The harmony would definitely need to be simplified.  But I wonder about the melody itself. I just took a look at some sheet music, and there are one or two accidentals involved.  Those notes just might not be found on the fretboard, although there are always workarounds.  (You could change the melody slightly or bend a string to get the note you wanted.)

Another option would be to choose a chromatic tuning such 1-3-5.  But in 1-5-8 or 1-5-5, I think there would be a missing note or two.  

It's certainly worth a try, though!

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Dusty T., Northern California
Site Moderator

As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
-- Dizzy Gillespie

What if I removed some of the harmony notes and rewrote it for the key of D 2 octaves?

Wow, @nathina, the contrasting tones of those two instruments is remarkable.  You're quite a good player, too.

For what it's worth, I am skeptical that you could get the Gershwin tune on the MD.  Just going by ear, it sounds like there are too many non-diatonic notes involved.  I could be wrong, though, and if you have any extra frets it might be possible.

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Dusty T., Northern California
Site Moderator

As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
-- Dizzy Gillespie

 
With the HD, chords are played from the bottom note to the top. However each note takes up part of the time signature. So trying to put chords into the song, shortens the melody note, and the tune goes bye bye. A harmony note can be played along with the melody, but the tendency is to play too much harmony and loose the melody. This is a song that I experimented with recording. The song is by Joshua Messick, it uses bass support for the melody, so nothing is lost. I played it on the big HD and you can hear the difference between the bright and my EXR. https://soundcloud.com/user-9942446/woodland-wonderlust-experiment-1

Thank you, I bought the Ron Gibson Teardrop and now have to become acquainted with it.

 

I am starting to figure out the harmony, not well yet, but I find enhanced tunes sometimes tend to drown the melody so I rewrite them to sound better. I also have a 16/15 "bright" HD, so called because it uses lacewood as the sound board. Most burled woods or patterned wood will feed the tone back into the wood giving it a higher tone. I use it for the Celtic tunes, and I also rewrote a George Gershwin tune for the 16/15. https://soundcloud.com/user-9942446/someone-to-watch-over-me-key-f

I wonder if it can be converted to the MD?

That's a beautiful hammered dulcimer, @nathina. 

I'm going in the opposite direction. After playing mountain dulcimer for about 10 years, just a few weeks ago I was gifted a 16/15 Dusty Strings HD.  I can find simple melodies pretty well, but I'm still trying to figure out how to fill in chordal tones.

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Dusty T., Northern California
Site Moderator

As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
-- Dizzy Gillespie

Welcome Nathina. That HD is gorgeous!

I play the Hammered dulcimer EXR 4/19/21/9 for contemporary music and 16/15 "Bright" for Celtic. Having evaluated many in woods, technical, audio, it took me over a year to get my larger one.