Ken Longfield

Thanks for the welcome.  I am now waiting for a Ron Gibson cherry MD, I am really looking forward to exploring music with it.

Thank you very much for the warm welcome!

Thank you, sir!

Thank you for the warm welcome Ken!

Thanks so much for the warm welcome, and the kind comments on Dulcimer Radio and Sweetwater.  Though it's pretty new, I think you many have just made my year! xox

Thank you Ken

Thank you so much for the welcome, Ken.  I very much appreciate it!

Thanks, Ken! Glad to be here.

Ken, thank you for your welcoming note. I appreciate it!

Many thanks fo the welcome, Ken. I very much look forward to participating in the forum.

Thanks Ken! It is nice to have a fellow Pennsylvanian. I'm further east from you in Allentown, Pa.. My wife has family out your way in Allensville/Big Valley. We go to a family reunion every summer at the family farm. Brown and Metz are their names. Her grandfather married a Brown and his name was Ralston. He was a Presbyterian church planter. 

I'm a Reference librarian and I have 9 kids so the dulcimer gives me an opportunity to unwind from the craziness. My wife gave me a Cedar Creek kit for Christmas and it turned out great. I can actually play a few tunes that to my ears sound great. Amazing Grace, Wild Mountain Thyme, Creag Ghuanach, She'll be coming Around the Mountain so far. I've found I really like the noter and drone so I'm sticking with that as I have no interest in trying to chord like guitar. It's interesting that just fretting the melody strings isn't popular or considered "beginner". I think from what I can tell that it is easy in the beginning  or basic songs but getting the timing and nuance is really difficult since everything is dependent on that 1 or 2 strings. Once you progress and the songs are more complicated it becomes harder in a certain way. I still need to use little numbered stickers to help me find the frets and I'm a little slow since I still need to look at the sheet for the numbers. It's only been since early January but for someone with zero musical talent I'm very happy with how it's going. Tuning the dulcimer has proved to be the most confusing part. My instruction told me to push the 4th fret on bass string to tune to D or a sound you like. I have a tuner so the whole thing was confusing. So now I hope it's correct in that I didn't fret any strings but strummed them open to DAA on the electronic tuner. It sounds good. I had a 2nd melody string but took it off since I was having trouble keeping the noter flat on both. Now to work on my strumming since I can strum out well but back is difficult in rhythm. I also like to keep the noter depressed most of the time making that slide sound (it's some Italian name). That's probably not correct and in order to play certain songs I'll need to learn to pick up the noter off the string more aggressively. Since I have no musical knowledge when I see a song with a number and an underscore I have no idea what to do. If it says 5_5 I just assume that means to strum that number 5 twice very close and fast. Well you can probably tell I'm just starting out this journey.

Sorry for the long winded post but I appreciate the welcome and I'll probably have loads of questions for the members here. Take care!

Thank you for welcoming me here ! I'm looking forward to learning from you all.

Thanks, looking forward to learning

Thank you Ken. I am looking forward to being a member of FOTMD and participating in the discussions. I am a beginner so it is quite interesting.        Frank

Thanks for the warm welcome!

I had one of those beasts in my shop for repair. The owner's brother broke the peg head off when they were teenagers. Thirty some years later he decided to have it fixed. I re-attached the peg head and he has been playing it ever since (about 7 or 8 years now). He bought a very nice shotgun case to keep it in.

You could have made it a 3 string by removing one string from each pair.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Not only is the Diamond dulcimer long, all the strings are doubled.  I don't know what I was thinking when I purchased it.  It is a beautifully finished instrument and I do enjoy the rich bright sound.  That is what sold me on it, but I truly didn't know what I was doing when I bought it.   Hopefully with conversations with folks like you and a few lessons and festivals, I should learn some things.  Because of the doubled strings, the callouses on my left hand are coming right along.

Thank you, Ken.  I just dusted off my 1976 Lucky Diamond dulcimer and am having fun.  It's been hanging on the wall for a long time and I was surprised when I took it down that it was almost in tune.  The tuners are wooden pegs and my arthritic hands can't handle them. My husband has to turn the pegs and push them in.  So I am in the market for a more modern one with geared tuners that I can handle and more frets. 

I had to put away my banjos which I have been playing for years because of--well--arthritis everywhere.  But after multiple surgeries and joint replacements, I am back to music again.  I have found the dulcimer  easier to fret because of the angle of the fretboard.  

I look forward to some good posts and conversations.

Caryl

Thanks for the warm welcome, Ken.  I'm taking up the MD later in life and am just now awaiting delivery of my first instrument.  Having played drums and percussion for a long time now, rhythm and timing is not an issue for me, but learning melodic theory is quite new to me (although I've played a bit of guitar and piano), so that's where I'm putting my attention while I await the dulcimer's arrival.  Looking forward to learning from you folks.

Thank you, Ken.