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By Nicolette Foss Are you struggling to learn new music? For those of us who don’t know music theory when learning to play the hammered dulcimer, it can be difficult to pick up on songs we want to learn. And if you don’t have a trained ear, it can be even harder to identify what key a song is in. While it isn’t necessary to know or understand what the key of a song is in, it can be extremely... Read More →
By Nicolette Foss For years, we’ve been using Baltic Birch on many of our hammered dulcimers. It was economical and built good, solid, durable instruments. However, the conflict with Russia has made the wood harder to get, forcing us to switch our materials. Some other problems with Baltic Birch include: Getting woods shipped from far away lands adds to the carbon footprint It is not managed for sustainability The Birch grown in Siberia is slow growth A Word on... Read More →
by Nicolette Foss With the hammered dulcimer, not only do you need a well-designed, quality instrument to create beautiful music, you will need a pair of hammers. Hammers are an essential part of producing good dulcimer sound. The hammers you choose should ideally suit your playing style, tone preferences, and dexterity capabilities. In a previous blog post, “7 Types of Hammered Dulcimers Around the World“, we explored some of the most common hammered dulcimer variations around the world. Now we... Read More →
By Nicolette Foss Are you ready to get out of your COVID bubble this year? Come out and visit one of the many hammered dulcimer festivals this summer! Advance your hammered dulcimer skills by attending workshops and jamming along with old and new friends. There are two types of festivals now, thanks to the pandemic. So if you aren’t ready to leave your house, you can still attend virtual festivals. No one is left behind! We picked our six favorite... Read More →
By Nicolette Foss Not knowing what you don’t know is the hardest part of being a newbie. So you grip your poor hammers for dear life as you hunch over the dulcimer for odd hours, trying to decode “How to play the hammered dulcimer” YouTube videos. They may as well be in another language! At this point are you even having fun anymore? You might just be reinforcing bad habits that will be harder to kick later on. That is... Read More →
By Nicolette Foss We did a series of Zoom interviews with Val Cortoni, a French poly-instrumentalist, songwriter, and sound engineer. Val focuses on the integration of old-world acoustics with modern production techniques. Val Cortoni’s repertoire on the hammered dulcimer includes everything from Celtic to baroque to death metal and video game themes. His covers are varied, while his own compositions often center on the newly-evolving synth-folk genre. We discussed his musical interests, influences, as well as recording and mixing the... Read More →
By Nicolette Foss The pandemic hit everyone hard. Here at Songbird Dulcimers, the supply chain debacle caused us to run out of the cases we’ve been importing for about 20 years. We scrambled to find American companies that could undertake such a project, but as you can imagine, everyone was swamped. In the meantime, we slapped together some makeshift hammered dulcimer hard cases to get us through. We were sweating. But with every hardship, there is always a silver lining.... Read More →
By Nicolette Foss In the modern music genres of today, there is no doubt the hammered dulcimer is pretty obscure. Most people will look at you blankly, scratch their head and say, “Hammered dulcimer, what’s that?” But believe it or not, the hammered dulcimer is well known in certain pockets of the world. It shares an extensive family tree with similar instruments that have a rich history and vibrant communities of players just like you. In this article, we will... Read More →
By Nicolette Foss You may have come across this lively member of Renaissance Festival royalty performing on the hammered dulcimer all over the world. Or you may have seen her on various social media platforms where she dresses in exquisite costume and performs as The Lady Victoria. The Lady Victoria (aka Victoria Van Arnam) is a rising star in the hammered dulcimer community. She has amassed a copious following on TikTok where she spreads Celtic folk tunes to the... Read More →
By Nicolette Foss We are all affected by stress. But the effects of stress are not always as noticeable as that all-too-familiar eye twitch brought on by a grueling workday. Tension can build up from seemingly innocuous situations like the rush at the cash register to make way for the next customer in line. Or the extra 15 minutes added onto a rainy morning commute when you’re already late. These tiny worries can pile up and lead to health problems... Read More →
By Chris and Nicolette Foss As with anything you love, your hammered dulcimer will stand the test of time when it is well-maintained and handled with care. Knowing how to properly tune, adjust, clean, and maintain your instrument is essential to keep it sweet-sounding and by your side for years to come. In this article, we will give you some of our tried and true tips for troubleshooting issues you may have with tuning. For instance, did you know a... Read More →
By Nicolette Foss Are you a hammered dulcimer newbie? Have you noticed your dulcimer just doesn’t sound as good as it did when you first started playing? Do people grimace in pain as you play? These may be signs your hammered dulcimer may be out of tune. Just as any stringed instrument does, when the tension on the strings changes, it changes the pitch of the notes played. This will cause your hammered dulcimer to be what is called “out... Read More →
