Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?

Subject: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 10:01 PM

I am really intrigued with this. Anyone played one of these?.

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 10:21 PM

I have a hammered dulcimer, but whether one could call what I do "playing.."

This looks interesting. Standard "traditional" HD's have the bridge set to generate a fifth. Probably intended to be easier and quicker to pick up by those who had the piano as their first instrument.

Would require a different mindset to play, not unlike a standard English concertina Vs my Lachlan McCann System English Concertina...

The only real important thing, though, is what does it SOUND like?

The Quality of the instrument, I mean.

Robin

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 10:48 PM

I have a confession to make. When I first became intrigued by the hammer dulcimer I couldn't afford one, so I built one from scratch. (No, it did not work very well, but it was serviceable.) Anyway, I didn't know how to tune it, so I tuned it chromatically and it was ridiculously difficult to play. When I finally got a book that showed how to tune it "properly" (fifth-tuned diatonic) it was so much easier.

As all hammer dulcimer players know, the wonderful thing about diatonic tuning is that if you hit the wrong note, it's usually at least a note within the scale of the key you're playing in so it doesn't sound too horrible. If you're playing in the key of C, you have to really go out of your way to play a C# instead of a C natural. With chromatic tuning all those nasty sharps and flats are right there within easy mistake range. Gives me the heebie-jeebies to even think about it.      

I'm sure that this piano dulcimer instrument would be great for a piano player to do hymns and airs on, but I sure wouldn't wanna try anything clippy on it.

Bruce

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: Bert
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 10:55 PM

I have a Santur and each course of strings has it own bridge so it can be tuned however you like.

Never did learn to play the damned thing though.

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 11:43 PM

Hmmm...well having played the piano since I was a kid and growing up with piano players, I thought maybe this would be easier for me to learn than the trad. kind, BUT you all have given me some things to think about. Thanks! Whichever, I'm going to start saving up for one.:-)

Bert, give it a voice, man!**bg** (Nicetaseeya!)

kat

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Sep 03 - 10:27 AM

I also think that it would be quite different if "multi-hammering" - that is, to play with more than one hammer in each hand, as per Xylophone techniques...

Depending on where the notes were arranged, it could be a nightmare to try and get a consistent spread with the hammers, unlike the fifth-tuned style, as well the previous comment about the diatonic/chromatic stuff.

That's why I prefer whistles to recorders, (I have both) it's almost imposible to play a wrong note on the whistle, long as you have the right key ...

Probably will suit certain styles of music better than the standard setup, but exactly what, I can't say. Referring to the English Concertina / Anglo instruments, certain styles of music fit on each better.

Mine is triple strung, with individual bridges. Until I got the positions exact, the damn thing wouldn't hold tune...

Wonder what the ratio between the two sides of the bridge is, the standard is 1:2 I think, this one would be ... 11:12?

Each style would be just as difficult to learn, I would think, but like playing left-handed guitar, you would not be able to pick up someone else's standard instrument, either to try it, of if you were going to borrow an instrument because yours was unavailable for any reason...

BTW, They did make Piano Accordions with a keyboard on each side, but soon discovered that the left hand was not as free to move as the right hand because of the necessity to control the bellows, so they didn't sell very many of them... :-) maybe in a hundred years this instrument may be VERY VALUABLE... :-)

Robin

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 27 Sep 03 - 10:49 AM

Kat, as you know I also have noodled around with plucked psalteries, and in my case I tried that because my shoulders and wrists were not up to hammering. Hammer dulcimer would have been my first choice of instrument had I been physically able. So speaking as a player, although I think this may seem counter-intuitive, my first reaction to the photo was that having gotten used to the psaltery, you could transfer your diatonic picking to chromatic hammering pretty easily, although you might want to mark the "black" strings.

What I can't tell from the product description is how the string layout/tuning differs from other more affordable chromatic hammered dulcimers. Had you investigated those?

Suggest you also try hammering a tabletop autoharp. It's a lot of fun, and cheap. Needs a heavier hammer though, like an iced tea spoon, or a wooden cooking spoon with the handle flattened for a good grip. You hammer in an arpeggio (R hand) while chording (L), having turned the harp around with chord bars to your left, on a surface tilted up toward you a bit.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 27 Sep 03 - 11:57 AM

Yes kat, I think it could be fun! Is there anyone anywhere that can play it? Seems the most difficult part of the hand-eye continuum with my dulcimer playing is the long reach, big jump, fast paced, all over the place type of tune... and this one is going to be tough... the advantages of this dulcimer though, are the actual existence of all of the notes (big yeah), and no reason to migrate far from the center bridge with wild bass attempts...

