Gut Strings on Early Mountain Dulcimers

[Robin the Busker]

Hi Ken,

Yep - that's why I was questioning those statements about gut strung mountain dulcimers. I got to thinking that if mountain folk in some communities were building such an instrument then it would possibly need different design features to the ones we are used to seeing? But so far, one doesn't appeared to have turned up!!!!

Robin

[folkfan]

Robin, Is there much difference in the basic construction design for stringing between a gut strung Spanish guitar and a wire strung English guitar/cittern? I don't know much about guitar construction, but if there isn't then why would a dulcimer need a different construction for the same type of stringing?

Thought this page was interesting on early guitars in the colonies. I was looking for info on guitars since they were a more common long string instrument generally than a mountain dulcimer.

http://www.19thcenturyguitar.com/index. ... &Itemid=73

[KenH]

FF - it has to do with the difference in how guitars and dulcimers make their sound. The huge top of a guitar can be easily vibrated, even with gut strings, but dulcimer have much less area which can be vibrated.

[strumelia]

I recently discussed a parallel issue with Randy Adams over on fotmd. Randy plays fretless dulcimer with a noter. Since both Randy and I play fretless banjo as well as playing mtn dulcimer, we were speculating as to why one can fret a fretless banjo with bare fingers and have it sound terrific, yet when one does the same on a fretless dulcimer the sound is muffled and inadequate. A banjo and a dulcimer have similarly sized vibrating surfaces, the same scale length, similar tunings.
There have been a couple of threads over the years here on the ED forum about trying gut and nylon strings on mtn dulcimers, and I seem to recall that those who tried it out were unable to elicit good tone and volume, at least when un-amplified.

Strumelia
http://dulcimer-noter-drone.blogspot.com/

[folkfan]

FF - it has to do with the difference in how guitars and dulcimers make their sound. The huge top of a guitar can be easily vibrated, even with gut strings, but dulcimer have much less area which can be vibrated.

That's one aspect of the construction that I wasn't thinking about. I'd been focusing on string length and problems with tuning pegs which would not necessarily have to change with gut or wire stringing on an instrument. But the volume produced by gut or wire stringing would definitely be different on a dulcimer. Therefore would call in the need for a difference in construction for a gut strung instrument rather than wire. "DUH Moment"

[Robin the Busker]

...A banjo and a dulcimer have similarly sized vibrating surfaces, the same scale length, similar tunings...

The big difference there is the thickness of the vibrating surface - the banjo being skin, the dulcimer wood - smaller strength vibrations move more air on tensioned skin leading to amplification.

Robin, Is there much difference in the basic construction design for stringing between a gut strung Spanish guitar and a wire strung English guitar/cittern? I don't know much about guitar construction, but if there isn't then why would a dulcimer need a different construction for the same type of stringing?

There is significant difference in construction. Spanish guitar are very lightly build - particularly the soundboards. A "western" guitar is strongly braced to take either the downpressure of a floating bridge or the twisting created by a fixed bridge. The Spanish guitar top will collaps from the downpressure of steel strings strung from a tailpiece and the bridge will either rip out or the top bow if steel strings are added to a fixed bridge on a Spanish guitar. I know that from personal experience of playing around with string conversions on Spanish guitars. Additionally, the vibrations from the bridge on both the banjo and the Spanish guitar are directed into the heart of the soundboard ( or skin). On a dulcimer the bridge sits at the edge of the soundboard.

These are the reasons why I'm particularly interested in finding out if there are any examples of old gut strung mountain dulcimers - as to make something that was effective as an instrument you'd probably want to make a few design adjustments compaired to the constructions familier to us? Something simple like a floating bridge - violin style - could make all the difference between the instrument working or not with gut strings (like the design of Dave Lynch's performace models where the bridge cotacts the soundboard directly and some way inboard of the instrument's tail). I don't know for sure if that design change would work for gut strings as I've not tried it myself. Ken Blooms suggestion of a very, very light build over ribs could work - although I'm not sure if the mountain folk would have the luthier skills for that? IF gut strung dulcimers did exist than the construction would have to be pretty simple I guess - perhaps just a bigger sound box and a floating bridge a little more "inboard" than usual?

