Sal Monella - Posted - 06/04/2015:  21:40:05

Hi all,

I am going camping this weekend with a group of friends who have cobbled together some homemade instruments, pretty much a jug band if you will. One of my friends is a musician and he plays a wash tub bass. Last year I played a stick dulcimer and there was an actual mountain dulcimer in the group so things were okay. He told us last year to just strum along with the beat and everything will be fine. My wife commented that it sounded pretty good.

Earlier this year I picked up a banjo and have been learning it tuned to open G. So now if I want to play with that dulcimer, how should I be tuned to make things sound okay? My skill level is very basic but I'm thinking that by playing the basic rolls I know and strumming at times things might work out. Is there an easy way for tuning my banjo to fit in with the dulcimer?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Sal

Crabber - Posted - 06/04/2015:  21:51:21

Most dulcimer players play in D with the dulcimer tuned DAD or DADD or DAA.  Just put a capo at 2nd fret & play along in D  like you would if you were playing with old time fiddlers.

Sal Monella - Posted - 06/04/2015:  21:54:19

So when you say "play along in D", does that mean that my G, C, and D chords will be the same or are there different shapes when I have that capo on?

Culloden - Posted - 06/05/2015:  04:59:51

If you capo on the second fret to play in D you will be using C,F,and G chords. Your chord shapes will not change they will just be transposed into a higher key.

Also, some dulcimer players use G tuning so you may not have to change anything. Dulcimers are usually tuned in a pattern( Gddd, Daaa, Aeee) etc., but not necessarily in a standard key. There is not really a set standard tuning. They are pretty easy to retune and some dulcimer players use several tunings..

Edited by - Culloden on 06/05/2015 05:16:39

George Flink - Posted - 06/05/2015:  05:37:36

Also, if you are playing in G, retune your 5th. string to an a. You should be able to do that with no problem about breaking the string.

thisoldman - Posted - 06/05/2015:  06:36:33

I play a little dulcimer, so I will weigh in here.  Not that my understanding of theory is real strong, but others more knowledgeable will correct me.

The "standard" tunings for dulcimer are DAD and DAA, as you know from playing your stick dulcimer. There are other tunings, of course, but for the sake of simplicity in your jug band I am guessing you and your dulcimer player  friends were sticking to one of those 2 tunings (most likely DAD).  Again, as you know, In DAD, the A is the 5th and the D (bottom string) is an octave lower than the top D.   The lap  dulcimer is played in 3 basic ways (1) noter-drone, playing the melody mostly on the d ("top" string ) with the a (middle) and D (bottom) strings as the drones, (2) chord-melody style, again playing the melody mostly on the top string, but adding chords (barre, V, L and slant shapes) on all three strings and (3) finger-style.  Accompanying them would get more complex as you move from noter-drone (the simplest) to finger style (more complex).  So if you all were in the same tuning, strumming on the stick dulcimer (fretting the top/melody string and letting the bottom strings ring out as drones) would work well, as you know.

If I were just thinking back up, they were tuned (and staying in) DAD, and my banjo skills are pretty basic (I know mine are),  I would consider keeping it simple and  tuning to D, and use a barre at the 5th fret (G) or 7th (A) and vamping, and maybe some rolls (open D?)  as you are thinking.  If they are tuned to DAA, (the top string on the dulcimer is now tuned to A, same as the middle string) then I would think about keeping the G tuning, capo up 2 frets  and my usual chord shapes (but now moved up 2 frets).

If you want to give it a trial, go to everythingdulcimer.com/tab/index.php and play along with some of the midi or tef files and see what it sounds like.

thisoldman - Posted - 06/05/2015:  08:27:32

Got to thinking (duh) that if they played in DAD, you could tune to D and just do what you did last time (ignore the 5th string on the banjo). That would keep it real simple.  

It would be nice if you could use the same chord shapes on the banjo (tuned in D and using 1,2 and 4 strings) as you do on the dulcimer in DAD tuning,  but since the banjo has a chromatic scale and the dulcimer a diatonic scale, that would not work.

Good luck and, above all, have fun.

Edited by - thisoldman on 06/05/2015 08:45:30

Sal Monella - Posted - 06/05/2015:  10:41:02

Thanks everybody for your help. Much appreciated.
Sal

Jim Yates - Posted - 06/05/2015:  11:00:04

Since the late Jean Ritchie was my introduction to the dulcimer, I feel most comfortable in the tuning she seemed to prefer in the early sixties, DAA.  Using this tuning, you can accompany a 3 chord song in D, using some basic chord shapes.  D-302, A-201 or 403 and G-313.

There are capos for the dulcimer.  I've used the same one for thirty years, made from a chop stick and an elastic band, but lately I've seen factory made capos.  The Bic pen lid capo can also be used to raise the pitch of the bass string.  Unfortunately, capoing a dulcimer is more complicated than capoing a banjo, since the relationship between the diatonically spaced frets changes once you put the capo on, so it is used to play in different modes rather than just changing the key.

Edited by - Jim Yates on 06/05/2015 11:06:24