...personally though, I'm gonna wait for the bass notes...
ttr

PS... are the overtones "sympathetic"?

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: John P
Date: 27 Sep 03 - 12:17 PM

I've fooled around on the piano dulcimer a bit. I have the advantage of working at Dusty Strings, so there's usually one near at hand if I feel like playing. I'm a piano player, and after 14 years of being intimtely involved with the building of hammered dulcimers, talking about hammered dulcimers, demonstrating hammered dulcimers, and hearing just about every player who ever showed up in Seattle, I never learned to play the damn thing. Then we made the piano dulcimer. The tuning scheme immediately made sense to me, unlike the traditional pattern. As far as ergonomics and speed of playing, I don't think it's any harder or easier to play than the others, just different. I like the fact that it is a fully chromatic instrument in a relatively small package. If you need the chromatic notes, it's a LOT easier than the traditionaly tuned diatonic instuments that have had the chromatic notes added here and there. The Elderly link given above only shows the PD30, the piano dulcimer with a laminated top. It sounds fine, bright and well-balanced, but if you like more depth and richness, there is also the PD40, which has a solid mohagany top and back and an extra octave of range, on the same size frame. You can also get dampers on the PD40, which add some very cool possibilites.

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 28 Sep 03 - 01:00 AM

From the link: "New design for piano players and other musicians who like the sound of the hammered dulcimer, but don't wish to learn its tuning system."

I'm reminded of the piano that my father brought home when mother got the notion of making musicians of the kids. It was quite obviously a standard 30s - 40s era upright, but with "honky tonk" accessories. Depressing the middle pedal made it sound quite a bit like a hammered dulcimer, while rotating a little bar under the keyboard gave it a "tinkly bell" voice.

A bar running across in front of the strings had a small felt strip, about 1/4 inch wide and an inch or so long, just in front of each string course, with a common (round) paper clip on the end of each felt strip. Pressing the middle pedal lowered the bar so that the paper clip was between the hammer and the string course. The sound was about what you'd expect from "hammering" the strings with a light hard mallet instead of with the usual (piano) felt hammer.

The tinkly sound was from a similar row of small brass(?) balls, on strings, that moved to lay against the strings when you rotated the control rod. They just bounced (tinkled) on the strings that moved.

I haven't seen another like it, although I've looked casually at quite a number of similar-era pianos in the antique/junk shops. I don't know if it was a "factory" arrangement, or if it was an "after market" addition. I've heard recordings that seem to have the same "sound," but it's hard to tell if it's just a bad recording(?).

John

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Sep 03 - 01:34 AM

What does Spaw think of this?

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Sep 03 - 07:54 PM

My understanding is that hammered dulcimer players don't think in terms of scales, but rather of patterns of hammering, the same way guitarists are likely to think in terms of chord fingerings.

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Sep 03 - 10:30 PM

I once saw a muso insert into the felt hammers of a piano, those large flatheaded brass thumb tacks to make the piano give that certain sound for a musical number in pantomime performance in a theatre...

Robin

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: Gypsy
Date: 28 Sep 03 - 11:11 PM

Only have anectdotal words............if you play the piano, you will have a fine time with this instrument. If you play the hammered dulcimer, and look at it as a totally NEW instrument to learn, you will have a fine time. Otherwise, it is like being given Postum when you expect coffee..........not good. The setup in tuning is WAY different between the two beasties. But, the piano dulcimer (as i have been told) is a fine instrument, and sounds terrific. Wouldn't wanna try to switch betwixt the two on a regular basis,tho!

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Sep 03 - 08:46 AM

OK, so now I just have to ask -
why call it a "Piano" and not a "Chromatic" HD?

It's just the pianist in me...

Robin
The Twelve Inch Pianist...

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Sep 03 - 10:35 AM

Well, I didn't name it, that's all I know!**bg**

Thanks, everyone.

JohnP...I was wondering what you'd have to say about this, knowing your music, background, and workplace. Thanks for telling us.

Gypsy, that's about what I thought. I think this would be easy for me to learn based on my years of piano playing. So...saving my pennies now.

