Hallo Peter,Dein neus Instrument klingt in Deinen Hnden super.

Vielen Dank

Karel

Patty from Virginia wrote:

Peter, I do believe John Henry would like to see you make a dulcimer from scratch. I would too .

Well, here you are:

mountaindulcimer.ning.com/video/how-to-build-a-pocket-scheitholt

And I forgot:

@John Tose: That's a great "Schaperpfeiff" ( that is "Schferpfeife" - "Shepherd's pipe") you built! I think those old illustrations are really inspiring!

Ah, I forgot: thank you all for your comments and your interest!

John Henry wrote:
So in a 'short' holiday period you made two beautiful but simple instruments...

You are almost right, John Henry. Since last night there are actually three of them...

It really started with that Cedar Creek kit. I learned a lot when I put it together - but even more, for the first time I felt what a joy it is to play on an instrument you have built yourself!

And whereas I had help from a professional instrument builder with the kit, I really wanted to build instruments I could make entirely by myself, but just with standard tools (okay, as I said elsewhere, I have bought myself a belt sander on Monday).

When I build my next instrument, I'll try to make some more photos. But most of the work is cutting, drilling, sanding, gluing - I did not think that may be interesting to anybody... Well, as my holiday week is almost over, maybe the next project will start after Christmas or so.

Well, at least here is a detail photo of how I twisted the wire frets on my first Scheitholt:

By the way: the new "Pocket Scheitholt" has a great sound. As it is a bit wobbly when you play on it, I built a "docking station" for it....

I'll write more about it later, and of course I'll try to record something later today.

Peter, I do believe John Henry would like to see you make a dulcimer from scratch. I would too . I think it's great the sound that these Scheitholts' produce. I truly am amazed. You did fine work Peter!!!

OK ! So in a 'short' holiday period you made two beautiful but simple instruments, what are we going to see from the next long break............... ?

A tune well selected and executed , just right for the instrument, thank you Peter

John

Peter, thank you for sharing that hymn. I liked reading its history. You played it well.

Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

That was lovely. Thanks for doing that Peter. A few years ago I made a schapperpfeiff based on the illustration in `Syntagma musicum' and that was a splendid instrument. It has a very strange arrangement of drones (compared to other bagpipes) but it sounds very good too. Here's the illustration and a picture of the finished instrument:

Peter, that is a lovely sound .

Sounds really nice, Peter.

That was great Peter. Pretty sounding instrument. I liked the sound, the song, and the playing! Bravo!

This is a sound sample of the 2nd Scheitholt I built in October 2013. This time I made a fingerboard with "real" frets and used geared tuners.
Michael Praetorius described the Scheitholt in his book "Syntagma musicum", Volume 2, from 1619. He was not in fond of the Scheitholt, and he (dis-)qualified it as a "beggar's instrument", which it actually was in that time.
Anyway - as Praetorius also was an editor and composer, I chose a tune composed resp, edited by him in 1610: "Mein erst Gefhl sei Preis und Dank" (something like "My first feeling shall be praise and thankfulness" in English). This is a morning hymn, its printed in the song book of the Lutheran Church in Germany (EG 451) - that's the version of the melody I actually used here (there are some other variations around also). Originally the tune was named "Ich dank dir schon durch deinen Sohn" (also a church hymn), the text of the morning song has been added at a later time.
Although Praetorius didn't appreciate the Scheitholt very much, he might have liked the idea that one of his tunes is played on a Scheitholt more than 400 years later!