Frailing a dulcimer?

Flint Hill
04/07/10 02:22:39PM
@flint-hill

Does anybody use frailing-like, banjo-inspired picking on a dulcimer or has anyone written about it? Seems like it's something that someone would have worked out long ago, and I just haven't heard about it.

You'd have to stand frailing on its head somehow, since the melody string is the innermost string on a dulcimer.

Thinking in terms of the standard bum-diddy model of frailing: On a dulcimer, your thumb's over the melody string, so you're maybe gonna "bum" with your thumb?

Then you could downpick -- outpick, I mean -- with a fingernail. That gets you the first half of a "diddy". This could be a scratch or out-strum too.

You could pick up the second half of the "diddy" with a second outward fingernail scratch, or an in-pick on the outermost string.

If you wanted do the second half of the "diddy" in banjo style, you could string the dulcimer Galax style, tune or reverse-capo the outermost string so it acts like a banjo's fifth string, then catch it with an in-pick, leaving it unpicked otherwise.

Or something.

Old idea that everybody but me knows about? Dead end that should be avoided?