Thanks, again, to all,

kat

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 29 Sep 03 - 11:00 AM

Sort of a Dolciola without the piano keyboard. Interesting.

Check out

http://personal.vallnet.com/mead/restorat.htm

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Sep 03 - 06:29 PM

How interesting, Art! Thanks for the link. The old ad for it was neat, too!

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: Kaleea
Date: 30 Sep 03 - 05:28 AM

Who needs a piano when they have a hammered dulcimer? They're both percussion instruments!

OK, 'catters, now for the age old question: Did it originally come from China or the Middle-East (Persia or somplace thereabouts)? AND . . .who first brought it to America?

   and then there's the one about . . .
      How many times is the Dulcimer mentioned in The Bible? (King James version)
Things that make you go, "hmmmm. . ."

So a few years back, I was playing Mountain Dulcimer with a friend who was playing Hammered Dulcimer, at a local Living Museum set in the late 1800's, when some folks came by & watched intently. The lady said that in her country, Iran, there were many people who played an instrument just like my friends' instrument, including members of her family. I can't recall now what she called it, in what she said was "Persian." She was truly fascinated that she would see such an obviously Eastern instrument being played in America.

Then, a year or 2 ago when I was at the Walnut Valley Festival in Kansas, there was a fellow in the Hammered Dulcimer contest with a very interesting and quite ornate Hammered Dulcimer, which was finished in black laquer with lots of mother of pearl inlay. He was the winner that year. He came from China, his Music was amazing & he really wowed 'em all that year! He certainly is a fantastic Musician who deserved to win the contest that year!

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: John P
Date: 30 Sep 03 - 10:05 AM

Foolestroupe,
It's not called a chromatic dulcimer because there are already lots of instruments that are tuned in the traditional pattern that have been made chromatic. They have been called chromatic dulcimers for years. Besides, the tuning of the piano dulcimer is very linear, like the tuning on a piano. The scale pattern even follows, in a way, the expected pattern of white and black notes.

Kaleea,

Persia = santur
Indai = santoor
China = yang ch'in
Greece = santouri
Germany = hackbrett
Hungary = cymbalom

JP

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Sep 03 - 09:52 PM

And in England "dulcimer" - as much native here as in any of the other places.

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: Gypsy
Date: 30 Sep 03 - 10:15 PM

John, ye beat me to it! And thanks for the listing of different HD names in different countries..........cool!

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 30 Sep 03 - 10:17 PM

In Viet Nam it's a ku bing

In the Phil. Islands it's a morsing

Art

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 30 Sep 03 - 10:19 PM

WHOOPS----that's wrong.

Those are both forms of the jew's harp.

(sheepishly)--Art

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 30 Sep 03 - 10:21 PM

But the hammered dulcimer originated when a five year old kid took his mothers egg slicer and started to hit the strings with spoons ;-)

Art

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 05:49 AM

A good many years ago, I saw on TV an orchestra (have the vague memory that it was from somewhere in the Balkans) in whch the HD (it was at least an 11+12) guy was playing with metal fingerpicks - no hammers. Seems to think that he had dampers too, but can't be sure about that. They were all formally dressed in tails.

Robin

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 06 Oct 03 - 07:48 PM

I ran into hammer dulcimer player Marcille Wallis at an arts & crafts show over the weekend. (She was playing dulcimer and selling her CD's and I was selling pottery.) I asked her if she had heard of or played the piano dulcimer. She said that she had spent a week during the summer at the home of Sam Rizetta, the builder who invented the system. She said that she had tried one and it wasn't her cup of tea, but Sam could play the hell out of one of them. So, I guess I retract my earlier statement that it would probably be difficult to play quick tunes on. I guess it's all in what you get used to.

Bruce

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Oct 03 - 07:54 PM

Thanks, Bruce! Good to hear more on it and from such a great source, too!

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Oct 03 - 11:04 PM

I have a mountain dulcimer (was teaching myself to play it years ago with the aid of one of Jean Ritchie's books) and a hammered dulcimer. I've played the piano for years but since I don't know how to tune the HD I don't know if it is easy to switch over to that one or not. I inherited both of them.

They both look deceptively simple. . .

Subject: RE: Anyone played a piano hammered dulcimer?
From: GUEST,non-player
Date: 07 Oct 03 - 05:51 PM

I heard that there's an international cimbalon conference in Switzerland about now. All kinds of hammered dulcimers. Maybe someone would like to search for further information for this thread.