Picks and Fingers

The union of your fingers and your instrument can be accomplished in various ways including using a noter, fingerpicking, flatpicking, strumming, fiddle sticks, and violin bow.

Left-hand Technique--The Fingers
Strings vibrate between two points to make a sound. On one end of a dulcimer is the bridge. On the other end, the end with the tuners, is the nut (if the string is plucked open). If the string is fretted (pressed to the fingerboard with your fingers), the fret at which you have your finger becomes the end of the string. The pitch of the string rises as you fret the string and shorten it.

To fret the dulcimer, put a finger of the left hand behind but very close to a fret and press down hard with the tip of your finger. Your fingernails must be short on the left hand to use your fingertips correctly. You may want to use the fingernails of the right hand as picks, so preserve them for a while. If you are fretting at the correct end of the space between the frets, using your fingertip and pressing hard, you should get a clear, clean tone. The tone should sound similar in quality to the open string. It should not sound muddy or muted. If it does not sound clear, there may be something wrong with the action of your dulcimer, but more likely you are not pressing down hard enough or are not close enough to the fret.

Traditional Styles--The Noter
One early style of playing the dulcimer involved a turkey quill and a noter. A noter is a wooden dowel (or popsicle stick or fancy turned hardwood stick) three or so inches long that one holds in the left hand, sliding from fret to fret on the treble string only. A turkey quill can be used as a pick in the right hand, sometimes whittled to a flexible point. Many players follow these traditions today. There is a sliding sound as you go from fret to fret without lifting the noter that is traditional to this style of playing.

Right Hand Techniques--Strumming
Strumming with a flat pick is a common way to begin to learn to play the dulcimer. Simply strum across all the strings in a rhythmic manner. Albert d'Ossché gave a workshop he called "Boot Camp for the Right Hand" which taught basic strumming. To conduct your own boot camp begin by strumming toward yourself to the count of 1, 2, 3, 4, only touching the strings on the inward stroke. Then change and strum away from yourself to the same count, this time only touching the strings on the outward stroke. Learn to switch back and forth first toward your body for a minute or two, and then away from it for a few minutes.

Next learn to put in beats going the opposite way from the main beats. Count 1, 2 &, 3, 4 & and strum the strings the opposite way on the "&" beats. You can create unlimited combinations of main beats and off beats, with accents in any strum, leaving out any of the beats, etc. Then change meter from 4/4 to 3/4 and repeat all the exercises. The idea is to be able to do many different strumming and accent patterns so that your playing has variety.

Large flexible picks are easy to use in the beginning but they make more pick noise than smaller, stiffer picks and are less precise if you wish to pick out a single string. I use a Fender medium guitar pick, available at any music store. Some dulcimer players use Herdim picks available from many dulcimer suppliers.

Flatpicking
Flatpicking involves picking out a series of individual notes on the strings, instead of strumming across all strings at once. To do this technique cleanly, one probably would chose a smaller, less flexible pick, say a medium guitar pick. My most common method of playing is to combine strumming and flatpicking, picking out melody notes and adding some strums for variety.

Fingerpicking
Fingerpicking is almost anything done without a flatpick in your hand. It consists of a series of plucks, pinches, brushes, drags, and frails done in sequence on one or several strings at a time. You can significantly change the sound of the strings by changing the way you move your fingers across them. The sound is quite different from the fast strumming of a fiddle tune. Some people use their bare fingers to fingerpick, some people use a thumbpick to bring out the melody, and others use fingerpicks on all the fingers.

There are two secrets to melodious fingerpicking. The first is to alter the patterns, put in pinches here, drags there, change the order of plucking the strings, emphasize the melody and make the accompaniment notes softer. Do anything for variety.

The other secret is to play cleanly. You frequently have only one note sounding at a time, so if it is the wrong note or if you do not get your finger squarely on the string, it may sound muffled or unclear. This sloppiness is not masked by the sound of the other strings as it is when you are strumming.

The basic fingerpicking technique is to pluck the strings, one finger per string. Be sure to actually get the flesh of the fingertip or your fingernails under the string and pull on the string, rather than just brushing your fingers across the strings. You might use your right thumb on the treble string, your index finger on the middle string, and your middle finger on the bass string, and you might choose a patern such as thumb, index, middle, index for a 4/4 song. Remember to vary the pattern to fit the melody and for interest.

A pinch involves plucking two strings at the same time, perhaps the bass and treble, or the middle and bass, etc. Brushes are accomplished by "brushing" your thumb across all the strings on the same beat. Brush from treble to bass string. A drag is similar to a brush except that you use your index finger and go from the bass string to the treble string. Frailing is a technique borrowed from the banjo. It is done by curling the fingers of your right hand and hitting the strings with the backs of your fingernails.

Other Tricks
Try tapping the strings with a chopstick or pencil, or with fiddle sticks, or hammered dulcimer hammers. You can bow the dulcimer with a violin bow. I have seem people use a slide such as is used on a slide guitar or dobro.

Summary Left hand techniques include fretting the strings with fingers or using a noter. Right hand techniques include strumming, flatpicking, fingerpicking, bowing, or hammering the strings.

Bonnie Carol is a musician living in Colorado. Do you have comments or questions about her article? Contact Ms. Carol directly by e-mail. To learn more about Ms. Carol, see the Contributors page of Sweet Music Index.