Bobby, in answer to your question to Dave about the Universal lever being a tension lever: No, it, too, changes the VSL. The only reason for the upward tension on the string is to provide a break point in string vibration and allow the string to sound clearly. If you look at the drawing of the engaged lever on the pdf you referenced (at the bottom right of page 2), you'll see that the string lies at the bottom of the v-groove, just as it would on an actual bridge. It's this contact plus the slight upward tension on the string that alters the VSL of the string. BTW, the Musicmaker bridge/guide pins just have grooves to seat the string, not holes.

Wout, I already play a dulcimer with a 1+ and 6+ fret as well as the octave equivalents of that. I fear that over time I will add more extra frets as I find a reason for the 4+ and so forth. But I like the simplicity of the diatonic fretboard and the more I thought about those harp levers the more I began wondering about something like that for a dulcimer.

Wout Blommers said:

Well, wouldn't the easiest way be a talk with Steve Eulberg about a chromatic dulcimer?

I have to admit that although I started this thread, I was probably ill equipped to do so since I don't build instruments and really don't even have the vocabulary to refer to parts of a harp accurately.

But you guys have been great in helping me think through this and even offering new and creative ideas.

David: I should have thought to just ask you about this stuff in the beginning. Those levers I saw on two small harps that basically just pushed on the strings to raise the pitch on the other side of a pin or something acting like a bridge might have been made by whoever made the harps. All those anyone else or I have found online seem to work like those you describe. I am now convinced those premade levers that reduce the VSL would not work on the dulcimer.

Bobby: I guess I did misunderstand you, and maybe that has to do with my limited understanding of modes. I had thought you imagined a lever (or maybe to) so that you could toggle back and forth between a DAd tuning and a DAC tuning. You could then play a medley of say "Red-Haired Boy" and "Gilderoy," which is basically the same tune but out of a minor mode without retuning.

Wout: I think you are right that nothing we could rig up would allow the pitch of a string to change as much as a fourth. But my original idea was not to replace tuning altogether but either to allow a momentary change in pitch to be a able to catch an accidentalor to allow a change from a D tuning to a C tuning. I play a lot in multi-instrument jams and out of a D tuning I can play in the key of G or use a capo to get the keys of G and A. But the other common key is C, and I have to retune all three strings for that. There isn't always time and I sometimes miss the first verse or so of the next song.

Skip, the whammy bar idea was just my way of thinking about how you might activate something to change the tuning of a string while you were playing. I imaged using the whammy not really to hear the bend, but to get from one extreme to another, with those extremes representing a 1/2 note or perhaps a whole note. I don't even know how much a normal whammy bar adjusts the pitch anyway. I was just trying to envisiona devise as simple to use as the button on chromatic harmonicas that shifts the pitch a half note.

Thanks again, everyone, for chiming in even if to help me realize what's not possible.

I think 2 different things are being discussed. One is quick adjust tuning and the the other is a tremelo/whammy bar that produces a sound like bending. I also think that both are possible with a bit of thought. The 1st could be done with an 'over center latch' in place of the nails on the tail end similar to some box/luggage latches. The 2nd would require some specific construction details on the tail end of the dulcimer, I have a couple of ideas already, although a modification of the over center latch concept may work also. I'm not sure if these things aren't already available or not.

Edit: Not sure of the rangeon the quick change, it would have to be within the capabilities of the strings for sure.

The HipShot products are nice products, but I think not very useful on a dulcimer. They are designed being a bender (like pedal steel guitar effect) or extender, special on the bass dropping the E string to D without retuning. The dulcimer requires a larger range of detuning or uptuning, sometimes a 4th! And to add to more than one tuner one needs a large tuner head

Easy to tune from DAd to DAc and maybe to DGd, even DGc (when?), but DAA to DAc is not possible.

You may to better replacing the tuners Dusty with Scruggs or the guitar/bass equivalent tuners that have fast adjust levers to move the pitch. I'm sure I've seen some electronic ones for guitar that shift the tuning for you. On the other hand it is probably easier and far cheaper to simply install extra frets!!!!

