Thought it would be nice to have this all in one place.
Most dulcimers include the following frets from the chromatic (all of 'em) fingerboard:
0 2 4 5 7 9 10 11 12 - octave 1
24, 26, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36 - octave 3
I also use a simplified one:
0 2 4 5 7 9 11 12, etc.
For both of those, you can capo up to the 2 fret and also play in minor.
And here is the blues-cimer. I just made two and the are lots of fun to play, you can easily use Shane's videos over in "how to play" to get lots of ideas for improvising.
0 3 5 7 10 12 (optional 6) (edited 1/26/10 to include 5!)
Tags:
better link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxSGyjbo-4k and:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz3RObNJWGo
Diane in Chicago said:And this is why the optional #10 comes in handy, when you are tuning ionian (DAC)
http://mountaindulcimer.ning.com/video/blue-hand-medieval-song
I hope that makes sense..
Diane in Chicago said:better link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxSGyjbo-4k
and:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz3RObNJWGo
Diane in Chicago said:And this is why the optional #10 comes in handy, when you are tuning ionian (DAC)
http://mountaindulcimer.ning.com/video/blue-hand-medieval-song
So instead of fretting the 5th, (of the scale not the fret) you just play the open string that's tuned to the 5th?
They (according to Dianes chart) have a 5th fret on the regular Dulcimer, so since it is also part of the blues, and minor pentatonic scale, i cant understand leaving it off a "Blues scale" version of the dulcimer.
Jef Long said:I hope that makes sense..
Diane in Chicago said:better link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxSGyjbo-4k
and:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz3RObNJWGo
Diane in Chicago said:And this is why the optional #10 comes in handy, when you are tuning ionian (DAC)
http://mountaindulcimer.ning.com/video/blue-hand-medieval-song
So instead of fretting the 5th, (of the scale not the fret) you just play the open string that's tuned to the 5th?
They (according to Dianes chart) have a 5th fret on the regular Dulcimer, so since it is also part of the blues, and minor pentatonic scale, i cant understand leaving it off a "Blues scale" version of the dulcimer.
Jef Long said:I hope that makes sense..
Diane in Chicago said:better link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxSGyjbo-4k
and:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz3RObNJWGo
Diane in Chicago said:And this is why the optional #10 comes in handy, when you are tuning ionian (DAC)
http://mountaindulcimer.ning.com/video/blue-hand-medieval-song
"And here is the blues-cimer. I just made two and the are lots of fun to play, you can easily use Shane's videos over in "how to play" to get lots of ideas for improvising.
0 3 7 10 12 (optional 6)"
Why wouldn't you have the 5th fret on a "Blues-cimer (lol, i like that name)
With the blues scale being the minor pentatonic.
Root - Minor 3rd - 4th - 5th -7th - Octave (0 3 5 7 10 12 frets)
Plus the "Blue Note" which is the Flat 5. (0 3 5 6 7 10 12 frets)
So without the 5th and the 6th fret it would be a 4 tone scale or quartertonic (made up word) instead of pentatonic.
And if you add the 5th fret, but no 6th, then it's the minor pentatonic and not the "blues" scale...
Or am i missing something in the Dulcimer translation? Not being a butt-head, i'm genuinely curious.
Diane,
Thanks for clearing that up.
Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to make it who's right who's wrong thing, I was genuinely trying to wrap my head around it.
I had been thinking about making some dulcimers and knew nothing about them and that's how I ended up here. I am a blues guy so when I saw "blues-cimer" I got excited at the possibility that hadn't even occured to me before while learning about dulcimers.
So thanks all, for helping me get my head around it. (A little anyway)
OK, I'm lost. I'm building my grand daugther an 18" (46mm) diatonic scale CBG. I used the Stewart MacDonald on line fret calculator for a Dulcimer. I have 12 frets listed with measurements -- so is everyone here saying I should leave out some of the frets? If so, which ones? Which frets would be best to keep for a 6 yr old? My printout it shows fret 8 as an octave, so what should I do with it? Or should I just put all the frets on the fretboard and not worry about removing any of them?
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