Mountain dulcimer, whoa is me....

spittin_in_the_wind · Post by **spittin_in_the_wind** » Mon Jan 26, 2004 8:18 am

I'm getting a mountain dulcimer by Tom Yocky for my birthday! Woo hoo! I hope these things don't collect like whistles....

His webpage is:

http://cp.ezhost4less.net/~tomyocky/index1.html

I've listened to some of the sound clips from the archived photo gallery, and they sound really good. They also get good reviews over on the Everything Dulcimer site.

If anyone has any helpful dulcimer suggestions for this affilicted soul, please direct me to the appropriate authorities!

Robin

chas · Post by **chas** » Mon Jan 26, 2004 9:12 am

I've only got five dulcimers; three homemade, one Blue Lion, and one Swedish hummell by Triskelion. (Look at Missy's recent post, though, she has more dulcimers than most of us have whistles.) As with whistles, they're diatonic, and modal to boot, so it really is useful to have at least two, tuned to different notes or modes.

As for advice, it depends on what style you'd like to play. If you want to fingerpick or play chords, Janita Baker has a book on fingerpicking, and Neal Hellman, I think via Mel Bay, has a book on chords.

I play fast strumming, the sort of traditional American style. I never consulted a book. I didn't really even start to learn pieces for some time, after I'd learned a bunch of strumming techniques. The key is to keep the drones humming, so strumming once for each note doesn't work; the strumming fills almost the same role as ornaments in whistling.

I would really recommend just jamming on the thing to learn how to get it to sing and learn some of the mechanics before ever trying to play actual pieces of music on it. It's really a lot of fun. Also something instructive and fun is to give it to people to play who have absolutely no musical background; just listen to them jam.

SteveK · Post by **SteveK** » Mon Jan 26, 2004 10:00 am

Don Pedi is one of my favourite duclcimer players for old time music. There's information and a few tunes on his web site. Look under Notation and Tab.

http://www.donpedi.com/index.htm

Congratulations on your new dulcimer. I looked at the web site. Those are pretty good prices for a good dulcimer.

Steve

dfoster · Post by **dfoster** » Mon Jan 26, 2004 2:56 pm

Congrats on getting your dulcimer. I play once a month (on my whistle) with a dulcimer club in Ohio. Check out the link below for clubs near you. Many clubs also teach beginners classes.

http://www.gilamountaindulcimers.com/clubs_ne.htm

missy · Post by **missy** » Mon Jan 26, 2004 3:01 pm

HEY - you talkin' about ME!!!

just remember, there ARE two of us playing in this household.

A great site to learn all about dulcimers (either kind, both mountain and hammered) is:
http://www.everythingdulcimer.com

Lots of good articles, TAB, discussion board (of which I recognize a few on here, too) picture gallery, festival information, etc.

Our motto is that there is NO song that you can't play on dulcimer. On our CD we have everything from a renaissance tune to a 60's surf song. We've done "Minnie the Moocher" and "Nights in White Satin". Along with lots of celtic, old time, and bluegrass.

Have fun, and if you have specific questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Missy

dfoster · Post by **dfoster** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 6:18 am

Missy, we probably know some people in common. I occasionally drive down to Cincy to play with an autoharp group. If memory serves, they are a subset of the Cincy Dulcimer Club.

Dayna

trisha · Post by **trisha** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 6:08 pm

Hi Missy...how are things over on EDF? Don't look in as often as I'd like.

trisha...still figuring how to play a McSpadden and whistle simultaneously

missy · Post by **missy** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 2:53 pm

Hi back at you both!

Trisha - I saw someone take a D whistle and tape up the top three holes. They'd get the first three notes "normally" with their but with their left hand, while strumming the dulcimer with their right. If they needed more notes on the whistle, they would "overblow" to get the higher notes.

I didn't try that - I"m TOO uncoordinated!!!

But, with Tom playing dulcimer and me on whistle, it works!

Missy

chas · Post by **chas** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 4:50 pm

That's interesting -- playing tabor pipe with the dulcimer used strictly as a drone, right?

I've been thinking of dubbing myself on dulcimer and whistle, possibly bodhran, but haven't come up with a tune that lends itself to both instruments.

trisha · Post by **trisha** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 4:52 pm

missy wrote:Hi back at you both!

Trisha - I saw someone take a D whistle and tape up the top three holes. They'd get the first three notes "normally" with their but with their left hand, while strumming the dulcimer with their right. If they needed more notes on the whistle, they would "overblow" to get the higher notes.

I didn't try that - I"m TOO uncoordinated!!!

A sort of tabor and drum arrangement.

But, with Tom playing dulcimer and me on whistle, it works!

Any idea how rare dulcimer players are in these 'ere 'ills?!!! Send Tom, over....

Trisha

DanD · Post by **DanD** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 12:06 pm

Regarding dulcimers & WHOA - If you have WHOA, you will have DOAS (Dulcimer Obsessive Aquisition Syndrome). If you can resist WHOA, you will probably not end up with a huge collection of dulcimers either.
If you've been to everythingdulcimer.com, you already have a great resourse. One of the links there is to Dulcimer Player News www.dpnews.com Get a subscription (it's a quarterly magazine). Besides having great articles and tunes, it lists almost every dulcimer related festival in the States (and a few other places too!). Festivals are a great chance to take workshops with some of the best players, learn new tunes, check out different makers, etc. And dulcimer players are some of the friendliest folks you'll ever meet! You'll find a lot of the topics of discussion are the same as here at C&F - which maker is better, should you learn from paper or by ear, does anyone know {insert tune name here} etc.
Welcome to the dulcimer world!