Comment

Comment by Allan on March 14, 2011 at 7:53pm

LOL  problem with two Al(l)ans the traditional scale for the dulcimer is the DAA with the D being the furthest string from you sitting is D

the 1st string is a double string and is your melody string and the 3rd and 4th are drones. It has been changed since then..  the two neck dulcimers originally were courting  with tuners facing the opposite directions so the couple could sit talking to each other  You played while you talked ,, stop talking and your escorts showed up from around the bush. 

have fun I do

Allan

Comment by Brian Reagor on March 14, 2011 at 10:35am

my previous explanation of the dulcimer is assumed  to be looking at it from the playing position.....

Comment by Brian Reagor on March 14, 2011 at 10:33am

Allan, thanks for the further explanation of the diatonic scale. Concerning dulcimers, what i find a little strange is the tuning of the strings on a 4 stringer, I have a book that shows how to make a dulcimer and it says I quote use E strings for the first 3 and a G string for the 4th, it also says the string furthest away from body should be tuned to middle C and that it is a bass string as well, it states to tune the other 3 strings to G. It also says the string closest to the body is the melody string and the rest are harmony strings. So if I understand the book, the closest 3 strings are E strings tuned to G and the 4th string is a G string tuned to middle C and is the bass string also, so...in the playing position it is GGGC but only pluck the nearest G string and the following GGC are harmony or drone strings, I'm somewhat confused.

Comment by Alan Roberts on March 9, 2011 at 2:53am

Diatonic is just  C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C.  When you sing "Doe, a deer, a female deer" you're singing a diatonic scale.

When you get into sharps and flats (the black keys), then you're talking about "Chromatic."

To mess with your head, the Native American Flutes I make are "pentatonic" (C–D–E–G–A–C), It's just missing a few notes.

Even though I played in a high school orchestra for years, we never covered music theory. Until two years ago, I thought "diatonic" was what you drank with gin.

Comment by Brian Reagor on March 8, 2011 at 10:37pm

wow! just checked out the stewmac and http://liutaiomottola.com/formulae/fret.htm links and they are awesome, thanks guys, now I have plenty of work to do, feeling good now maybe some of the pics in my mind will be built in reality...I love this site

Comment by Brian Reagor on March 8, 2011 at 10:16pm

Thanks Alan, Allan and Mickey...for your help and the links, so like playing mid C to the next octave up C note is a diatonic scale ? white keys only, and I can assume that it applies to sharps and flat notes also ???, Thank you very much now for further research and development...lol

Comment by Alan Roberts on March 5, 2011 at 8:21pm

Brian,

Diatonic scale is what you get if you sit down at a piano and only play the white keys.

Your guitar keyboard is laid out for the black keys as well, so laying out a fretboard for a dulcimer is EXACTLY like that for a guitar with the same scale length and skipping a few frets. Print out the numbers the stewmac calculator gives you for a guitar, and do the same for dulcimer. Compare and contrast.

Comment by Allan on March 5, 2011 at 10:33am

Thought I had lost the one I use but here it is

http://www.stewmac.com/FretCalculator

it is very good and very accurate . Have fun
Allan

Comment by Mickey Sadler on March 5, 2011 at 4:07am

For more than you ever wanted to know about calculating fret position check out http://liutaiomottola.com/formulae/fret.htm . Then wander around the site which starts at http://www.liutaiomottola.com/ for lots of good info.

 

Mickey

Comment by Brian Reagor on March 5, 2011 at 1:16am

Thanks Allan, having a bit of a time remembering that far back...lol

I believe the strum stick and the dulcimers use this scale method of tuning and playing. My lack of knowledge is a little frustrating but it seems to me one could expand on this concept, do you know of any specific websites for this calculations?   Thanks Brian

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• …
• 10
• Next ›
• Page