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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] a musical question
  • Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 10:44:56 EST



> >I kept waiting for James to jump in on this thread, but...maybe later?
> Sandy

Me? I can scarcely play the radio.

Lynda's suggestion of the Appalachian fretted dulcimer (so called to
distinguish it from the hammered dulcimer) is probably the most easily
accessible.

The reason the fretted dulcimer is "easy" is because it is diatonic. Some of
the frets are missing from the chronatic scale. This means you cannot play a
note out of the key. Also the accompaniment is accoplished by the drone
strings that are generally not fretted (or 'noted'). You only have to play
the
melody line to get a fairly rich sound.

There are thousands of tunes arranged in tablature form available free on the
internet. Which see: http://www.folknotes.com/MDtab.html

There are many variations on the basic scheme of this instrument such as this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&;
item=130271911362

This same company also makes the traditional dulcimers.

Of course I put the word "easy" in quotes at the beginning. The fretted
dulcimer is deceptively easy. You can sit down with some tablature music and
play a tune the first time pick up the instrument. But you can dedicate
years to
playing it and not touch the surface of the potential vertuosity.

Another instrument to consider is the folk harp, which see at the same above
site. The half steps in the diatonic scale are distinguished by color, that
is, all F's are blue and all C's are red. This means that if you pick up the
instrument for the first time and avoid playing any of the colored strings,
no
matter what you play it will sound good whether it's a tune or not. Like the
dulcimer, you can learn to play a tune in five minutes or spend fifty years
and
not learn the 100th of it.

James




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