I love that old look, Randy. Have all the fun you want racking up more miles!

A little better picture...& with a few miles on it... : )....

Good question Dave. I know I like to play them a lot more than making them, and making them takes a lot of time and energy I could be using to play a tune! I'm not sure if I'm going to make any more of them or not, but I would like to make a fretless one with these new improvements and see how it sounds. I was thinking I'd take them down to Dulcimerville and set them on a vendor table but I could part with them in the meantime.

Very Cool!

Lookin good! Can't wait to hear you play this one!

That's fantastic Randy

It is weird how little things like a hollowed out fretboard make such a difference. Perhaps you get a little more stiffness because of the box shape and also a better contact with the top board through the two thin edges of the fretboard rather than the wide flat bottom of an non hollow one? I don't know? But it seems to work better than the extra internal physical volume the space provides would suggest. There's a good description of one of the early builders 'Hobart Blake'talking abouthis brothers discovering this phenomena in the 1920s - The interview appears in'Play of a Fiddle' by Gerald Milnes:

"Them necks is made hollow. First they made - they made em solid. Didn't sound right. They took the neck out of it and I helped them with a backin' chisel. Cut it out inside and made it thin on each side of the neck. It sounded good."

Kevin is right - those early builders knew more about making good noter drone dulcimers than we give them credit for!

Ed Thomas didn't hollow out his fretboards. And I think that's because his top board is quite small and relatively thick, and fretboard low and narrow. I don't know? But on his design a solid fretboard works fine

Randy, you better know I want to hear one sing!

Looks great Randy!

Randy, looks great can't wait to hear it. You like that extra volume the hollow fretboard gives. Some would say they only did that to make it lighter, but, some of us now know the real reason. I was ammazed at what extra I got when that sound post went in the Prichard, I guess the old guys knew what they were doing. Again great job on the new build. Kevin.

Well I have all three of them done. I have only stung up one though because I play it all the time and don't want to mark up the fretboards etc. on the other two.

I made them the same as the first two I made except I hollowed out the fingerboards on these three. I can't believe what a difference in volume that makes. I also used some real hard maple for the nuts and bridges and that helps gives that melody string a little bark.

There's nothing revolutionary or anything here, this ain't the dulcimer reinvented.. : ). I do think I've built a noter specific dulcimer that will hold it's own with other instruments. I am pleased with the tone, the way it plays and I like the way it looks.

I've been a little bit of a hermit the last couple of years but I might see if the Omaha old time fiddlers are getting together Friday night and see what they think of it.

I will make a video with it here soon. I need to adjust my playing style a little bit though to deal with this extry volume I'm not used to....still getting acquainted with it.

Yep, I agree with Robin. The possum board creates a second sound chamber. Within reason, a bigger chamber produces more sound.

Matt

Kevin & Robin....Gotta go pour concrete for the day...am interested in talking more about the soundpost. Will think about it all day long & post this eve. Kevin I drilled the holes in the fretboard but didn't cut a groove in the top like you did. More later.

Getting back to Randy's fantastic box dulcimers. I would think as little bracing as you can get away with plus stepping up the string gauges a little would really help volume wise. I love shallow bodies and I think that they do give that 'old style' tone as Randy has said.

Have an experiment with the amount of gap between the instrument and the false bottom. I think that the gap is too small on a couple of instruments and possum boards that I have and, having experimented with pieces of wood, I have foundthat 3/4" orso space produced more volume for some reason?

And I wonder what effect placing the bridge and nut over something solid and as close as possible to the ends of the fretboard has? It may be worth trying a small block extension to your tail block or a sound post directly under the bridge giving direct vibration transfer between the bridge and the bottom?

Robin

Part of "cutting through" involves volume, but even more you need to sound different than the other instruments. Many of the deeper body dulcimers take on a guitar sounding quality. These instruments may be louder, but the sound quality blends with the almost ubiquitous guitar. (As much as I like Folkcraft instruments, you can hear a guitar quality to many of them.) I play the guitar, but I want my dulcimer to sound different.

The same problem can occur it you simply make the body wider to get more volume. The wider body can take on a resonance different from a typical dulcimer.

I have tried adding long braces parallel to the fretboard with some success. Has anyone tried other bracing on larger instruments to keep the dulcimer quality to the sound?

Ouch! :) Bobby, your dulcimers are right along these lines aren't they?

Robin, its a great pipe dream...makes my heart tick a little faster. Love the idea of the mini false nut for the middle. You're going to start a whole new revolution man!! I personally think you are right on with that idea.

I tremendously enjoyed the flexibility Galax tuning for fiddle tunes as getting to D, G, A and modal tunes was a snap. I have to say thank you...you were a very early contributor to me understanding the dulcimer in this way. When I had the lessons with Phyllis it all made sense immediately because of the preparation you provided me in an email back in May regarding tunings, keys and modes.

