The Tennessee Music Box

[razyn]

This is following up on what I promised Frimp, a few posts back: some more details about "The Wonderful Harmonica" that Miss Ida Sharp had, in Savannah TN in 1972-73. She was 78 in '73, so, born in 1895. The instrument was bought from George Goodman, for $4.00, when she was "ten or eleven," so about 1905-06. It was owned by her brother and an older sister before it was hers.

Here are the dimensions Donna Roe measured:

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa14 ... monica.jpg

And here's a July, 1973 photo of Miss Ida playing it:

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa14 ... aSharp.jpg

Details of my own box, similar to this one, will follow eventually.

Dick

[razyn]

As I've said before on one or more thread, sometimes there's a certain amount of unpacking-and-finding to be done before I can really tell what I know, or once knew and have forgotten, but haven't yet thrown away.

Anyhow, besides Donna's paper mentioned in my last post, I also have some black and white photos taken the previous year. I had forgotten the fact that in 1972 I took my double dulcimer along, to see how they were similar and how they differed. So, I'll start with another of Donna's 1973 shots:

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa14 ... loseup.jpg

As you can see, the finish is so dark, the designs on the top are all but invisible. That was also true in black and white, the year before:

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa14 ... sIda72.jpg

But in 1972 I took a bunch of shots, with the sun reflecting at different angles. I managed to get one in which the words were at least partially legible, because the different (dark) paint colors weren't all equally reflective. Here's the best I got:

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa14 ... erful1.jpg

And here's a digital enhancement from that same image:

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa14 ... erful2.jpg

That's not great, but it's the best I can do. At least you can probably tell that the letters are stenciled, there's a bracket-and-floral-spray motif on each side, and the capital N is backward (twice).

The next shot compares The Wonderful Harmonica with the double TMB we have had since the summer of 1964:

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa14 ... derful.jpg

Since that one is right here at hand, and they obviously are very similar in construction, most any little details one might want for purposes of reproducing it are still available. I'll drop in a couple of overall shots taken today, digital photography and personal computers having in the meanwhile been invented...

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa14 ... leTMB1.jpg

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa14 ... leTMB2.jpg

One major distinction between her instrument and ours is that hers had a hollowed out fingerboard, with a soundhole; our fingerboards are solid, but each has cutout arches:

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa14 ... detail.jpg

Sorry that's slightly out of focus; I got too close, and forgot to set the Macro gizmo... I do know how, but you can get the idea from this. The arches, like everything else on these boxes, have been measured very approximately, by eyeball. Starting with 1 1/2" squared stock, the depth of each cutout averages 5/8 inch, with at least 7/8" of wood left above each arch. I imagine the maker just sawed each fingerboard 5/8" deep, used a drawknife and probably a very large-radius rasp to get the basic shape, then perhaps finished with wide strips of sandpaper or emery cloth, used a bit like a shoeshine cloth. Anyway, they are a little imprecise, but very smooth and similar, with no obvious tool marks left.

Okay, you have your stick the length of the box, and it has five arches cut out underneath. Lay that on the top and mark where each arch ends, or if it makes more sense, where each solid foot (1 1/2" wide) begins. The soundholes line up with the arches. One comes up to the right end of each arch, as you face it -- from either side. Since the arches aren't exactly spaced, neither are the soundholes. They are more or less 4 7/8" apart (on centers), give or take an eighth or so. [So I guess, in theory, if you like to measure things -- start in the middle of your fingerboard stock when you make the saw cut for the first arch, and measure out 4 7/8" to each side, twice, for the other four cuts.] And that's if you like the arches. Miss Ida's Wonderful Harmonica didn't have any, and the soundholes are spaced even more randomly.

I'll describe the basic box. The double one is 27 1/4" long, 13" wide, with mitered corners. The top and bottom are a little bigger, the idea having been that they would overhang the sides by about 3/16" (but again, only approximately -- and only here and there, now that they have been worn down somewhat). If you just have to have measurements, call it 27 5/8" by 13 1/4" (at most). The top has been hand planed to about 3/8" thick, and the bottom is similar, but a bit thicker in places. Construction is nailed, throughout. There are about eight (small, cut) nails down each long side, top and bottom; and about ten across each end, top and bottom. Give or take about three. Very irregular. Two nails in each mitered joint, top and bottom (total of four per corner). I assume the feet of the fingerboard are nailed, from the bottom, but can't see that. Y'all might want to use, like, Titebond (but not Titebond II, you may need to unglue it someday). Ol' man Goodman didn't have any.

