Comment

Comment by Allan on June 1, 2011 at 4:35am

Jess I was born in Bozeman,, but am an expat now

Comment by Jess on June 1, 2011 at 3:59am

Hi Allan.  Where in Montana?  I'm a native of Shelby.

Comment by Rand Moore on May 31, 2011 at 11:07pm

Hi Alan and Allan.

The ukulele has what's known as re-entrant tuning, which is to say the string closet to your nose is a thin string tuned to G tuned maybe an octave above what you might expect it to be were it a guitar. The reason they do this is to give it a livelier tone when you are strumming up and down. Each strum starts and ends on a high note. The other good thing about re-entrantly tuned instruments is that you can use a special old time banjo playing technique called "clawhammer"  (or "frailing"). Banjos are another example of a re-entrantly tuned instrument. So is the stick Dulcijo. And now you know.

-Rand.

Comment by Ben on March 20, 2011 at 1:50pm

Welcome to the group, Robert!

Comment by Robert Sears on March 20, 2011 at 11:04am

new to this group so hi all. retired fretted instrument repairman but still build lots of dulcimers and cgb's and whatever gets in my head that is different. just in case some are not aware, there is a sight called wfret that will print out whatever scale you want. it no longer prints diatonic, only chromatic, so if you want dulcimer scale you have to skip frets.

Comment by Allan on March 15, 2011 at 7:34pm

Me either and it has never really made any sense,, but that normal for me

Allan

Comment by Alan Roberts on March 15, 2011 at 1:01pm

Most stringed instruments have the good sense to have the strings sorted in order of size. I most recent instrument I've made (and am playing) doesn't... it's a ukulele. The strings are GCEA, with the C being the lowest. I have no clue why this is.

Comment by Allan on March 15, 2011 at 7:02am

Lol  Alan  Now lets keep it simple I built my dulcimer some thirty years ago in St Augustine Fl while I was sailing the Caribbean to keep me company,, I originate from Montana and now live inn the Netherlands (Zuid Holland)  to find that information I look it up every time I need it ,, but I am in love with the mountain way of registering the notes by numbers... now they are numbered according to frets. Try: 034 5 35 543 4 4 024 6 4 454 3 3 034 5 3 543 2 2 024 6 4 454 3 3, 

Now it is in 3/4 time and the spaces are bars  and the numbers tell you which fret.. now let us not get fancy or you will lose this old hick  ,,  You have to remember I am not as old as I once was..

Allan

 

My CBG are in the living room but I still love playing my dulcimer  

Comment by Alan Roberts on March 15, 2011 at 2:57am

Oh yeah. About dulcimers....

I have a book here about building "long necked" dulcimers. These have small bodies and are held like guitars. Bob McNally made these popular with his "Strumstick" <tm> line. But again, as your fretting hand (usually your left) is wrapped around the neck, the tunings are a mirror image of what regular Appalachian dulcimer would use.

Nala 

Comment by Alan Roberts on March 15, 2011 at 2:50am

ROTFL. To reduce confusion, you can call me "Nala" (Alan backwards)

Part of the problem comparing the two instruments is that dulcimers are strung BACKWARDS from how you would string a guitar. Do I have you tearing your hair out yet? If you ask why they are strung that way, look how you play them. A dulcimer usually sits on a table and the melody string needs to be closest to you on the left. A guitar has your left hand wrapped AROUND the neck so the melody string needs to be on the right. I will build a lapsteel guitar soon; I'll let you know how THAT one is strung.

Maybe we can get Allan to add to the confusion by explaining the difference between "Myxolidian" versus "Ionian" tunings.

(Laughs) Don't stress it. This is one of those arcane subjects you don't have to MASTER unless you're curious. There's many a first-class guitar player that's only used an open G (Spanish) tuning. I just got back from Hawai'i and they have their OWN tunings (slack-key).

Just keep on building

Nala

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