11/E. My Fifth Dulcimer
Portability and Space
Finding the right dulcimer, I have concluded, is about making a series of compromises. The preceding instruments that I have discussed each have their strengths and weaknesses. Each is right for a particular musical purpose and for use in a particular playing context, but perhaps not so good for others. Concerns that have struck me as being increasingly import over recent years are the issues of portability and space. When playing alongside a band of musicians in a small room in a pub (particularly the 'micro-pubs' that have appeared increasingly in East Kent over recent years) these issues are of increasing concern. Whilst, large dulcimers with elaborate stands are fine when you have lots of room and do not have to carry your instrument far, there are other times when these things matter quite a lot and my fifth dulcimer was purchased with these constraints in mind.
The Music Magic Harmony Dulcimer
The fifth dulcimer was a 12/12 Music Magic Harmony Dulcimer built by Tim Manning. For details of the various models of Harmony dulcimer see the Music Magic website.
The Harmony is a fairly basic instrument, which is modestly priced and well suited to the needs of a beginner. They are robustly constructed with laminated woods, but do not have the same tone quality that you would expect with natural woods (or the same price tag!). I found mine on Ebay where I paid £50 for it (this was actually less that the cost of the case that I bought for it!). It was a bargain, but it is often possible to buy second-hand dulcimers quite cheaply on Ebay, particularly when they do not seem to attract much buyer attention.
Having payed a relatively small sum for the dulcimer, I felt no unease about making several adaptations to make it more suitable for the purposes for which I needed it.
The first thing was the tuning. A standard 12/12 dulcimer would commonly be tuned to give the lowest note on the bass bridge (at the bottom right of the dulcimer) as the G below middle C. This would be OK if you only needed to play in the key of G, but means that playing in the key of D needs to be in the higher part of the dulcimer and (to my ear) this sometime sounds a bit thin. For my purposes (playing quite a lot of English traditional dance music in the key of D) the dulcimer needed to go down to the D below middle C to enable tunes be played an octave lower. To achieve this the dulcimer would have to be restrung with heavier gauge strings to allow it to be tuned four notes lower (six semi-tones) so that the low D would be available. In fact, on the Harmony there is one note below the key note at the bottom end, so this meant that the lowest note would actually be C#. Of course, gaining notes at the lower end would mean that less notes would be available at the higher end but for my use, in playing quite a lot of dance music in the keys of G and D, this was not a problem.
The critical question was whether the dulcimer was sufficiently robust to take the additional stresses that would be involved in using heavier gauge strings to obtain the lower notes. Erring on the side of caution, I contacted the maker, Tim Manning, to enquire about this. He confirmed that it would be OK to do this and provided some helpful advice on the string gauges that I would need to restring the dulcimer to achieve the lower notes.
Health Warning - my experience in restringing this 12/12 dulcimer to achieve the lower notes was fairly unproblematic, but it would be rash to assume that this is something that can be done on all dulcimers. If you planned to do this, the best advice would surely be to make contact with your dulcimer maker to check that your instrument is constructed to withstand the greater stresses and to check on the string gauges that would be needed. I feel sure that different dulcimers are different in this respect and it would be best to check this beforehand with someone who is likely to know the answer.
This is the top view of the Harmony dulcimer as adapted with its spike. Note the adaptations: 1/ a tapping block at the top of the dulcimer (next to the convenient bit of blue tack); 2/ the strip of velcro along the left side to prevent broken strings from flying off and doing damage; 3/ the various bits of gold and silver paper that remind me where the Ds and Gs are; and 4/ an internal pick up at the bottom left.
This is the underside of the Harmony as adapted. Note: 1/ the black sticky backed foam material to prevent the dulcimer from sliding about when played on the knees; 2/ the five fixing plates - the top middle plate is used to attach the spike and the other four can be used to attach shorter pieces of dowel to raise the dulcimer at an angle when being played on a table top; 3/ the circular hole with the three screws was needed to install the internal pick up (which is visible at the bottom right) as the internal braces to this dulcimer run crosswise rather than up and down. The internal pick up was expertly fitted by my friend Ade Dawkins of Dover, who likes a challenge, it seems!
This is the bag for the dulcimer, with a convenient reminder to listeners of the name of the instrument. On the top of the bag are pieces of dowling of different lengths to screw into the underside to enable table top playing and a smaller bag containing a stringing chart and spare strings.
This shows the Harmony being played resting upon a table top and taking up a minimal amount of space. This is a folk music session organised and photographed by Simon Dundas at the Five Bells, Eastry, near Sandwich, April 2019.