Of course, if you just want accidentals in a tune (rather than full key changes mid tune) then noter players have been snatching those between the frets on pure diatonic dulcimers for a long, long time - it is a pretty simple technique patricularly on an old staple fretted dulcimer with a high action

And yes, for those of you suggesting the hipshottuners, those look a lotmore promising!

Remember that the ones I saw this morning were onharps, so perhaps bridge is not the right words. In one case the leversbasically acted to pushon the string on the non-vibrating side of a metal post around which the stringbent just before it hit the pin, thus tightening the string. They did not seem to be adjustable, but they were not all identical, meaning there were different size levers for different strings. Another type hadits own horizontal metal bar on the lever itself. When the lever was engaged,it pushed on the string just past that metal bar, again tightening the string. Those,too, did not seem to be adjustablebut were different sizes.Obviously, the degree of precision here is pretty high. My cousin's harp--which I only saw one inebriated evening and did not examine closely since the idea had not yet occured to me touse these contraptions on another instrument--has levers that can be adjusted for each string.They may indeed be the kind that shorten the VSL.

For the record, I did a quick search online too, and the only prefabricated levers I could find that were sold independly of a harp were intended to change the VSL, too. That might be what my cousin has and as you've all pointed out, they would not work on a fretted instrument.

If it would be feasible at all to design a lever for use on the dulcimer, it would obviously involve a lot of work to get it to fit exactly right. My uncle makes autoharps (and puts fine tuners on those) and perhaps I'll ask him if it would be possible todesign something. Maybe the only reasonable use would be as Bobby said to change the tuning of the melody string so you could switch modes in the middle of a tune or medley. But I still like the idea of something resembling a whammy bar that could alter a string by a 1/2 note and then drop it back down. I guess I'll keep dreaming.

" If Dusty's right and there's a sharping lever out there that works between the bridge and the tail by increasing the string tension, that would be great. But I somehow doubt that such a feature would work without a lot of tinkering to make sure it always created the exact difference in tension needed for any gauge string that might be mounted."

? Like the 'bead' fine tuners I have on my old style Virginia instruments ?

JohnH

The Chinese yang ch'in (HD) uses a system of small 'rollers' to achieve a precise half tone change

So far, I've found 13 brands of sharping levers (including all of the "standards"), none of which are designed to be mounted between the tuning pin and bridge pin. In each case, the purpose of the lever is to act as a new "bridge pin," thus shortening the length of the string. One set of installation instructions was quite specific that the lever only produce enough tension to make the resulting note sound clearly, so clearly (pun intended) levers aren't intended to work by increasing string tension.

If a sharping lever were mounted at the nut end, the effect would be as intended on the open string, but as soon as the string was fretted, the lever effect would be exactly that of a capo. If the lever is mounted at the bridge/saddle end, ahead of the bridge, again the open string would be raised a semitone. But, from the first fret onward, fret placement is based on a mathematical fraction of the distance from the nut to the (dulcimer's) bridge. By effectively creating a new "bridge" somewhat forward of the actual one, the action of the lever would be to make the note sounded at each fret successively sharper than a semitone from the original pitch.

If Dusty's right and there's a sharping lever out there that works between the bridge and the tail by increasing the string tension, that would be great. But I somehow doubt that such a feature would work without a lot of tinkering to make sure it always created the exact difference in tension needed for any gauge string that might be mounted.

Probably a violin type fine tuner could be invented that changed the string's tuning much more rapidly than do the present types, but then it would no longer be a "fine" tuner would it?

BTW, the hipshot products look good but at about $100 per, I'll pass.

ESP or great minds? And you referenced the actual guitar tuners.

They have these for bass guitars/ uprights. I don't know if they're available for guitars or not.

http://store.hipshotproducts.com/cart.php?m=product_list&c=6

They are really big though!

Ivan, tune a string to a note. Any note. Now tune it a 1/2 note higher. That is all a lever does.

