Course Content
Lesson 1: Tuning a Hammered Dulcimer (Linda)
3:59
Hi.
In this lesson, we're gonna study how to tune your hammered dossamer, And first, you need your equipment.
The first piece of equipment you need is the tuning wrench.
This is a t shaped tuning wrench.
There's also the gooseneck wrench, and either one work just fine.
Now, inside here, there's a star shape in my tuning wrench.
The tuning pins are actually square, so you don't wanna buy a tuning wrench that has a square inside.
Because if you do, as you turn over time, it'll wear down the edges of your tuning pins, then you won't be able to tune anymore.
My next piece of equipment is my pick.
I pluck my strings with a pick.
Now some people use their finger, but there's oil and even dirt on your fingers.
And over time, that will dull your strings.
Hammer dulcimer players don't change strings unless they break, so you wanna keep your strings clean as much as possible.
The next thing you need is your electronic tuner, a chromatic tuner.
And as you see these little lights are flashing, they let you know if you're too high or too low.
The goal is to get it in the green, which is just right.
And there's also a little arm in here that goes back and forth that helps you see if you're too high or too low.
Now my favorite piece of equipment is this.
It's the electronic tuner isolation pickup.
What it does is isolate your dulcimer from all the other sounds in the room.
You put the jack in over here, and then you clip the other end on the strings, and it'll pick up your dulcimer no matter how many other people are in the room trying to tune at the same time.
So now let's try to tune a string.
I've left my dulcimer untuned for a few days because of the weather.
I was preparing for this.
It's been cold and when the weather changes, your wood either expands or contracts.
And this causes the tension in the strings to change, which causes your bass player to go out of tune.
So, mine is out of tune, of course.
Let me start with the g string, and I'm gonna pluck my g string.
Let's see what I got.
Well, I got a red light, so it's too low.
Let's see if I can turn this that way.
And so I'm gonna follow my string very carefully and find the right place to put my wrench.
I start on the bass bridge and I go all the way up here, then I come over here on the treble bridge and go up to the right side of the treble bridge.
Then I go and check the left side of my treble bridge.
And a lot of times when you're first getting your belt smudges adjusted, you'll find the right side is perfect, but the left side is a little off.
Sometimes you can, help yourself with this problem by just gently lifting up the strings on either side of the bridge.
Sometimes it gets caught down in the groove, and it's not evenly distributed.
So you can just lift it up gently and lay it back down, and, that might help you with your tuning.
Now, some people just wanna tune the part of the dulcimer they're gonna use.
But when you play a string and it resonates and vibrates, all the other strings are actually vibrating along with it.
And you get a much prettier sound if all the strings are in tune at the same time.
It takes a long time to tune a hammered dulcimer, especially when you're starting, but it's well worth the effort because when your dulcimer sounds good, you'll practice longer and you'll enjoy it more.
Linda walks us through how to tune a hammered dulcimer.
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