Also, when Howard Brockway in that 1917 article talks about different "dulcimores" some gut strung and some wire strung we have no idea what he was looking at? His interest was in the tunes rather than the instruments. If you think about the gut strung mountain banjo - lay that on your lap like a dulci banjo, add a few staples, and it should work (I've not tried it to find out). Howard Brockway describes how some players swear by quills for strumming and others swear by leather - it is a pitty he didn't go into such deatail about the instrument design!!!!!

Anyway - the existance of gut strung mountain dulcimers is all supposition until someone actually posts that they have seen one!

[Ken Bloom]

HI Robin,

All this talk about guitars and banjos is not really relavent to discussing the construction of dulcimers. They are zithers. Let's look at the concert zither in its early days from 1867 to around the Turn of the Century. They were small compared to the modern ones and strung with a combination of steel and gut strings. The fingerbgoard used a combination of plain steel, plain bronze and wound steel strings. The accompaniement, bass and contra bass strings were either plain gut or gut wound with thin copper wire. It is possible to have gut strings that will sound perfectly good when plucked on a zither type of instrument where the back is the true soundboard. Good zithers use spruce for both top and back, often veneered to look like rosewood. The langeleik is often constructed almost entirely of spruce with the exception of the endblocks.
I seem to recall that in L. Allen Smith there is reference to gut strings being found with one of the few bowed dulcimers listed. I am guessing that they were most likely some violin strings that were used for the instrument. I'll have to go back and search it out. The bottom line here is that if you take a different approach to construction and build the instrument specifically for gut or nylon strings, it is possible to have dulcimer that will sound good. I have never seen a pre-war example of this for a plucked dulcimer. Doesn't mean it didn't happen. Our picture of the past is still too sketchy to draw much in the way of firm conclusions. The further back you go, the hazier the picture is. Hope this is helpful.

Ken Bloom
http://www.boweddulcimer.com

[Robin the Busker]

Hi Ken,

That was very useful - thanks!

We'll have to wait and see if anyone comes up with an old gut string mountain dulcimer. I too think that if such an instrument existed then the design would need to be a little different to a steel strung - although I don't know what those differences would need to be.

Robin

[strumelia]

Another interesting aspect of this subject is that banjos were pretty much all gut strung before 1910. In 1912 the Vega company began marketing their steel strung factory-made banjos. (Around 1915 the tenor banjo was invented, coinciding with the developing 'tango craze', and the tenor banjo was strung in steel, tuned in 5ths like the mandolin rather than in open drone-based tunings, and played with a plectrum/pick).
So if by 'early dulcimers' you mean dulcimers made before 1910, then it seems that surviving dulcimer examples from say 1850-1900 (and the earliest verified surviving example of our Appalachian dulcimer is dated 1832, metal strung) all appear to have had metal strings, while (as far as I know) all surviving banjos from that same time period had gut strings.

[fortytwo]

Check the thread just above this one by banjimer: Traditional Music Treasures from the Past; second post about "lonesome tunes"

"HOW TO PLAY THE DULCIMORE
At rare intervals in our search we encountered a fiddle, old, used to service and evidently a member of the family, with all the distinguishing traits of rough appearance and dependable quality. More frequently we found the "dulcimore," which is the real indigenous Appalachian instrument. It is made in the mountains and fits its environment in quite a charming and piquant way. It seems most thoroughly a part of the spirit of the culture represented by the old songs! In shape it is most like a "pochette," the little instrument carried by dancing-masters in the olden days, although very much larger of course. It is strung with three strings, either gut or wire. Two of these are tuned in unison while the third is tuned a fifth below. The outer one of the two in unison is the only frettled string, the other two supplying a drone bass, giving somewhat the effect of the bagpipe. The dulcimore (accent on the last syllable) is held on the knees and the strings are plucked with a piece of leather or a quill. The melody is played upon the fretted string, for which purpose a quill or small stick is employed. We found that the dulcimore players were very particular as to the media employed, and that the adherents of the different schools, divided by the use of quill or leather, were distinctly temperamental in their allegiance! "

It would seem that in 1917 "dulcimores" with gut strings existed in the Appalachian Mountains.

[kwl]

Fortytwo, there was not a thread above this one when I read you post. Which thread of Banjimer's are you referring to in your post? Is the relatively new one on Musical Treasures From The Past?

Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

[fortytwo]

Ken:
Well it was above this thread until I posted ... Then ascending sort took over. Yeah, it's the Traditions of the Past, now below this one. What a great collection of our musical heritage banjimer has pointed us to. Costing me lots of time though!