rave: hammer dulcimer

[cellio]

tigerbright requested a rave on the hammer dulcimer. (See? I haven't forgotten after all! :-) ) The hammer dulcimer is a nifty instrument -- neat and distinctive sound, adaptable, and not nearly as hard to play as it looks. Really. Don't be scared off by all those strings -- it's a very logical instrument.

One of the nice things about this instrument is that if you correctly play even a naked melody line -- no chords, no ornaments, no fancy frills -- it will sound good, in a way that doing that on a piano doesn't. And then you can add in some of that other stuff and move from sounding good to sounding great. And the dulcimer is a percussion instrument, so some issues that come up with other instruments -- like intonation -- just don't apply. Sure, there are other subtleties, like in how you hold the hammer, but failures there do not result in playing the wrong notes. The dulcimer isn't the magnet that the harp is, quite, but it's pretty easy to sound decent even when you're a beginner. And then there's all sorts of room to do spiffy stuff that will impress you, your friends, and other dulcimer players.

Mind, you do have to tune all those strings, and that kind of sucks. Once an instrument settles in, though, it's not that big a deal for casual play. I've played concerts where I spent more time tuning than performing (and much moreso for recordings), but rehearsal-grade tuning absent wacky weather or long-time neglect takes 15 minutes, maybe 20. That's not bad at all. (As for weather, any wooden instrument is going to be sensitive to changes in temperature and pressure. But the dulcimer seems to be a little worse in that regard than guitars and woodwinds.)

The dulcimer lends itself particularly to diatonic music. For the non-musicians, very loosely that means playing a standard scale without accidentals, like playing C to C using only the white keys on a piano. (Musicians should forgive me the over-simplification.) Now if you're playing folk music, or even renaissance music (the types of music I most often play), there are certain accidentals that you need to add in and they're in useful places on the dulcimer. So really, if you're not trying to play some of the wacky 20th-century stuff, it works. And you can play very complex music on the dulcimer, though you're more limited than on a keyboard because you only have two hammers versus ten fingers. For those who know the piece: I once had Earl of Salisbury Pavane -- all of it minus about three notes -- up to performance level. It was high-maintenance, though, so it didn't stick around. Should have recorded it first; oh well.

Oh, and using hammers does not require the same kind of dexterity that playing many other instruments does, which has two implications: first, people who have problems with dexterity, like from arthritis, may find the dulcimer easier to play, and second, you can impress the hell out of people by playing very very quickly.

Comments

[cellio]

my hand eye coordination at a distance like that just wasn't working, whereas most other things I can pick up and play reasonably well in a matter of minutes.

Ah, there's something I hadn't considered. With a pick, your hand is very close to the string. Even with a bow, while your hand is far away the bow spends more time in contact with the strings (moving from the one you just played to the one you're about to play). All of that probably gives you more context than trying to strike a target with a 6- or 8-inch-long hammer.

Err, all I can say is that it does get better. As with all things, you just have to develop a feel for it. Yes, beginners miss a lot and tend to be heavy-handed, really pounding the strings rather than lightly brushing them, but it's a phase you get through.

[kyleri]

It reminds me, rather, of the difference between accuracy with a thrown object, and accuracy with a fired object (whether using a bow, a trebuchet, or a gun). They're quite different skills, at least in my experience...

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Ooh, also good point. I'm not half bad with a bow but can't even get stuff thrown into the bin to land in there most of the time. Which means I do better with a tool, which is the opposite of how it works with music, hmmm...

[kyleri]

Interesting indeed, innit...?

Hm...I tend to do better with throwing things rather than using a tool, but I'm afraid I don't have enough diversity in experience using instruments-with-tools to tell if there's any corrospondence either way...

[cellio]

When you're using something like a bow, you don't have to worry about propulsion -- just aim. When throwing, you have to integrate propulsion and aim.

I can shoot but I can't throw very well. :-)

[kyleri]

You know, you're right...hadn't thought it through that far.

So why, then, am I better at throwing than shooting...? :)

(Admittedly, it's probably a matter of practice; I throw things at the cats all the time...)

[cellio]

It could be a matter of practice. It could also be that you're not holding your body steady enough when shooting; minor variations in shooting do more harm, I suspect, than the same minor variations in the lead-up to throwing something. This is something a lot of beginning archers have trouble with; I can't speak to guns and trebuchets.

[kyleri]

Likely the case. I know it applies to guns. Not really trebuchets, I'd imagine, but then I've never shot one bigger than the tabletop kind.

[sue-n-julia.livejournal.com]

I tried the hammer dulcimer but, with poor depth perception and hand-eye issues, was hitting between the strings more than I was hitting the strings. So I moved to the harp (and have been happy since). I just need to start making more time for her.

S

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

I also personally like snuggling into my instrument rather than sitting formally at it, do you find that too? (hello fellow harper, btw!)

[cellio]

I am not trying to lure you away from the harp, of course, but I'd just like to point out that while I might not be the poster child for poor depth perception, I'm in the running. :-) So you could do it too, if you didn't have more important and appealing things to be doing.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

I don't think my eyesight is that great, is half the problem, one of the reasons I prefer to memorise sheet music then I don't have to keep glancing at it...

If I were more keen on the results I'd persevere but I've enough instruments to play that come to me more easily so I'll not try.. for now at least :)

[cellio]

Right -- no need to add yet another instrument to your queue. But just FYI, my vision corrects to about 20/40 and I wear bifocals and have wacky astigmatism and stuff like that, so poor vision isn't an automatic barrier.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Sorry, was short-handing it, wasn't really saying "I'm short-sighted" more saying I have trouble with certain things eyewise and it seems the things involved in hand-eye co-ordination for playing something like the dulcimer fall into the area where I already have a few weaknesses (maybe its my brain-hand co-ordination instead! :> ) I can play the guitar with my eyes shut so the seeing things thing isn't an issue so much.