It might be that in the picture I posted the VSL appears to change. But on one harp I looked at this morning the levers were situated in between the bridge and the pin, so only the tension of the string is changed, not its vibrating length. In the other example I saw, the lever was itself a bridge. Each string went over a small horizontal pin, and it stopped vibrating there. The lever pushed a small piece of metal onto the string just after that pin, increasing the tension of the string. But the pin itself did not move, so the VSL did not change.

Ken is correct that the levers work essentially in the same way as fine tuners. Violin players do not have to change where they finger a note because they used the fine tuners. The tuners--like the levers--are situated on part of the string that does not vibrate.

There may be different models of levers that work in different ways. Maybe some really do change the VSL, and maybe that change in VSL would be enough to throw the fret pattern out of whack. I don't know. But there are at least a couple of examples of levers that don't alter the VSL at all.

Dusty, I just took a measurement on the dulcimer I have in the office with me. If I remember correctly it has a 25-1/2" VSL. The distance from the zero fret to the first is 2.8". So, to raise the open string a semitone would require a lever that would shorten the string by roughly 1.4"+. If you think of effectively moving your bridge/saddle 1.4", I believe it would make a significant difference in fret placement. It's far more than compensation for string gauges, the VSL has been changed from 25.5" to about 24.1".

BTW, I checked online and the one source I could find stated that harp levers work by changing the VSL of the string. Obviously some tension must be applied, in order for the lever to be effective, but it's essentially the same as when you fret a string, you have to apply tension to press the string down to the fret, but it's the change in the VSL that you're actually trying to achieve.

I honestly think people are over-thinking the theoretical aspects of this issue.

The spacing of frets is determined both by the VSL and by the gauge of the string. That is why the best instruments have fully compensated fretboards. So obviously, anything you do to change the pitch of a string will alter slightly where the ideal frets would be. But I think a half tone would not be noticeable any more than switching from 12 to 14 gauge strings would be.

And on the harps I've seen, the VSL does not change. What changes is the tension of the string, for the lever sits in between the bridge and the zither pins and simply presses on the string enough to increase the pitch by exactly a half tone.

Yes, John, one of the ways I imaged using this would be toflip a lever while playing. I got the idea watching my cousing play the harp. She was running up the strings for an arpeggio but flipped the lever on one string for one note and then immediately after she played it, she flipped it back.

Could something like that work on the dulcimer? I don't know. That's one reason I posted this question. But those tremolo bars that electric guitarists use made me think it might be possible to rig something up.

On a fretboard, the distance between frets is mathematically determined from the VSL. If the VSL is changed (shortened, in the case of a sharping lever) then the open string might be changed an exact semitone, but the successive frets, having been calculated on a longer VSL, will be more and more out of tune as one travels up the fretboard.

Sharping levers work on the VSL of the harp string, not (particularly) on the tension as fine tuners do. Sharping levers are placed on the "working" part of the string, fine tuners behind the bridge/saddle.

Bobby's right that such an arrangement could be used on the drone strings of one of his dulcimers, and that could possibly be useful.

folkfan said:

I'm think I'm probably not understanding you then Dusty.

The second part certainly sounds do-able and obviously avoids the sort of problems that arise when using a capo.

It's the first part I don't get, Are you sugesting that you use the lever in play, rather than just when tuning/setting up. If so I don't understand how that works.

john

Dusty. Your sharping lever is more or less like the fine tuners - beads or screw levers - used on violins and dulcimers with wooden tuners. Second cousin to a reverse capo.

The difference is the sharping lever gives you precisely a half tone difference. I'm pretty sure something like that could be made to work with a dulcimer, but you'd want a long space aft of the bridge and before the break or string pins in which it could operate. I don't think it would be feasible in the middle of a song, but

John, maybe I am not explaining myself well. What the lever does is raise the pitch of a string by a 1/2 note. It is that simple. If the lever were active on a stringon a fretted instrument, then every fret would play a note 1/2 note higher than it would have with the lever down. So I got to wonderingwhether it might be possible to use a lever on a dulcimer so that you couldhitthe lever andplay the 1st fret to get the equivalent of a 1+ fret. If you could do that easily, then you mightbe able to play chromatic music without adding extra frets.

