Course Content
Lesson 1: Tuning Game (A)
4:48
Hi.
This is Steve Eulberg for dulcimercrossing.com.
And today we're gonna take a look at the hammered dulcimer.
I've got, some things up here so we can do some tuning of the instrument.
Back in the old days when I got my first hammered dulcimer 26 years ago, I it came with a wrench.
And there are 2 different kinds of wrenches.
You can have a T handled or a gooseneck wrench.
They're both adequate and just fine.
It's your personal preference.
Some people like one more than the other.
I tend to prefer the gooseneck, but that's just me.
The, the thing you've gotta determine is what is your gonna be your standard?
How are you you have all these strings to tune, how are you gonna know how to get them in tune?
When I first started playing, I had a pitch pipe, which when I blew like a harmonica or, the the pitch could go sharp or flat if I blew it too hard or too soft.
So then, I had I went and got a tuning fork and I have an a 440 here.
Let me see if I can my heel on my hand isn't hard enough.
I'm gonna do it on my knee.
Can you hear that?
Then I'd make all my a's match.
Now, that a can help me have the octave a.
Sounds just a hair sharp, so I'm gonna check it.
Using the tuning fork gave me what I call the tuning game.
So this a here in the top of the box, do re me fa sol la ti do, that's always where the the octave higher note is gonna be.
And so I tune this a and that give me that a.
That This a is gonna give me the one on the bass bridge that's over and up.
So from a mark to one above a mark is always gonna be the same note.
So that would give me that a, that this a, and that one sounds a little high.
So I'm gonna check that one.
Because the same pattern works from a mark to cross and one above the mark, is where I got that one.
So from the mark across and one above the mark.
Those are pretty close though.
Now the other pattern that happens is when you're one above a mark here, it's gonna be the same as one below the mark over here.
Well by golly they're pretty good.
So I'm gonna leave them.
Now this one, once again if I go up even though I'm not on a mark, I'm starting one above a mark.
1, 2, 3, 4 and over or 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
It's gonna give me an octave.
That lower one's just a little bit lower.
There's a couple of rules I follow when I'm tuning.
That is, I always pluck one string or the other.
I don't hit it because I want to hear just one pitch at a time.
And once I pluck, then I start tuning.
I never tune with turn with the wrench until I've plucked first.
That helps save broken strings.
What'll often happen, with students is we'll begin and they'll be doing all this, and they haven't plucked here, and they can't tell because there's no sound reinforcement to say, what have I just been doing?
Then, if you pluck here and you tune like this and you get a good quarter turn out of your wrench and nothing happened, your wrench isn't on the string that you're actually tuning.
So that's why I have this little rule of pluck, then move.
Pluck, then move.
And once I get one, I go and make sure the other one matches.
So this ends up being both an ear training exercise because you start hearing how the pitches match, but it's also part of the map of the dulcimer.
It helps you figure out the layout, and that's what I call the tuning game.
Because from this pitch fork, which is just one pitch, the a in one octave, I've been able to hear and tune all my A's.
Steve describes and demonstrates a non-linear tuning game he developed to help him both tune and learn where identical and related notes are on the hammered dulcimer by tuning all the As.
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