@kjb I liked your Snowdrop! 

I enjoyed the video.  I learned a few chords on mine years ago, but now I tune it to CEA like a 3 string ukulele.  Lots of fun.

Here’s a link to me playing Snowdrop on it:

Thanks for the responses! Going to be working on more and probably pull the dulcimer down as well because a little of that nervous energy of making the video and uploading it has abated. Kind of a nervy thing to upload and put it out there in the wilds but I appreciate the response and will try to keep at it. @strumelia I was totally unaware how much arm movement there was until looking at the video. You're right, totally overworking the arm and see if I can practice to lower that much arm movement, thanks for the tip.

Hi Bob!  I really enjoyed that video, and you explain things very nicely!

Your instrument sounds just great and looks like huge fun to play. 

Hey I have a helpful tip for you concerning tremolo... I learned this back in my mandolin and and Puerto Rican cuatro playing days.  I see you are moving your hand and your whole forearm when doing tremolo, as though you are trying to strum fast- that just makes it hard on your arm and makes it hard to become fast and delicate. Instead, keep your arm completely still and move ONLY your hand while tremolo-ing.  You'll be rotating your hand at the wrist, best described as hiding a little cheat card in your palm and taking a quick peek at it... but doing this in rapid succession.  Try practicing the tremolo on a single string only,  ...trying to keep your hand relaxed and not moving your arm at all.  It takes some days of practice to 'get' this, but once you do get it you'll find your tremolo to be much easier and more sweet sounding, like a kitten purr.  Most mandolin players will play or strum across multiple strings but then when they get to their sweet tremolo at the end of a phrase they'll often just do it on the string that played that last melody note on, while letting the other strings continue to ring from the last chord but not tremolo on those other strings at the same time. Tremolo is more like a delicate 'tickling' of a string or maybe two strings in an interval sound, rather than fast whole-arm strumming across all strings.  I hope this may be helpful in some way.

Keep up the good work Bob!    Such a pretty instrument and has a sweet sound.  I think the eea tuning is like a different version of the dulcimer's daa..  simply reversed because you play it upright against your body and with your hand wrapped around the neck instead of down on the lap like a dulcimer.

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Those irritated by grain of sand best avoid beach.
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Nice job!

Interesting. Nice job!  I see your balalaika is a "modern" one with chromatic fretboard.  You do know that they were originally diatonic like the dulcimer, right?

Finally broke down during my time at home and made a poorly produced video of myself playing the most Russian of Russian instruments, the balalaika. May follow it up with a dulcimer video since I broke my stage fright.

 

updated by @twogunbob: 08/01/23 08:18:12PM