The square stock for the fingerboard is beveled slightly at each end. One of mine is 27 1/2" long at the bottom, 26 7/8" long on top. The sheet metal that covers each end (use a longer piece at the picking end) is bent over a small nail and crimped to make the nut and bridge; it is also tacked to the fingerboard stock. So after you install it, you get a VSL of 26 3/4" (which determines where the frets ought to be). The frets are big flat staples, driven in, and are only meant to be under one string. Each string is doubled around a nail at the nut end (since you tighten it with two big eye screws at the bridge end). I recommend tuning each pair of strings to the same note, whether you double the pair over the frets (not the folk way) or not. Two Ds and two (lower) Gs, or whatever. They also can be tuned all four to the same note. If you want drones to make a constant fifth chord, you have to leave one of the "melody" strings off the frets. You can see in the photos that Miss Ida did so (only noted a single string, not a pair).

If I were "restoring" our instrument again, I'd try to get eye screws that weren't galvanized. I put these on 44 years ago, and they look like I just got home from the hardware store. If you are making a new one, the sheet metal also should be plain steel -- not galvanized. Rust just looks more authentic than zinc.

Well that's all for now -- but I'm still going to tell you about Henry Steele, so y'all come back, y'hear?

Dick

[Frimp]

Dick:

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! You are absolutely amazing!

Your latest couple of posts will help me (us) immeasurably to create my (our) next music box!

Here's a little tip for those who want to try building one:

I found that if I soak new screw eyes (and new thin steel stock for the end plates) in a ferric chloride solution for just a few minutes then rinse them well in water, they take on a wonderful aged finish. It probably will protect the metal somewhat, as well... I don't know. I had some of that stuff left over from etching circuit boards, so I used it and was quite happy with the results...

Thanks again!

[razyn]

Frimp, et al, you're welcome. I hope somebody will make an actual reproduction TMB -- and sell it to Lisa -S.H. cheap, if she still wants one. (She was looking for a maker, about a year ago.)

Now I'll get back to the historical side of this exercise. As I said way up there someplace, the first "TMB" I ever saw was in a photo on p. 7 of John F. Putnam's booklet, "The Plucked Dulcimer And How To Play It," published by the Council of the Southern Mountains in Berea, KY in 1961. My dad picked up a copy soon after my parents moved to Cynthiana, KY in the winter of 1963. He gave it to me. (The booklet was also what steered me to Homer Ledford, from whom I bought his dulcimer number 738 for my Christmas present that year.) I had known John five years earlier in Nashville, but we went in different geographical directions for a while. We both lived in the Maryland suburbs of DC later in the 60s; he finally got around to autographing this for me back in Nashville in 1968. And then when I worked for NCTA in the early 1980s, he was a Board member, but sadly those were his last days on earth.

I realize all that is of interest to relatively few, but I know it and most people don't, so, hey. Here is the photo; the instrument on the right, though he doesn't specify it in the caption, is by Henry Steele, farmer, of Belvidere, Tennessee:

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa14 ... ration.jpg

Of the ten sources of dulcimers-for-sale listed by John in the back of the book (and that's page 29), Henry Steele is the only one not well known today. (One other is famous as a sculptor, not so much as a dulcimer maker.)

In about September of 1964 I found the double TMB illustrated in my last post. By then I knew very well what it was (from John's book, from Gerald Young, and from Becky Pevahouse) and snapped it up -- though technically I didn't have enough money, and had to borrow it from my fiancee, who was gainfully employed as a Braniff stewardess. She married me anyway, and we just celebrated our 44th anniversary -- so that worked out.

Moving ahead about nine years -- as you all know I had one of my Vanderbilt students in 1973 write her term paper on the Wonderful Harmonica. That worked out well, too; and the next summer another of my students, Tucker Curtis, selected Henry Steele (from a list) for his project in the same class. As in the previous case, the color photos are Tucker's, and the black and white one is mine. They are used with permission -- I found him on the Web, where I learned that he is now the Academic Dean at Miami Country Day School.

Henry had suffered a stroke and was partially paralyzed when we tracked him down at his home on Little Mountain, near the Alabama line but (barely) in Franklin County, TN. He was no longer able to make dulcimers for sale, and was confined to a wheelchair, but we had a nice visit with him.

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa14 ... Steele.jpg

Henry's wife Lily and several members of his family played, so they still had a few boxes on hand, and in use. As it happened, Mrs. Steele had grown up playing a music box, and after marrying Henry had also helped him make a few of them. Here she is on their front porch in 1974. (Banjimer, or any of you who have that Hummel book by Hubert Boone -- on p. 33 there is a similar photo of her taken in 1957, surrounded by younguns.)