My second thought was that if you had a lever on every string, and the levers could adjust the tuning by a whole note, then you could easily go back and forth between a C tuning anda D tuning, for example.

Bobby had a more do-able idea of a lever on the melody string that would allow you to switch between aeolian tuning and mixolydian tuningjust by flipping the lever.

To be honest, I don't know modes that well, but I do know of some songs that go back and forth between major andminor keys, and the ability to change tunings like that in the middle of a song would sure be helpful.

john p said:

I think you are right, Bobby. The lever sits between the bridge and the zither pins. When you raise the lever, a small metal piece pushes down on the string, raising it a 1/2 note. There may be some other models, but I just looked at a one at my local music store and that's how it works.

Some harpists only put them on certain strings, but in the picture above each string has one and they are color-coded to help the player know which string is which. Obviously, nothing that elaborate would be needed for a dulcimer.

Hi Dusty,

I think there is a danger of misunderstanding what the semitone levers do. As I understand it, the harp is a diatonic instrument, and the levers don't add any extra frets. What they do is rearrange the pattern of intervals and are, in essence, movable frets. It's easy to see this as changing pitch but the reality is that you are doing the equivalent of moving the frets about.
For example, if you are set up to play a tune in C Ionian then it is not possible to play a tune in C Dorian without some sort of re-tuning. On a dulcimer you would do this by re-tuning your tonic to a position that gives you the right pattern of intervals. On a harp you would do this by leaving the tonic where it is and adjusting the set of intervals that follow from it. That is, you would flip the 3rd and 7th.

I have seen something like this on a banjo, no idea if this is used for tuning purposes, mainly it seems to be used to get a bend effect on notes.

john

Bobby, I don't know if you were thinking backwards or not, but you clearly seem to understand what got me thinking about this to begin with.

Folkfan, why do you suggest a fretless dulcimer? On a fretless you could get any note you wanted anyway. I see the lever as a way to compensate for the limits of a diatonic fretboard.

If I had the talent to play a fretless dulcimer,I wouldn't have this problem to begin with.

Shawn McCurdy said:

Ivan, my understanding is that the harp lever sharpens the string by exactly a 1/2 note. So a C becomes a C#,an F becomes and F# and so forth.If that same balance could be achieved on a dulcimer, then the lever would make every note a 1/2 note higher (not just the open string).

I imagine two possible uses. One would be if it were easily accessible like the tremoloor whammy bar on an electric guitar (or that littlebutton on chromatic harmonicas). When you wanted a notethat could only beplayed with a 1/2 fret, you could finger the fret just below the note andhit that lever to get the note you needed.

The second use would be if you could design those levers to alter the tone a full note instead of a 1/2 note.Then you could tune to C and flip all those levers to quickly get into D tuning. For those of us who play a lot in multi-instrument jams, that would be really helpful since there is not always time in between songs to re-tune 3 or 4 strings.

Ivan Bradley said:

Might work on a fretless dulcimer as it would change the VSL, but you'd need a couple of inches of flat fret board the height of the bridge and before the bridge to place a lever. With my strum, I think I'd end up snagging my right hand on a flipped up lever. As it is I have problems in the winter with snagging when I put on long sleeves.

Now if you happened to have a fretless dulcimer.....

Dusty, a harp lever works by shortening the VSL of an individual string, making it a semitone sharp. With a fretted instrument, shortening the VSL to make the string any significant amount sharp would play havoc with the fret spacing - they'd all be out of kilter except for the open string.

Many of us are familiar with the levers that harpists use to adjust the tuning of a string by a 1/2 step. The obvious advantage is being able to play a diatonic instrument and still get those accidentals when necessary.

Has anyone ever triedinstallinglevers on a dulcimer? It might be done just on the melody string or on all strings, and it might be a way of playing chromatic music without adding all those pesky frets all over the place.

If levers could adjust a string by a whole note, you could conceivably "flip the levers" to change from a C tuning to a D tuning.

Am I off my rocker or is this feasible?