(Sorry for the temporary thread hijack!)

Hi Cheryl,

I think that the volume in the Mawhee dulcimers comes from a light, resonant build combined with thickwire strings, all 0.020 gauge, wound up to an incredible tension!!! And then hit with a stiff Galax style quill. The bass string itself runs at Gabove normal dulcimer bass Dand the small box size dosen't allow the bass to boom.

I had to tripple check the string gauges and tuning when I first found out that was what they used because I didn't believe it was possible - but it is!

I'd love to get hold of one of Don Gravesdulcimers but haven't found a way to do that yet

Having G as the basic tuning is pretty good for old time and bluegrass sessions. John Mawhee, Bill and Don Graves only ever work from the one tuning but I think that with just a small alteration this style of instrument would be great as a session dulcimer. That alteration would be the same as the alteration added by Raymond Melton to his family's Galax dulcimers - a 6 1/2 staple fret. Not to play chords in D but to play in A mixolidian.

From G,d,d the bass will lift easily to A for A,d,d (key of D) and from A,d,d if you could work out a way to lift the middle drone from d to e to give A,e,d you would have A mixolidian and dorian. Possibly a small reverse capo would do the trick. Anyway, it is all a pipe dream at present

Robin, Love that Mawhee video....found it a while back and have it bookmarked. I learned from Phyllis G that the bass drone does us no favors in an old time session and after sitting in on one I could hear why this is. First the bass drone is not actually well heard in that setting as its a low frequency sound that is mostly drowned out.......its more of an annoying thud-thud-thud. The idea of three thinner strings without a wound bass is something you have discussed before and now I'm understanding that in a very practical way. I enjoyed playing the Galax, but I like noting just one string. A Mawhee-style dulcimer may be the answer....but where is all that volume coming from??? Its amazing.

Wow, don't know how I missed this discussion, but I love it. So let me throw in my two cents worth.

False bottoms are great. I have been experimenting with a slight variation, put a back and sides on the false bottom. Instead of letting the sound from the lower sound boar dissipate, this pushes the sound forward to your audience.

In terms of cutting power, try bending or arching your main soundboard. Don't have a good explanation why, but this seems to allow the sound to cut through other instruments. This came from reading about jazz guitars from the 30s and 40s and how they got heard in the big band era pre-electric guitar. Looking at your work makes me want to try this with the music box style.

BTW, nice instruments, did you say what kind of wood you are using?

This volume issue is quite a problem. Galax is great but in a different way. It acts like a high hat at a session providing rhythm. I need to play it a little differently or the sound can be overpowering - so I'm looking to see what I can add to the mix- and that's not always the melody line.

Bigger (and deeper in particular) doesn't necessarily mean louder. The old timers knew what they were doing when they put feet on a dulcimer. That little Ed Thomas is lost on my lap at a session but if I play it on a bar room table then it handles itself very well.

Although I've not fully tested it yet, I think that the 'Walking Cane' dulcimer developed by John Mawhee just after the civil war is probably the ultimate bluegrass session dulcimer. It is a tiny thing - just 4 1/2" wide and with a 25" scale. But John Mawhee put 3 x #8 gauge piano wire strings on it (0.020 wire) and wound the tuning all the way up to G,d,d - it is the earliest dulcimer I've seen with guitar tuners and I'm sure that's because they run with so much tension. He is a photo of Don Graves with one of his great grandfathers original dulcimers (late 1800s) and one he built himself.

Have a look at this video by Don talking about using a feather to play. This video fascinated me when I saw it, I couldn't work out how he was pumping so much volume out through the p/a when he just had an SM58 mic'ing his dulcimer. Then I found out that he was playing his great grandfather's dulcimer and I read up about the stringing system and tuning he used.

I have modified one of the Dave Lynch student dulcimers I have to experiment with this system.The studentis a little longer scale so I strung it with a 0.020 bass and 2 x 0.018 wound up to G,d,d. With a stiff quill and noter it is bloody loud - I took it to a late night bluegrass jam at a festival and could match the mandolin player sitting next to me for volume. But those John Mawhee dulcimers have a more ringing sustain that I could develop with a plywood student dulcimer.

Here is a lovely video where Don talks about his great grandfather's dulcimer - just listen to how this instrument shouts!!!

I have to say that seeing the John Mawhee lineage of traditional dulcimers down through Bill Graves (well known fiddler and dulcimer player - he recorded an album but I have been unable to find a copy yet) to Don, and now to Don's grandchildren has made me totally re-think how to generate volume from a mountain dulcimer.

Robin