The Tennessee Music Box

[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

[Frimp]

Dick, it all just gets gooder and gooder. I wondered recently about those very things, i.e.:

What type of finish was used, historically
What gauge of strings was used
If the fretboard ends were square or beveled

Another question I have is "Did they usually use steel (as from a snuffbox)for the nut and bridge ends, or did they use tin sometimes?" I have both available - the steel from an Altoids mint box, or sheet tin.

Also, did the makers sand the exteriors of the boxes to any great degree before putting on (or leaving off) the finish? Thanks!

[razyn]

Several TMBs (including Miss Ida's and Gerald Young's) had a very dark, old varnish stain. But I wouldn't swear it was original; that is, the dark varnish may later have been applied over an original finish (or lack of one). I don't think the same brain was behind stenciling "THE WONDERFUL HARMONICA," and varnishing it in a way that makes that virtually invisible. Also, looking at the photos in Sandy's article (linked in my first post above), some with incised carving either weren't finished, or maybe have been chemically stripped in more modern times.

I can't say where they got the sheet metal, but it's thin; snuff box sounds about right, but it would take a pretty big box -- maybe more like a pipe tobacco can? And on the few I remember well, this metal was rusty -- so I doubt if it was tin, or plated in tin. Blued metal would look good, if you know how to do that (I don't). Dimensions (when flat) would be 1 7/8" by 6 1/4" for the piece at the picking end, 1 7/8" by 3" at the nut end. The sheet metal is tacked to the projecting edge of the soundboard, and to the fingerboard (besides being crimped over). Then at one end it has two larger nails through it (for looping the doubled string), and at the other end the longer piece has four big eye screws through it. Not likely to fall apart. [Edit: while I had the micrometer out to check the string gauge, I tried to measure the thickness of the sheet metal. I couldn't really find a place where it's loose enough to get one of the micrometer jaws clear underneath; but it's very close to the same thickness as the strings -- perhaps as much as .016 inch. Maybe I can dig out some old feeler gauges to compare with it, eyeball style. Haven't tuned my own car engine, lately -- they went all digital on me.] [Second edit: with feeler gauges, measured flat, in several spots -- the sheet metal seems to be .019 inch thick.]

I don't know about sanding, certainly no effort has been made to make it shiny and glossy, apply a French polish or any of that nonsense. But as I suggested, these have mostly been found after fifty or more years in very casual storage conditions. Mine was silvered (had been in the sun a lot), and very dirty, contained mouse detritus and I believe a mud dauber nest -- took a lot of shaking (and olive tongs) to get all the stuff out of those little holes. I probably used something like dampened 000 steel wool to wash the outside surfaces, and maybe also to apply Finish Feeder or boiled linseed oil.

That stuff can kill you, by the way -- if you leave oil dampened rags or paper towels in a wastebasket overnight. It heats up as it dries, and spontaneously combusts. Luckily the time it happened to me, I was too poor to have a separate shop, so it happened in the room next to where I was sleeping and woke me up. I threw the metal wastebasket out the second story window, and didn't burn down the apartment building. Inhaled a lot of oily smoke, though. This was back before regular people had smoke detectors. I guess maybe libraries had them.

Anyway -- about sanding. Isn't it fairly modern for that to be a standard procedure? Seems to me I've read that scraping was the norm. With a cabinet scraper, or even with glass. I don't have much personal expertise in that area. I have been known to use the paint recipe from an 1810 Domestic Encyclopedia (it involved dry cottage cheese, quicklime, and the dust from a pulverized brick), but that wasn't on an instrument. Probably Thud or some other reenactor in our midst knows all about this.

Anyway, not all TMBs looked just alike, and they were made by lots of people -- even lots of Goodmans.

Dick

[Frimp]

Hmmm... that box looks mighty familiar to me!

[razyn]

There's a thread over on "Playing Mountain Dulcimers," a forum I virtually never look at (because I rarely get around to playing mine, any more), that should be linked here. So I'm linking it. It has a lot of photos.

http://everythingdulcimer.com/discuss/v ... hp?t=19666

That's in most ways a very accurate modern copy (by Don Neuhauser) of one of the Goodman style TMBs. On the old ones, the exposed edges of the top and bottom boards are much more rounded; the nut isn't notched; and the frets (staples) don't seem to me to be driven in quite so deeply (i.e. they stand up higher, by their full thickness). And I haven't seen feet on a TMB; it's a sound idea, but not to my knowledge originally present in this tradition. However, I haven't seen any other TMB copies anywhere near this close to the original ones.

Dick

[razyn]

Another TMB thread, with photos of a LOT of old instruments:

http://www.everythingdulcimer.com/discu ... hp?t=20097

Dick

[razyn]

I've posted a video clip of my wife and me playing the double TMB that's been described and discussed on this thread. It's on Lisa's Ning site, but I think one can view it whether one is a member there or not. If this url doesn't work for you, try it without the title of the song (snip it off after "video/"), and then click on the one that has that title.

http://mountaindulcimer.ning.com/video/ ... -old-woman

This is just offered as a public service, since most of the TMBs currently being played out there are not old, not double, or neither.

Dick

[razyn]

I was looking at the blog of an antiquarian book dealer in Tennessee this morning, and happened upon this video clip of a nice book fair that was held in July (for the first time) in the little town of Cowan, TN. That's sort of a suburb of Winchester, over a mountain to the NW of Chattanooga. Henry Steele, about whom I've written on ED, made a form of the TMB until about 1970 at his home near Belvidere, in this same area.

By way of local color (I guess), there's dulcimer music being played in the background. About 2:12 into the clip, one actually sees the dulcimers in question -- and they are the TMB type, of which several are displayed on a table. I would guess that one of the guys playing them would be the maker of these TMBs. Many of you on ED may know them, but I don't. Anyway, thought I'd share it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jcznd5hxu8

[rdmadison]

Dick,
You made my morning.
Trains, old books, and dulcimers.

If there'd been a binocular or a canoe, I'd have to move to Cowan.

Bob