Bonnie Tammie Scolla - Jeffries Dulcimer

Robin Clark
02/24/15 12:02:21PM
@robin-clark

I was just running through the book Haand Me Doon Da Fiddle that Babs Greene pointed us all towards in this thread here http://mountaindulcimer.ning.com/forum/topics/shetland-fiddle-tunes

The book is a beginner's fiddle tune book from the Isles of Shetland. And I guess that Bonnie Tammie Scolla is the Shetland equivalent of 'Go Tell Aunt Rhody' for beginner fiddlers on the isles. In the book the tune is in the key of A (as you would expect with beginner fiddle) but it is easy enough to follow it in any 1-5-5 tuning on dulcimer. I think I may be somewhere near EBB ?

The dulcimer is a A.W. Jeffrey's Jr from Staunton VA strung with piano wire and played with noter and quill strummer. It is another one of those dulcimers whose fretting pattern is closer to just intonation than equal temperament. The root, 4th, 5th and octave are perfect; the 3rd, 6th and 7th are flattened and the 2nd sharpened.