker.
I assume you're playing Chords or Fingerdance style rather than Noter&Drone.
Have you listened to Brett's rendition? Or just read the tab/SMN? Are you certain that the volume reducing to zero is not intentional?
Are you sure you are maintaining the same downward pressure from one end of the slide to another? As Nate suggests, maintaining the volume of a slide is easier with a noter than with fingers.
I dont know much, but from my experience, moving the noter across the frets as fast as possible makes the note noticeably more pronounced than moving it slower, when you are hitting each fret along the way. I think one technique tries to give the intermittent slide where each fret along the way is heard as it slides into the next, while another technique tries to slide along the string without touching the frets for a more consistent sliding tone. I feel that denser noter material allows the sliding to be heard better. For example, a delicate touch passing over the frets using an actual glass slide or ceramic slide seems to be the loudest for me. When pressing down to 'bump' each fret along the way, I prefer to use a dense piece of wood hitting each fret hard to excite the string. I also will sometimes pluck the string mid slide, or will lift off and hammer down with the noter to accent the note I'm ending on.
Hope this was useful
Nate
I read these forums frequently and am immensely appreciative of the feedback and comments from many of the commenters. Thanks.
I have a Warren May dulcimer with which I am very pleased regarding the looks, sound and sustain when sliding to higher frets. However, I am playing Brett Ridgeways version of St Annes Reel and the 2nd half of the piece slides down multiple frets and the volume basically disappears.
Is there a trick I don't know? Would it make a difference if I changed the string height?
P.S. My dulcimer does not have any type of pickup. Is that my only option?
Thanks in advance
It appears Sally Ann is interested in what's in that cool mug.
By my generation, popeye and similar cartoons didnt even play on boomerang. The full collection of betty boop, woody woodpecker, sailor mickey, wile e coyote, popeye, etc were DVDs at the dollar store.
So let me make sure I understand this...Popeye was once a Saturday cartoon?! So there really is something to this "55 and older crowd"? I am 52 and I only remember watching Popeye on weekday afternoons with many of the other cartoon show reruns. I am too old for Nate's crowd, too young for the 55 and older crowd....where do I belong?
I am very glad to hear about this development. When I was originally starting learning to play dulcimer, I was researching over the internet and found DPN, I was completely bummed to learn that I couldn't subscribe and it was ending. Now that this phoenix is rising from the ashes, I have already subscribed.
Well here's hoping the people running DPN are eating their spinach! 
Put mine in some spanakopita, a quiche, or veggie lasagna, or just cook it with a lil' ham or bacon! Yum - o!
Lol john it does in fact make you strong to the finish. I was told once that the decimal point was misplaced on a study about the iron content of spinach, thus it was considered a miracle food with 100x the iron it actually had. Personally, I like it with some ricotta, or in a buttered curry with some squash and chicken!
So, Strumelia, are you, by reason of consuming so much spinach, now able to repeatedly punch big galoots into submission, bust loose from being tied to a chair by heavy ropes, and generally wreak havoc, trying to make the world a more just and equitable place? There was a feller in the Saturday cartoons a long time ago that answers that description. The carnage was always preceded by the playing of a jaunty hornpipe.
omg what is wrong with you people?? I luuuuuuuv spinach!!! 😂 😎
I grew up only tasting CANNED spinach in school lunches, and it was truly horrible. BUT as an adult i was amazed to discover how tasty fresh and steamed spinach is... so completely different, and so yummy!! 
This morning for breakfast i had a giant bowl of steamed radish greens with fresh picked snow peas.... and one pat of butter to rule them all. mmmmm....
Haha, Gordon, we ate a lot of spinach and poke in Arkansas, but never without sweating it down in some lard or bacon grease. They dont call it soul food cause it's good for the body!
Strumelia, this has been such a good discussion so I thought I'd throw in a wee bit of humor Gordon style: I don't understand your point regarding spinach and I quote:
"I see it as the difference between handing a young person a baby food jar of creamed spinach and saying "here, this is what spinach is"... and giving that young person some spinach seeds and showing them how to plant, grow, harvest, and cook it in various ways."
How disappointing it would be for a young person to go through the trouble of planting, growing, harvesting and cooking spinach only to find out it tastes as horrible as baby food creamed spinach, any way you cook it. As children, my siblings and I were forced to eat lots of spinach, one of the vegetables that grows well in northern Alberta, because "it was good for us" and the garden was full of it. My dear Mother even tried to hide it in lasagna. I firmly believe it was a preparation for us to be able to endure further ordeals as we grew up and left the nest.
I have really enjoyed this discussion even the spinach part.
