Fretboard project

[acmespaceship]

The chromatic dulcimer needed fret markers.  Inlaysticker.com to the rescue with banjo ornaments and sea turtles.  That's a dulcimette by Ron Ewing (yes you want to buy one) and those tuners gave it some serious bling already.  Very pleased.

Posted via LiveJournal app for Android.

Comments

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

OK, I confess I want a chromatic dulcimer with black and white frets, coded like a piano's black and white keys.

[acmespaceship.livejournal.com]

Check out the "evil half-breed" about halfway down this page: http://www.davidbeede.com/octavedulcimers.htm Chromatic under the bass and middle strings, diatonic under the melody. Weirds me out for DAD tuning but logical for DAA.

It's not that hard to get used to a chromatic. I finally added the extra markers per Stephen Siefert's suggestion at a workshop last summer. The stickers are all his fault, since he's the original owner of this dulcimer and he's the one who ordered it with only two markers (frets 3 and 7, speaking diatonically). Steve now recommends marking a chromatic at frets 1-1/2, 3, 4, 5 and 7. I crammed in one last turtle at the 8-1/2. Any excuse to add sea turtles to a dulcimer is ok in my book.

Aside for any guitar/uke players reading this: Do not attempt to count frets. This is special mathematics for MD players only.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

It would be interesting to try one of the evil half-breeds. I can see their potential, but I'd have to try one to see if it made me happy.