Does anyone play a dulcimer?

Yeah, I've played dulcimer since early 1980. Haven't been doing much with it since taking up guitar.

The traditional way to play a dulcimer is with a smooth wooden stick called a "noter" sliding along the paired melody strings, pressing them down to the frets, and the two lower strings strummed open as drones. The frets are diatonic, sometimes with a doubled 7th fret so you can play from the open string root note in either Myxolydian mode (as on standard dulcimers) or Ionian mode in DAD. The tuning of the lower strings "forces" you to play in certain modes. The root note on the melody strings will shift to different frets. Most old songs work fine in Myxolydian, and it's pretty standard. Other popular modes are Aeolian (minor), Dorian, Lydian and Phrygian. I can't tell you the tunings for those without looking them up, but there are lots of websites on dulcimer tuning.

It's originally a solo instrument to accompany the singer's voice. 1960s folkie guitar players invented fretting chords on them and playing them with other instruments. Tuning to a pitch standard is only necessary if you're playing with others. The standard way of tuning them is to pick a starting note consistent with your voice's comfortable range, self-tuning the dulcimer with the mode being chosen by which fret you tune the next string to.

I'm quite certain it's the easiest stringed instrument to learn to play, if you play it the traditional way. All there is to it is sliding up and down a diatonic scale to find the notes you want, there can be no discordant notes, and the biggest skill to learn is rhythmic strumming. The old timers would get pretty fancy with their strumming & picking patterns.

Thanks, Ricochet! I'm almost ashamed to say that I hadn't picked up a guitar since I got my dulcimer, until last night at band practice! And, of course, I had to take my new toy out there for the guys to check out! They had fun with it, too! Now one of the guys is talking about getting a hammered dulcimer so that we can jam! :D LOL!

If there was a noter to go along with this dulcimer, I didn't get it! I've been playing with my fingers, so I guess I'll be going to the music store Monday! The lady who sold it to me, when I asked her "How much?", said that she didn't even know what the darn thing was, but thought that it ought to be worth $25........... I'm pretty sure I would have given her $100 for it if she had asked!!

Just as us sliders do with slides, you can improvise a noter out of all sorts of things. It needs to be firm and hard surfaced so you don't break it off or cut grooves in it with the melody strings that will snag them, of a convenient size to hold between your fingers and thumb to press down on the strings. The one I got with my dulcimer and have managed to keep since (by dropping it inside when I'm done, then shaking it out when I want to play) is a little square stick of black walnut about 1/4" square and 1 1/2" long, oil finished. I could use lots of household items, ballpoint pens being the most plentiful.

I've got another thing called a McNally Strumstick that's just a dulcimer with a very small soundbox (making it sound a little banjoish) designed to hang from the neck and play like a guitar. I just use my fingers to fret the melody strings, and sometimes do a bit of chording. It's strung in reverse compared to the lap dulcimer, to simplify fretting only the melody strings. That idea has also been used by other instruments such as "Canjoe John's" "Canjoe." Just a dulcimer neck with a drink can for a resonator.

Here's a page on the Stumstick: http://strumstick.com/ You'll notice a family resemblance to the Martin Backpacker guitar. Mr. McNally designed that, and sold the rights to Martin.

Here's Canjoe John's page: http://www.canjoe.com/ (He's a local fellow here. He's quite entertaining to hear at a fair or such, kinda like one of those oldtime medicine show men.)

The Canjoe reminds me a lot of a diddly bow. Those aren't fretted, though, only played with a slide.

Oh, yeah: Look for books and recordings by Jean Ritchie. She's the lady who brought dulcimers and oldtime dulcimer music to widespread notice in the 1960s.

The hammered dulcimer is an unrelated, very cool, very ancient instrument. Probably the hardest thing there is to learn to play.

I just played a dulcimer yesterday. My friend's dad brought one with him to entertain people at the garage sale we were having. What I learned was to play the two close strings together while the other two are droners. He likes playing it on his lap. He also has some kind of chord to hook to an amp. One end sticks to the dulcimer or acoustic guitar and sounds real good to. A few people kept asking if the dulcimer was for sale, which it wasn't.

http://first-act.stores.yahoo.net/fiacdu.html The one I played.

Funny I was going to ask if anyone plays a dulcimer after yesterday. :D