By Nicolette Foss Tuning by ear comes only with years of experience (*ahem* Chris), or through the rare inherent ability of those freaks-of-nature with perfect pitch. And we say to those freaks, hey this article is not for you! For the rest of us who get by with a little help from our device friends, stay tuned, this article is for you. But is a tuning app right for your tuning needs? In this article, we will discuss the advantages... Read More →
By Nicolette Foss Today the hammered dulcimer is played in some of the farthest crevices of the world. Its music has enriched the lives of people everywhere; from the traditional silk and bamboo genre of China to the folk music festivals of the U.S. But where did this instrument come from and how has it intermingled with history? In this article, we will take a trip back in time to discover the instrument’s humble beginnings and follow the evolution of... Read More →
After working on it for several years, this is the setup I have come up with for my electric hammered dulcimer. You don’t need all this stuff to play electric hammered dulcimer, just an amp of some sort. But the effects give you an amazing array of wonderful, useful sounds that have never been heard. My setup starts with the Fishman Loudbox Artist Acoustic amp which I highly recommend. It has two channels so you can run two instruments, or... Read More →
Wood is constantly in motion. The technical term is hygroscopic, meaning it will absorb or release water based on the relative humidity at the time. As it absorbs or releases the water it shrinks or swells across the grain but not along the grain. This means your dulcimer can be affected by the amount of water in the air, causing its construction to shift and thus change the sound of your instrument. The amount of change can be quite a... Read More →
Here is the why and how of the tongue and groove tops for the new Finch model hammered dulcimers. These are 2 photos of the tops before being glued to the frame, and you can easily see the tongue and groove joints. Here is why we need to build them this way. I built special humidity box to test a dulcimer we had built in the fall and kept it at 70-80% humidity for a couple weeks. It did... Read More →
Wood is hygroscopic meaning it wants to absorb or release moisture based on the humidity of the environment. Wood reaches an equilibrium moisture content based on whatever the conditions are. In a humid Iowa summer any wood can get close to 12% moisture content (MC) in a non air conditioned home. In winter the same wood will pretty quickly drop to close to 6% MC in a normally heated home. When wood absorbs or loses moisture it shrinks or swells... Read More →
I really like Minwax Wipe On Poly. I have been using it for years now as a sealer under shellac, but have recently discovered how to do a really nice hand rubbed finish with it. The secret is in the sanding. The finer the grit the surface is sanded to, the less poly it will absorb, and the quicker a gloss will develop. So I currently sand starting at 100#, then 150# over the whole dulcimer. The edges are sanded... Read More →
There are many different performance situations where you would want to amplify your hammered dulcimer. If you are doing more than just jamming with friends, playing at home, or playing for more than a few people, then sound reinforcement is almost necessary. There are several ways to do it. Cheapest and easiest is to just point a standard dynamic mic like a Shure SM 57 or SM 58 at the dulcimer from above, and hook it to whatever sound system... Read More →
At upwards of $12.00 per board foot for the good stuff, Walnut has gotten too expensive. We used walnut for all our bridges and the rails of the Phoebe hammered dulcimers for 20 years. Wood prices run in a cycle based on whether dark woods are in style, or light woods. For the last 20 years, light furniture, light kitchens, pickled woods, white on white were the vogue, so walnut was affordable. But now the trend has reversed. So we... Read More →
I have to thank the guys at Woodsmith on PBS for this great technique. It needs to be shared with the world. Since shellac is a universal sealer, and will stick to anything, you can put it right on over wet oil, and it will seal the oil in. Pretty amazing. Hand rubbed oil finishes are the deepest and most beautiful, but take a lot of time. But with shellac in the mix, you can do a complete finish in... Read More →
I have been spraying shellac in production finishing of our hammered dulcimers for a year now, and have come up with a few more tricks, so thought I’d update. Read the former post on the same topic, this is additional material to that. I have found that shellac sprays best if it is mixed at an EXACT one pound cut. This is pretty easy to do. I have a jar that I dissolve the flakes in that is something less... Read More →
It was impossible to find any info on this on the net, and since I have been working on it very hard for several months, and have it figured out, thought I’d post my experience. I have been spraying lacquer on the hammered dulcimers that we build now for over 20 years. Figure I have finished at least 5,000 of them myself, so am pretty good with a spray gun. But lacquer is toxic, and even though I protect myself... Read More →
I have been spraying lacquer for twenty years now. Hated it the whole time. It is nasty stuff. I have to wear a complete hazmat suit, respirator, rubber gloves, boots, and still I can’t help getting a small dose. It is also bad for the environment. I can’t see how I am being a good steward of the Earth by spraying these chemicals out into the air. But it is fast, and looks good. I have been looking for an... Read More →
For many years we built the Whippoorwill and Warbler dulcimers with solid Honduras Mahogany tops. We were buying it from some folks in St. Louis that imported it directly. Otherwise known as “Genuine” Mahogany, it was a truly great tone wood. But in the very late 1990s an international ban was put in place on trade of Honduras Mahogany taken from its native range. By 2007 the supply of it had dwindled to the point that it became unavailable for... Read More →