Early July Morning, Cocoa Beach, Florida

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Meet Gloria

A Mountain Dulcimer.
Why Gloria?
Because there are butterflies and Morning Glory 
sound holes her.
She's a bute and I love her.
She is made of sassafras with a walnut fret board.
Notice, I have numbers on my fret board. Why? Well, because I am just a beginner and they are my crutch. 
I "play by number" so to speak.
I am learning little by little not to look at my fret board, and some songs, I don't even need the music anymore. 
I've only been playing a few months, and I hope over time, I can get to sounding pretty good.
Gloria has four strings and currently tuned in DAA.
DAA is more traditional.
Today most people play with the DAD tuning. 
All that means is that the top or base string is tuned to D the middle string is A, and the bottom two strings are tuned to D 
(or in my case A).

If you want to listen to some beautiful dulcimer music, go to youtube.com and search mountain dulcimer.
Here are a few good links.

The mountain dulcimer has a gorgeous sound to it, 
and I love playing.

2 comments:

  1. Gloria is GORGEOUS!!

    I was not aware that things could be made from sassafras....I always thought it was a non-sense word! lol

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    1. yep, it's a type of wood, who'd a thought, right? I think it is also an old word for soda drinks. here's a link that shows the wood. http://mitchell-hollow.com/Sassafras_Lumber.htm thanks for stopping by :)

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