Carkner

[Dick Glasgow]

WELCOME ;D

Hello Carkner & welcome to the Dulcimer Player's Forum.

We are all delighted that you are now a member and we look forward to your contributions to the discussions here.

Please tell us a little bit about yourself, your music & your Dulcimers.

Then, why not hop over to our Where are you? poll and click on your own area!

Cheers
'Ptarmigan'

[carkner]

Hello! What a welcoming, if small messageboard

I live in Ottawa, Canada and I'm 25 years old. I've been learning the Tsymbaly (Ukrainian-Canadian type of hammered dulcimer that is common among Ukrainians in Western Canada) since May. I'm mostly interested in Klezmer music, though I am partial to ukrainian music as well. I also love Hungarian and Romanian cimbalom music, but there's no way I could play it on my small instrument!

I have a blog that I started recently: learning-tsymbaly.blogspot.com

I think I first heard the hammered dulcimer on a few different albums:
-A Ukrainian-Canadian country music (!) compilation I found at a thrift store about 6 years ago, in it the tsimbaly accompanies or sometimes plays the lead
-Muzsikas, "The lost jewish music of transylvania" -- an album by this amazing hungarian string band, that has some tsimbl on it.
-The soundtrack to the Serbian movie "Underground" has some hammered dulcimer on it as well. It's a particularly beautiful and haunting instrument for movie soundtracks, I think.

I'm excited to be able to exchange info/ideas on this site.

[Nikita]

Hello Carkner !
I've been playing klezmer music for years... on hackbrett ! We even had a group called "Tsimbl" : 2 hackbretts, clarinet, fiddle, accordion and bass (actually, I played both hackbrett and accordion, and the clarinet player played also the other hackbrett). So great music ! ;D ;D ;D
On your video, you seem to have a way of holding your hammers (index passed through a ring)that I've never seen : is that common with Tsymbaly ? the tsymbaly hammers I've seen here in Europe look more like small cymbalum hammers, with a finger grip rather than a ring...
I'm always curious about new ways of playing the instrument

[carkner]

Those were the hammers that came with it! Maybe you saw in the comments, someone chided me, saying that they are Santour hammers. But again, they came with it, so.. I'd be pleased to try out some other kind of hammer, but the only kind I've ever seen for sale here in Ottawa didn't appeal to me at all, by the look of them. I can see how longer ones could give you more range, and having a ring at the hammer part might make it more bouncy?

Any weirdness in technique could also be attributed to the fact that I have never seen anyone else play a hammered dulcimer of any kind, let alone had any kind of teacher

[Dick Glasgow]

Speaking of Hammers Carkner, have you seen the great photo Nikita posted of his Hammers?

You'll find it on this page, about half way down:

Hammer Thread

Cheers
Dick

[Nikita]

Actually, your hammers are definitely not santur hammer . iranian santur hammer are much thinner, and the indian ones are bigger. But I've seen hammers like yours : they were just held the other way round : the "ring" part was used to hit the strings, and have 2 sides, one with wood and one with a layer of felt (like the hackbrett), that's why I was wondering. Maybe, if you haven't seen anyone play HD before, you took those hammers the way you thought... I met years ago a chap, good hd player, who played the other way round : with the narrow part of the instrument towards him, instead of the large end. Just a differnet habit... and here in Switzerland, the Walpen brothers sued to make a great show of playing a four hand hackbrett, facing each other... ???the important thing is to be able to play what you want ;D

[Dick Glasgow]

Interesting Nikita,

I suppose this could be the Walpen sisters then, with their four hand Hammered Dulcimer!

[carkner]

Well, there was some felt on the part I have been using to "hit", and there is a little tail on the ring that is perfect for moving the hammers up and down with a flick of a finger/thumb. Most of the felt has since worn off and I tried gluing some new felt, but I think it was too thick and it left it with too much of a quiet/dreamy sound. I'm keeping an eye out for some thin leather scrap that I can try gluing instead.

I agree, I'd like to try some hammers with a ring in the hammer part, it seems like it would bounce a lot more.

[carkner]

About playing it backwards, check out this little story about buying a Tsymbaly on a trip to the Carpathians:
dykun1234.fotopages.com/?entry=729229

It's kind of anti-climactic because at the end, the person he bought it for is holding it facing the wrong way. (?)

[Dick Glasgow]

Carkner, I liked that photo of The Maestro

I love this guys casual approach.

No fancy stands for this him,

I'm sure he'd fit in just fine at any Irish Session.

However, can you imagine your H-D lying on your lap, all through the session?

N.B. When you read the story below the photo, you see that he describes it as a "heavy-ass tsymbaly"!

Cheers
Dick