Why Would You Do That?

SO – I got this beauty at Kentucky Music Week delivered to me!

I’m in complete AWE in this picture. But if you didn’t notice there are a LOT of frets on that beauty! It is fully Chromatic.

That means it has every possible note without retuning anything. Now I know there are some of you that are thinking – WHY??? Some are even thinking – UGH that is not a dulcimer. Please let me enlighten you.

I play every Sunday in church. You would basically be living under a rock if you didn’t already know this, but – I play with other people (Jon and Gerald), and me and Jon both sing. I also NEED to be able to play for our choir. We do not have a piano player at our church. SO – I very much need to be able to play in ANY key and to do it quickly.

ENTER this beautiful custom made chromatic dulcimer – by Richard’s folks at Folkcraft Instruments.

So I took it to practice last night (it was the only instrument I brought). We play 4 songs each Sunday (2 in the morning, and 2 in the evening) and I play a solo offering piece at night service. So that’s 5 different things each Sunday.

With this gorgeous instrument I was able to play in multiple keys instantly!!! Out of our 4 songs we will do – only 2 are we doing in D and G. The other 2 we are doing in C and in Eb!! With capo magic I was able to pull that off playing backup chords and could still do ALL my instrumental breaks without any problem. I cannot express how amazing this is for me and how much it will change (in the best possible way) what we as a group can pull off in church!

Now you may be saying – YOU could play in those keys just by retuning. And you would be correct. BUT retuning takes time, AND if I retune in something other than a 158 tuning – my breaks will now be messed up, OR if I stay in DAD then capo – now my frets are messed up for my breaks. I could also retune to be in Eb, BUT – again that takes time and I’ve got other songs to do as well. And to be completely honest – my brain just doesn’t work that fast on the fly!! With this – it’s simple and everything WORKS and I don’t have to change any breaks. Our list of songs we pull from each week is now over 60 songs and growing. Imagine all those breaks, keys, etc. I don’t use tab to play from – I play by ear and from memory on the ones we play the most. All I have in front of me is the lyrics and chords.

Also imagine this – you are at a JAM session that is not a dulcimer jam. Do you know that people commonly play in many other keys other than just, D, G, and A? Yes they do. C is a great singing key, so that is used a lot. So is B. Eb is common, and so on. So – a chromatic instrument is wonderful for these situations. Do you think people are going to want to wait for you to first figure out what to retune your instrument to, then wait for you to tune? OR – you are somewhere playing and a singer says to you – Key of ____?___ (something other than D, G, or A). Are you going to be able to quickly figure out what to do, or are you going to want all the frets and a capo and be completely relaxed while playing? Me personally, I’ll take all the frets please.

Any banjo people reading this are like – huh? And I get it, you’ve never had to deal with a diatonic instrument. They are marvelous, and they definitely have their place, and I do love a standard dulcimer. But I’m here to also say that a chromatic dulcimer is a wonderful thing and it definitely has its place as well.

Lastly, I never will understand dulcimer people who say things like – “why not just play a guitar”, or “I can’t slide with extra frets”. That 2nd one actually makes me laugh. So guitars, banjos, mandolins, and everything with frets – people are somehow supernatural by being able to slide past extra frets! WHY throw shade on other people I ask? I’m almost sure that after reading this post you can completely understand why I would really want a chromatic. SO I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – all iterations of a mountain dulcimer are welcome in my book.

Really there’s enough here for me to make a video about this topic. I might actually do that. I hope you’ve enjoyed this post!

-Mandy

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