Great download, great detail and explanation, and great price. Were open, shipping orders, and making instruments as usual. Our premium fret wire is 18% nickelsilver and comes prestraightened, so you dont have to go through the hassle of working with curved fret wire. Version 1, version 2, version 3, version 4, version 5, version 6 angels from the realms of glory dulcimer tab. Fret position reference guide for mountain dulcimer, hurdy gurdy. When measuring, always measure from the nut, its more precise that way. Because mountain dulcimers are not chromatic they dont have every fret. A dulcimer tabs dulcimer sheet music dulcimer music dulcimer songs. Stick dulcimer making season 2 this is the first part of making the. The nut as the bridgelike structure at the top of the fretboard by the tuner machine heads is properly called is glued to the top of the. All of these fretboards come with a 6 12 and a 12 fret as standard, and you can choose to add the 1 12 and 8 12 frets recommended or even go with a full chromatic fret pattern. Mandolinukeleledulcimer fret wire jescar narrowlow. When i went to a dulcimer website to figure out double check the spacing of frets for a soprano uke with a. Dulcimer fret wire 12 pieces, straightened folkcraft.
This is a chromatic fretboard, and it can be used to play pretty much any song in any key. Each month, a new set of two or more high quality dulcimer tabs will be available on this page. The bear meadow fret spacing calculator bear meadow dulcimers. Play fret numbers 4, 5, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and youll hear the start of that old fiddle tune. Measure fret spacingprintable fret template handmade. If, like me, your index finger lands in the middle of the 2nd fret space just where the 1 12 fret would be, adding the 1 12 fret could be problematic. Free dulcimer tabs revels music mountain dulcimers. Fretboard calculator when building a guitar or bass and cutting your own fretboard slots versus buying a preslotted fretboard, its very important that the fret slots be cut accurately. The first step towards getting a dulcimer to play in tune is to have the frets placed properly. The fretboard is the spine of the dulcimer, and gets the best wood available. These two frets are so common that one could say they have become standard issue on most dulcimers. The fret calculator link in step 9 should help you figure out how far apart to place the bridge at the lower end. Fretboard project guides the woodwrights shop with. Yafcalc calculates the distance to that extra 6 12 fret, but it is not normally installed on an instrument.
Design your own custom mountain dulcimer fingerboard. Unless otherwise specified, all plans are sold as electronic downloads. Chords for dad tuning plays in the key of d major here are several chords for use with dad tuning. Please practice handwashing and social distancing, and check out our resources for adapting to these times. The author of the book is the owner of folkcraft instruments, one of the oldest dulcimerbuilding companies in the world. The online dulcimer shop 401 lotis way louisville, ky, 40207 usa. Fretboard project guides the woodwrights shop with roy. It must be stable, straightgrained, and acoustically active. By contrast, the dulcimer fretboard shows a varying pattern of narrow and wide spacings between frets. Thank you for purchasing this woodworkers journal classic project plan. Please not that the type of instrument has no baring on the fret spacing. This page accurately calculates the position of the fret slots for guitars and basses. Another odd convention for a dulcimer is that there is only one 6 12 fret installed even though there is an additonal space where one would be appropriate between fret and fret 14.
This package contains four onefoot pieces, for a total of four feet of fret wire. Free dulcimer tabs these free arrangements of tunes or songs for mountain dulcimer all use tablature and musical notation. As soon as you complete your plan purchase with us, you will automatically be given a download link to access your plans. First, lets start with what diatonic dulcimer fretting is not on a standard. If you build it with the intention of playing with a 151 dad, cgc, etc. Enter the scale length in millimeters if you need millimeters. Recorder musical instrument, free recorder musical instrument software downloads, page 2. If you need to watch your pennies, we do offer fretboards that are cut on our gang saw a long spindle with many, many blades, that can cut a fretboard quickly. When you press a string down onto a fret, the freevibrating length must not buzz against. Although you cut hearts in the soundboard, the real heart of the instrument is the fretboard. Diatonic dulcimerstyle fretting what it is, how and why to use it. Python is a great, free, script language that can be used to develop platform independent programs.
