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Have a listen at this (IMO) beautiful rendition of Star of the County Down played on a mountain dulcimer by Nicolas Hambas.

http://dulcitunes.com/tunes/nhstar.mp3

That is a nice stark and lonesome version, and I particularly liked the fiddle. You can almost feel the pain and sorrow. And then there is the harp trying to pull you out from the depths, in contrast.

Thanks, I like having my emotions dragged through the mud!

greenspiderweb wrote:That is a nice stark and lonesome version, and I particularly liked the fiddle. You can almost feel the pain and sorrow. And then there is the harp trying to pull you out from the depths, in contrast.

Thanks, I like having my emotions dragged through the mud!

That was my impression as well.

and actually its not a fiddle, its a bowed dulcimer.

talimirr743 wrote:and actually its not a fiddle, its a bowed dulcimer.

Well, that explains why it sounded so different! I thought maybe it had some very different strings on it than I was used to hearing, or the bow hair was different...so maybe it is both!

Now I see (from your other post):

http://www.blackcreekstrings.homestead. ... CIMER.html

Same bow, differnt instrument, very neat!

Thanks! It's the first bowed dulcimer I've heard that I know of! I like it.

the luthier that builds my dulcimers is going to make me a bowed dulcimer, as soon as he can figure out how he wants to do it......

I want to play it "upright" and want a curved fretboard. I don't want frets, but want markers (probably strips of other wood inlaid on the ebony). I also want it lower in registry than a "normal" dulcimer - to give a cello like tone.
It took him a year and a half to come up with Tom's resonator dulcimer (better known as "The Dulcinator"), so this may take awhile - but it'll be more than worth the wait.

I was wondering what a dulcimer would look like played upright. I found some pictures, mainly of Ken Bloom. On the page, the first picture is of him playing and the picture underneath and slightly to the right shows four people playing. I wonder if Nic recorded all the parts for that tune.

http://www.bolick.net/bloom/photos.html

I've seen some of Ken's work - very, very nice! Alice Ann of the Kentucky Standard Band plays one of his bowed dulcimers.

There are several songs we'd love to use it on (Yesterday, by the Beatles, for instance). It probably won't be a dulcimer we use "on stage", but will do overlays of tracks when recording.

That was a very nice rendition, thanks for posting it

BTW, would anyone know of the tableture to that tune for the mando?
I've looked for that one before, but come up dry. Is there another name for the tune that it might go by?
I've been looking on mandocafe mostly, cause if it's not there, someone knows where it might be, but I'm still waiting on a reply from one or two folks there.

Tyler, I've emailed Tom (I'm at work, he's at home) asking if any of his TAB programs can do Mando TAB. If so, I"ll have him do it and put in a jpeg or something for you.
All I know is I play it in Em on the dulcimer.......

Tyler Morris wrote:BTW, would anyone know of the tableture to that tune for the mando?

Ear! Play it by ear. It's easy.

OK. I'll do this once. There are about 2 million mando tabs on this site, including Star Co Down.

http://www.alltabs.com/mandolin_tablature_list.html