Indian Territory Dulcimer Celebration E-Newsletter
"Modal Madness!"
April 2004 Volume 24, Number 4Sections:
| This Month | From the Prez | Dulcimers on the Web |
| Last Month | Dulcimers a la "Mode" |
A professional dulcimer player was told by his doctor, "I am very sorry to tell you that you have cancer and you have only one more year to live."
The dulcimer player replied, "And what am I going to live on for an entire year?"
This Month
Meeting: Saturday April 17, 2004 5:30 pm.
Its spring time so lets play something lively! Time to shake off the winter blues... anybody care to dance? How about some jigs and reels?
From the Prez.... Upcoming Events and festivals
Note from the editor, I have not received an update from Dennis! So this is what I have till the real scoop arrives! Watch the web site for updates.
Around here, we have the Dulcimer Jamboree at the Ozark Folk Center in Mtn View, AR in late April, then there is the LSSDS festival in Glen Rose TX on Mother's Day weekend. There is a new festival starting up not far from Silver Dollar City the weekend after that. I don't know much about it yet, so not much to share. It might be mostly for MD folks. Linda Brockinton will be there, and Cedar Creek will offer a MD building workshop. The dates I was told are May 12-16, but again, I'm not sure. I'll try to have better info by next month.
If you subscribe to Dulcimer Players News, you'll have access to their list of festivals. Another place for great info on festivals and performers is the website of Kerry Anderson out in New Mexico, http://www.gilamountaindulcimers.com. Also, check out http://www.everythingdulcimer.com for some good stuff. In the meantime, while you're waiting for your calendar to flip a page to the month when you'll be heading out to a festival, keep practicing or just plain having fun. I've had a number of calls this month from folks who might come visit us this month, so y'all be nice to them, just like you always do! See you soon.
Friday through Sunday, April 16-18 Winter Creek Reunion Dulcimer Festival in Bennington OK (817) 297-7854
Friday/Saturday, Apr. 16-17 Kaw Valley Dulcimer Funfest in Topeka KS (785) 357-5073 for info
Thursday through Sunday, Apr. 22-25 Dulcimer Jamboree in Mountain View AR (870) 269-3851
Friday through Sunday, May 7-9 LSSDS Dulcimer Festival in Glen Rose TX ask Dennis Moran for info
Dennis. (From March)
Dulcimers on the Web
The web is such an amazing place, with just about anything anybody could ever be interested in. Naturally that includes a huge amount of dulcimer information. Myself, I start with Google, but there are a lot of ways to go locate dulcimer sites. Forums, newsgroups, there are probably chat rooms dedicated to the topic since everything else gets covered. Too much for me to explore for the article, so use your mouse and let me know what cool things you find! I can put it in a future newsletter article! Links from our site perhaps?
Many of the sites are promoting themselves, but look around a little. There are some wonderful dulcimer sites out there, I just went and produced a short list for you to try out for starters. I make no guarantees about the quality of these links, but hey-- its the web! Perhaps somebody is out there making a link to our site right now!
A Few General Sites
http://www.everythingdulcimer.com From Dennis earlier suggestion..
http://www.gilamountaindulcimers.com/tab.htm This site has links to other sites for all kinds of dulcimer tab!
Hammered dulcimers
http://home.comcast.net/~dotraylor/dulcimer/resources.html
Smithsonian institution article on the history of the hammered dulcimer
Mountain dulcimers
http://www.jcrmusic.com/Learning.html
History of the mountain dulcimer
Dulcimers a la mode?
What is Ionian and mixolydian and all these strange names I never heard of before? Why do we need them?
In a word they are modes. Music can be played in any of twelve keys, and any of seven modes in each of the twelve keys. Music generally needs to be composed for a mode, but it can be fun to play some familiar tunes in unusual modes. Be careful not to confuse modes with time signatures or other musical concepts, modes are the structure of the scale itself.
Modes are used on both the hammered dulcimer and the mountain dulcimer, so I will try to be general in the discussion. Tunings are unique to the mountain dulcimer so you hammered dulcimer players can skip that part! We are just jealous of all those key choices you get, and you are probably jealous of how easy it is for us to tune!
Modes in Simple English
Take the notes in the major scale in any key, and number the notes 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, and back to 1. This is the Mixolydian mode, also known as "the major scale". Add the key name for the scale and all musicians will be able to play the same tune along with you. This creates the 1 through 1 scale. Also known as the first degree of the key. On fretted instruments we think of the "one" note as being what we get when we play the first fret. But in musical concepts, it is the note we get when we don't fret at all, the first fret produces the second note of the scale! This causes confusion to be sure...
A scale could be played from note 2 through 2, this scale(the second degree for the key) is named Aeolian and is not very interesting musically, so it doesn't get talked about much though some songs have been composed to use it. Likewise a scale 3-3 can be played, remember we are using the exact same notes we developed in the 1 through 1 scale. This creates the Locrian scale.
A good web site I found with some of this info is: Modes Keys and Tunings That link may not explain it all but it is an article longer than this newsletter on the subject.
Tunings
Because most mountain dulcimers and hammered dulcimers are diatonic (play the major scales automatically) they make playing in other modes easy. However, then the problem of finding the correct chords becomes awkward. The mountain dulcimer players get around this problem with tunings that make playing in a new mode "automatic". To accomplish this, change a string, and add a capo! The capo is optional, it just takes more skill to play in modes without one, and some adjustments to the tune perhaps.
Here is a list of the mode names and the tuning/capo relationship:
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Confused?
No surprise, see me at the meeting and I will attempt to demonstrate!
Dana
Last Month
Dana