Jon, I've built Appalachian dulcimers and looked into their history. For the old, truly folk-made, dulcimers, it was not uncommon for the frets to be wire staples pounded into the fretboard beneath the treble course. When fretwire is used, you make the slot for it by cutting a kerf across the fretboard and pounding a section of fretwire into the kerf. It would be a whole lot more work to attempt to cut the kerf only under the treble courses than to simply set the fret all the way across the fretboard and just not use the frets under the drones. From what I remember of Jean Ritchie's books, she played the traditional way using a noter. It was younger people like Richard Farina who started chording the drone strings. In David Hajdu's book, "Positively 4th Street," he has a description of where Farina wanted to go musically with the dulcimer, and he was definitely breaking with traditional playing style.
Tim On Friday, November 26, 2004, at 12:21 AM, Jon Murphy wrote: > Bill, > > Much as I like the idea of projecting back by finding early recordings > I > question the validity. One of my instruments is the > Mountain/Appalachian > Dulcimer (actually of the lute family of chordophones, as the strings > are > stopped, rather than the zither family that the true dulcimer is). The > old > "front porch boys" of the Appalachians played it as a pure drone > instrument > (the treble course, normally doubled, was played with a "noter" - a > bit of > dowel pressed only on that course). That made the other two courses > monophonic drones. The moderns (read the Ritchie family recorded in the > thirties) chord the drone courses by fingering. One has to assume that > the > earlier players did the same, else why frets on all three courses? So > the > logical conclusion is that the backwoods lads who would have been > recorded > at the turn of the century (19 to 20) were not representative of the > earlier > player in their ancestral Europe. The same could apply to a rural > Ukranian > kobsa player of the same time (not all of them, just the particular one > recorded). > > Many things are lost in the noise of outside influences, but just as > often > things may be lost in the concentration of tradition. An old college > friend > of mine, John Solum, had a career as one of the top flautists in the > world > (none of you will know the name - he stuck with orchestral anonimity). > In > his retirement he has an early music orchestra (I think they are > basically > Baroque, although I haven't heard them). They use original, or > reproduced > original, instruments. But even they, a collection of retired > professionals, > can't duplicate the sound - in my humble opinion. John's early flute > reproduction will yet have the benefit of our modern tools in drilling > the > finger holes and boring the tube. I have to feel that the instrument > makers > of early times weren't as consistant as we can be. The best musicians > could > afford the best made instrument, but the average musician would have to > settle for what he could afford - and unless they were all affluent > kings of > music there would have been a lot of mediocre instruments. > > Best, Jon > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "bill kilpatrick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Cc: "lute list" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 10:52 AM > Subject: early recordings > > >> dear roman - >> >> thanks for your reply. >> >> i wasn't so much interested in hearing early >> recordings of the established baroque repertoire >> (bach, weiss, etc.) but more in hearing what an early, >> lute like instrument itself might sound like. >> >> there must be early kobsa recordings, for example >> which would give us an idea. maybe this is stupid but >> by comparing how a ukranian kobsa player from the turn >> of the last cent. treated his instrument - without, i >> would assume, any over riding, outside influences from >> other cultures, radio, etc. - it might be possible >> to draw conclusions about similar cordophones from the >> same era and project them all the way back to the >> baroque and beyond. >> >> that's the idea, at any rate. >> >> even allowing for poor quality sound and scratchy >> recordings it might be possible to hear if he was >> playing near the bridge or away from it; with strings >> tuned more to one frequency than another. >> >> didn't bartok make recordings of folk instruments, >> cordophones amongst them? >> >> for example, on the google early music site, i posted >> the same query with this address: >> >> http://www.cuatro-pr.org/Home/Eng/Instrmus/Instrmnts/Tiples/tiples.htm >> >> >> there's an early recording sample of a tiple from >> rural puerto rico (sound sample courtesy kacho >> maldonado, at the bottom of the page) which suggests >> (to me) that not much has changed with it or the music >> played on it, for a very, very long time. >> >> regards - bill >> >> >> >> ===== >> "and thus i made...a small vihuela from the shell of a creepy >> crawly..." - > Don Gonzalo de Guerrero (1512), "Historias de la Conquista del Mayab" > by Fra > Joseph of San Buenaventura. go to: > http://www.charango.cl/paginas/quieninvento.htm >> >> >> >> ___________________________________________________________ >> Win a castle for NYE with your mates and Yahoo! Messenger >> http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com >> >> >> >> To get on or off this list see list information at >> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >> >> >> > >
