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The
Hammered Dulcimer is easy to play and can reward a beginner right away! To sound the notes you use little curved
wooden strikers (called "hammers," hence the name). Or use your
fingernails to pluck the strings; or use both methods. You can refer to the
illustration to see how to play a (regular) major scale. Start on any marked
string pair (called a "course") - usually indicated by a single bar
sitting on the bridge between groups of two. Play the first four notes of the
scale, and then go over to the left, to the marker parallel to the one where
you started (to the treble bridge, or if you've started on the right side of
the treble bridge cross over to the left side of the treble bridge) and play
the rest of the scale. It's easy! This is the secret of beginning to play on
the dulcimer - knowing where to start. (And isn't this also true of life?) |
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Most
dulcimers are made in small shops by one craftsperson, although there are a
few operations involving more people. The modern instrument has been improved
by experimenting with the interior bracing scheme, by gluing the soundboard
to the frame of the instrument, by the use of laminated wood for the pin
blocks (where the tuning pins are) and by the addition of dampers. David
James' instrument, made by Nick Blanton of Shepherdstown, West Virginia, was
the first modern American dulcimer with dampers. They are gaining popularity
as a means of expressing staccato notes and ornaments. |
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Hammered
dulcimers these days are usually made to span about three octaves - ranging
from "D" below "middle C" up to "E" or "F
three octaves higher. Smaller instruments start at "G" below
"middle C." |
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Makers
sometimes add more strings on the left side of the instrument on auxiliary
bridges to get greater range or add some of the notes that the regular tuning
scheme has left out. |
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Musicologists
figure that the instrument has been around for about five thousand years. The
first "dulcimer," and probably the first "harp" and
"lyre," were probably devised when a musically-minded hunter
twanged the string on his or her hunting bow, then added more strings toward
the middle of it, then someone discovered that resting the thing on a box or
drum made it louder. The instrument spread from the eastern Mediterranean
lands eastward and northwestward. It has many names in many lands: Dulcimer comes from old French "dulce
melos," meaning "sweet sound", Yang Chin (China) - means "foreign
instrument"), HackbrŠde
(Swedish) means "chopping board", Cimbalom (Hungarian) - from the word meaning
"to strike", Psalterion
(French) and Santur
(Greek) from "psallo," to "pluck." The Irish Gaelic word
for the instrument is Tiomp‡n,
probably borrowed from the ancient Greek word, also meaning to
"strike." |
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Dulcimers
reached the British Isles by about the late Thirteen Hundreds, and modern
investigations may push this date back. It became an integral part of gypsy
bands in Hungary, and is considered a "classical" instrument in the
Far East. The Scots, English, Irish, northern Germans and Scandinavians
brought their instruments over to the United States and they became most
prevalent in the Appalachians, in New England and in Michigan. There are many
players In Michigan (perhaps more per capita than any other state) and
families there have dulcimers dating back to the Seventeen Hundreds! |
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David James |
Tiomp‡n Alley Music |
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South Bend,
Indiana |
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574-276-7822 |