Please do not sell or mass distribute these tabs either in print or over the internet. The other difference is that you want to keep fret 10. Note to dulcimer players chords for dad tuning plays in. This fret wire can be used to repairreplace frets on an existing mandolin, ukulele, dulcimer, cigar box guitar or other smaller sizedshorter scale stringed instrument, and it is also great for. Pdf fretboards the chromatic fretboard shows a continuously decreasing spacing between frets from left to right as we. The appalachian dulcimer is a fretted string instrument of the zither family, typically with three or four strings, although contemporary versions of the instrument can have as many as. If you havent seen dulcimer tab before, it is laid out in three lines which represent the three dulcimer strings seen from above.
Adding extra frets to the traditional diatonic dulcimer fret pattern is nothing new. This 208page book is the ultimate reference for any builder of appalachian dulcimers. Georgia luthier supply hourglass mountain dulcimer plan. Most current fretted instruments in the western world are fretted. Lasercut fret scale marking templates provide both. Abide with me dulcimer tab version 1, version 2, version 3, version 4, version 5 amazing grace dulcimer tab. The appalachian, or mountain dulcimer takes its name from its sweet dulce sound.
Beginning dulcimer makers are often perplexed about knowing where to place the frets. The frets need to be laid out in the precise spacing given in the table or copied. By comparison, the second is an ordinary dulcimer fretboard with its diatonic, 7note scale. I was very fortunate in that one of my friends on ed sent me a fret press that he had fashioned out of tool stock. We use a small stock of black walnut that is 50 years old that we know ofit might actually be 20 or so years older than that. The invention of the pocket calculator made it possible to make use of a more accurate. The numbers with an asterik represent the frets on a mountain dulcimer. However, certain instrument have quite idiosyncratic designs.
I glued in the dots, sanded everything down and pressed the frets in. Our fret calculator also gives you compensated bridge. There are many discussions about temperament, scale length, etc. If you know your scale in millimeters you have to convert to decimal inches.
Building a ji fretted mountain dulcimer has a serious complication that jumps out at you from the fret spacings. Electronic version full sized, very detailed plans of the hourglass mountain dulcimer. Download project guides and plans from royunderhill books. The tuning pegs were purchased online from a well known auction site. Simply enter the the number of frets and the scale length in millimetres then press the calculate button for an instant result. How to arrange tablature in the 5 tuning using the learning aids. Wfret is a downloadable application for windows computers. If you want fret distances in inches enter your scale length in inches. Hi rphilp, i used the stewmacdotcom fret calculator, put in the scale length, set it to dulcimer and pressed calculate to get a list of measurements. You can use the chart on the left to construct more chords if you know the notes that make up the chord. Woodworkers journal classic projects are scans of muchloved woodworking plans from our. I designed this page to calculate where each fret slot should be cut, measured both from the nut to. Note that the root is expressed by exponentiation in the formula above the twelfth root of 2 is the same as 2 raised to the 112 th power if you calculate the offset for the first fret of any scale length and then divide the scale length by that offset, you get 17.
It doesnt print a template but will give distances in inches or mm, its more precise to choose mm. I have wanted to build a mountain dulcimer for quite a while. Our fret calculator also gives you compensated bridge placement only at. Calculate fret placement for guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, dulcimer, and more in inches or metric. The stewmac fret calculator can give you fret measurements for many different instruments. Dulcimer fret wire is sold in pieces that are twelve inches long. If you were to play the 6 fret youd be playing in the mixolydian mode or the ol joe clark mode. Here is a an online fret calculator with several unique features. Please select your instrument class, and enter the scale length. Fret calculator a simple program for calculatiing and. Fret spacing calculator for luthiers peaceful daves stuff. The scale starts on the open string and goes up to the 7 th fret now skipping the 6 th fret.
We have a free fret spacing calculator right here on the site. As i mentioned earlier, many dulcimer makers hollow the underside of the fretboard. Who knows, you might even decide to become a geek when you start using it. Dulcimer kit instructions downloadable instructions for dulcimer kits. For a new calculation hit the reload button of your browser. Note that for some chords like d major there is more than one way to play the chord. Fret position reference guide for mountain dulcimer, hurdy. Microsoft musical instrument, free microsoft musical instrument software downloads, page 2. Making metal wormgeared tuning pegs is a bit beyond my skill set. If you find this utility useful, please link your site to this page. These templates also indicate the frets to skip to create diatonic dulcimerstyle scale, so they can be used on dulcimers, canjos and strumsticks and other similar instruments. The scale length in decimal inches is the only thing that needs input from the user.
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