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa14 ... Steele.jpg

You may wonder if I'll ever get to an actual point. I shall, honest. This just needs to unfold slowly, like a cheap umbrella, or it will fall apart. Up a few posts earlier, Berimbau mentioned that another organological link between the psalmodikon and the TMB is the fact that both were bowed. And I agree, both were. Other forms of zitter were, too; but there has in my opinion almost universally been some correlation between bowing and hymn-playing (in or out of church). Certainly, in the case of the psalmodikon, the instrument was specifically designed for the improvement of the sung praise, in worshiping congregations -- enabling rural people who couldn't afford an organ to learn their notes, for singing chorales in parts. I explained that on another thread; if interested, do a search on "sifferskrift."

Well, for a lot of reasons (including the widespread availability of inexpensive melodeons and later reed organs), no form of the dulcimer ever achieved the widespread acceptance as a church instrument that the psalmodikon had enjoyed among Swedes and Norwegians in the second half of the nineteenth century. But at least one form of dulcimer was the regular instrument, in at least one church, for many years. The church was the Little Mountain Missionary Baptist, and the music was led by (from left) Henry Steele's children Sonny, Birdie, and Gilbert, and his sister "Aunt Gracie," with accompaniment on the TMB by his wife, Mrs. Lily Steele:

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa14 ... church.jpg

And that, I suggest, is one step beyond organological evidence of a link between the psalmodikon tradition and that of the Tennessee Music Box.

Dick

[KenH]

Fascinating, Dick. Absolutely fascinating.

Lois should get you to come to Cullowee and be part of the staff in the Traditional track!

[berimbau]

Hey Dick,
Before you let any more cats out of the bag, why not work this material up for publication? Seems that you are on a couple of very interesting tracks regarding the development of various dulcimer models, and your material would add much to our data base.
Now days a lot of folks are making various modern versions of the Tennessee Music Box. Yet most of these are "improvements" and are really quite different in spirit, sound, and appearance to the authentic article. About six years ago Ellis Truett, a most generous musician, folklorist, and dulcimer maker, gave me a really wonderful copy he made of one of his antique TMB's. I still don't have the heart to tell him that it was lost in Katrina. This unique artifact was totally authentic from the wire staple half frets right down to the snuff can tin pick guard. Now Ellis is the unofficial curator of Central Tennessee's string band culture, and star of a dvd documentary directed by Mary Nichols called "The Schoolhouse Sessions." She has since co-produced another documentary featuring the late David Schnaufer, eworld-famous dulcimer player. According to a web site, this dvd, is called "Tennessee Music Box, it offers a discussion of the large rectangular dulcimers peculiar to Tennessee and twelve extraordinary performances by Schnaufer." I knew David some and would love to see this. Anyone know if this is available?



Paz y Musica,


Berimbau

[razyn]

Before you let any more cats out of the bag, why not work this material up for publication?

Well the short answer is, it is not I who have borne the heat of the day, in this particular patch. (Matthew 20. There are different schools of thought about the intent of that parable, but it's more than just an "old saying.") I swapped a few letters and a bunch of emails with Allen Smith, over 30 years; and we both thought he was still going to publish again, with a number of more sharply defined ideas than his book and articles had expressed. But as you know, that's no longer an option. Ralph Lee Smith seems to be still cranking out stuff, as he has done for many years while I left my light under the proverbial bushel. I don't want to step on his toes. With regard specifically to the TMB, Sandy Conatser and others in Tennessee have had free access to my little trove of information -- and I've sent her an email about this new thread.

There are a few things I have known for some time, that those folks didn't; or if they knew it, it was from a very different perspective. I kind of like the collegiality of letting my cats out of the bag here, and getting the feedback, pro and con, from the ED crowd. Besides, it's expensive to publish color illustrations on paper, but virtually free to do that online. Many of the arguments I try to make are more apparent than real, as the saying is... that is, what I'm talking about only makes sense (if at all) with the photographic, documentary or artifactual evidence that lends it some kind of reality.

I do, however, get a kick out of organizing these little strolls down memory lane -- while I still have some memory, and can find the dang lane.

Dick

[Banjimer]

Dick,

Thank you for sharing these photos and your thoughts. Until you shared all of this information online, the Steele Family was just another family mentioned in association with the TMB. Your sharing of these photos and the information on the family has brought them to life in a way only hinted at in Hubert Boone's book. The more we know about the people behind the TMB and the history of other types of dulcimers the better informed we will all be. The surviving TMB's can only hint at the thought and care put into their construction and playing.

