David Beede Chomatic Mountain Dulcimer Demo by Stephen Seifert

This is my new David Beede chromatic mountain dulcimer. I haven't had it for long but wanted to show a bit of what can be done with it. It has an amazing range of tone to fit in with all kinds of music from the last few hundred years. To learn more about David and his dulcimers, visit http://www.davidbeede.com.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• dulcimer
• mountain dulcimer
• chromatic mountain dulcimer
• david beede
• stephen seifert

[Maysey1]

Nice sounding instrument. It's always a refreshing escape from the guitar to pick up my old mountain dulcimer and get a little creative. Nice sounds you got going on, what kind of mics are you using? Preamps? good sound!!!! Mark

[stephenseifert]

@Maysey1 Pretty sure I used a single AKG 414 into a digital Alesis mixer into the Canon HV30. (turned off auto level in the cam) Don't think I EQed anything. Thanks for the comments!

[GroundedSaugage]

Could you tell me all of the sampled songs in order? Thanks!

[stephenseifert]

@GroundedSaugage Just a bunch of improvisation on top of standard chord progressions. I need to learn some real tunes! lol

[celticdulcimer]

I don't really love the concept of the chromatic dulcimer (for me a dulcimer is a diatonic instrument !) but I have to say congratulations. like usual you do a very good job with a very good sound.

cristian huet

[stephenseifert]

Christian Huet ROCKS! Seriously. Thanks for stopping by. Hope to meet at a festival soon!

[wirezts]

Doesn't sound far of a ukelele when strummed!

[GroundedSaugage]

@stephenseifert Haha I know that the second song was the Third Man Theme. You should make a full song out of the 6th song (one after Third Man Theme ending).

[GroundedSaugage]

@MsCrazyhorselady Step 1: Get a tuner

Step 2: Tune the strings with the pegs. Most preferably DAD for starteers but as you progress you can move along to DAA and do forth.

Step 3: Realize that I am 12 years old telling you to do this stuff.

Now all you need to do is learn some tunes and your done!

[djbeede]

I agree that Christian Huet Rocks Steve!

Christian - I used to feel how you do about diatonic vs chromatic on the dulcimer - in fact I recall thinking - if you're going to need all the frets why not just play guitar? Then it might have been Steve who asked me "What about dulcimer folks who don't want to play guitar? Shouldn't they have an option to all the notes?" So, I figured who am I to decide what notes people do or don't have on their dulcimers - it is an evolving instrument afterall.

[djbeede]

Ms Crazy Horse Lady - Stephen Seifert has a ton of great instructional material on his web site.

A very common tuning these days is DAdd Where the bass string is D the middle A and the melody string[s] are a D octave higher than the bass string. If you have 4 equidistant strings there are more options but the above will also work... tune the two separate melody strings to the same octave D.

[MsCrazyhorselady]

Hello I just got a 4 string dulcimer for a gift and I am trying to figure out how to tune it? it is a 6 1/2 fret and has a beautiful sound but I dont know what notes are the standard tuning? any help would be very appreciated!