Greg

[Robin T]

Lisa wrote: What are the reasons for their relative scarcity as compared to hourglass and elliptical dulcimers?

I'd like to know possible reasons for their "relative scarcity", too.

Thanks for the postings, Dick.

Robin T

[razyn]

Lisa wrote: What are the reasons for their relative scarcity as compared to hourglass and elliptical dulcimers?

I'd like to know possible reasons for their "relative scarcity", too.

The casual answer is, y'all are Yankees and it's a southern instrument; even when there were a bunch of these in roadside antique shops (say 40 years ago, or so), they weren't along Ohio and New York roadsides. Now, there are a lot of dulcimer collectors, and no steady supply of these anywhere -- even on eBay. So, they are scarce.

However. Thomas and Amburgey instruments are also scarce, and there were a ton of those made. Allen Smith didn't find all of them, any more than he found all extant TMBs, but he did find a bunch. Sandy Conatser had a TMB census going, and when she published her article (1998) she and David had found 48 of them. More have turned up since 1998, but I don't know how many more (and don't know whether she's still counting).

Another problem is that the TMB is not intrinsically a very beautiful object, if you don't play it. The ones I have seen (not nearly as many as Sandy found, but maybe ten or twelve) were kept under a bed, by players; and in an attic or an outbuilding by anybody else. If they sat on the ground, the termites et 'em. If in a hayloft or an attic, rodents nested in them (after suitably enlarging at least one soundhole). Flying squirrels make bigger holes than mice, btw. Both leave nutshells, seed hulls, fluffy nesting materials and rodent poop inside the dulcimer. Giving it a certain aura.

After a while, most of these became nice dry poplar firewood, and ultimately that accounts for their scarcity (it gets cold every winter).

Frimp, or other builders who may still be following this thread -- I didn't think to mention it, but the top, bottom, and the top edges of the fingerboard are not left with sharp, 90 degree edges. The only corners left square are the bottom edges of the fingerboard, and the mitered corners on the sides (they are only square after you nail them together). Everything else is rounded a bit, with a rasp or sandpaper or whatever. Discourage splintering, however you can.

Many of these (including our double one) were not decorated, varnished or finished in any way, and are found with the wood silvered. I used linseed oil (or maybe Finish Feeder, that also contained turpentine and a little beeswax) on mine, 44 years ago.

The "poplar" used is yellow poplar, or tulipwood -- not one of the other species, most of which aren't native to the Tennessee Valley anyhow. The top and bottom are one wide plank. If you can't find lumber that big and need to joint two or more pieces, of course those edges that you're going to glue together are left square. I wouldn't get too hung up on the poplar bit, use any hardwood you can find and don't mind planing; but something of similar density would presumably sound more like the old ones.

And the strings are fairly heavy, I believe .014 inch. I put these on a long time ago. Can check with a micrometer if somebody really wants to know. [Edit: I checked, .014 is correct.]

Dick

[KenH]

I think the fact that they weren't pretty is the biggest reason they're not still around.

"What's that?"
"Some old box of Gramma's"
"Ain't worth nuthin', throw it out."

[razyn]

Or, the inversion of that -- the fact that the hourglass ones *were* sort of pretty explains why more of them were kept around, whether anybody was playing them or not. Same with fiddles; the wood was too pretty to burn (unless it got really, really cold). Quilts are pretty AND keep you warm. Most other old stuff only stayed out of the fireplace if there was a good reason to hold onto it -- Grandpa made it for his bride, or that sort of thing. Obsolete wooden tools, piggins, treenware, etc. -- all of that flammable and otherwise useless stuff is scarce.

There is a little tendency among the modern makers of dulcimers, and for that matter lots of other things (the "minstrel banjo" and the Gibson F5 mandolin leap to mind), to take the finest surviving example as the norm (as if it ever was), and try to reproduce or "improve upon" that. John Putnam referred in 1961 to "the tradition, artistry, and ability of the craftsman." The last two get a lot more respect than the tradition. The TMB is in my opinion deeply rooted in a tradition (with or without the psalmodikon -- but I think, with) in which a clear premium is placed on simplicity, for its own sake. Remember the Shaker hymn? It's a Gift to be Simple.

The homely, bulky TMB may not have been cherished as an heirloom after the last player in any given household died; and you may never see dozens of them on sale at a juried crafts fair -- but it's still a functional instrument, that once had a niche, was popular there, and sounded just fine.

Dick