Playing With a Guitar

At some point you will probably want to play music with other musicians. This is not an uncommon desire, but for too long dulcimer players have been left out in the cold because nobody quite knew what to do with them. So, if you're planning on playing with a guitarist, here's some help for you and your friend from our friend, Jake Bell.

Initially I thought this section should be called "What To Do When a Guitar Player Meets Up with a Dulcimer Player," and although this is not the title of this chapter, it still states the basic question.

Most guitarists don't immediately understand what modal music is all about, since they are not familiar with the jargon of dulcimer playing. Consequently, when faced with the problem of playing with a dulcimer, a guitarist might be at a loss to tell the dulcimer player what they should tune to. And you, the dulcimer player, might not have any idea what their instrument is all about either.

Now. Some alternatives.

The guitarist may put the guitar back into the case and quickly leave the scene, avoiding hours of mind-boggling explanations and counter explanations leading to second thoughts about guitar playing that may cause them to consider taking up flyfishing instead.

On the other hand, you both may make an attempt to work out your music and come to grips with the chromatic and modal musical approaches.

What you must always keep in mind is that your dulcimer is tuned modally, while the guitar is a chromatic instrument. It's got all the keys and all the notes. If you are a beginner, your dulcimer has only the key in which you are tuned and it's modal scale. Furthermore, as you know, you only have some of the notes that he or she has, and you must determine which mode contains the notes of the tune of the song you both want to play.

The first thing you both should do is tune to the same keytone. If nothing else, at least the instruments will be tuned together. First tune the guitar. It's very important that your friend's guitar be in tune, so let him or her get it right.

Then, if the song you want to play is going to be in the Mixolydian mode, it's a good rule of thumb to tune the dulcimer to the key of D. So have your guitarist friend give you a D, and tune your unisons to this note. If they want to play in E, fine. Your unisons will tune to an E just as well as D.

Explain to your friend what the Mixolydian mode is. Simply put, it is the scheme of the G-major scale without the F-sharp; or, expressed another way, the scale of the Mixolydian mode has a minor seventh tone. Now they can go ahead and figure out the modal scale in D, or whatever, and they'll ow what notes you have on your fretboard when you are tuned to the Mixolydian mode.

The following is a chart that might help them. When we worked it out, it helped me a great deal, so I'll pass it on. It's based on the Mixolydian mode transposed to the key of D.

With this chart they can transpose the mode into the correct key. However, another problem may arise: often a song must be played in a particular mode because of the limitations of the string tensions and the fret arrangement of the dulcimer.

To the guitarist the twelve keys and their scales and patterns are all available without changing the standard guitar tuning. But let's say you want to play a particular song in the Mixolydian mode keyed to D, and they only know it in the key of C, with all it's particular runs and chordal patterns. If you try to play the song in the key of D, all the patterns and runs which they have learned in C will be completely different.

-- a 25 years later note-- Joe Breskin adds to this: The chromatic tuning of the guitar is a brutal compromise. It will never really be perfectly in tune in any key bigger than the sounds of one single chord and it will never sound "in tune" in more than one key without having to be retuned. This is an important thing to remember. So if the meeting between the guitar and the dulcimer is scheduled to take place in Dorian Mode in D, make certain the guitarist gets every inversion of the D chord they know sounding sweet as possible, regardless of how bad it might sound in E.

--Jake Bell-- Once again, the alternatives are either for them to relearn the song in the key of D (using standard guitar tuning), improvise around the dulcimer as best as they can, "bar" the changes or, better yet, use a capo. They might want to place the capo on the second fret of the guitar and play the runs and patterns which have been learned in the key of C (which when capoed on the second fret is another position for the key of D.) This happens because a chord changes in alphabetical order as it is barred up the neck of the guitar, just as notes change alphabetically as you proceed up the neck.

--Breskin-- This offers both of you some opportunities that may not be immediately obvious. The guitar player, if she or he has been playing for very long, will have grown tired of the sound of many of those familiar runs and patterns, and casting them into a new key and mode can provide great satisfaction. The capo is a very popular tool among advanced guitarists as well as beginners, and is especially useful to those who play in duo's, as it allows the song to be played using "first position" E chords (E-A-B) on one instrument and C position chords (C-F-G) on the other, with the capo clamped on its 4th fret. Because of the way the strings are arranged, these chords (even though they share the same name) "sound" quite different, and these different sounds combine to give a richness otherwise impossible to achieve on a single guitar or a pair of them playing in the same position. Do not underestimate the musical possibilities for merging the sonorities of these instruments that are opened by shifting the guitar out of its normal range of voices using the capo. Take the chance to fool around a bit - you may find that it sounds much better to clamp the capo on 5th fret and play the tune in A, than to clamp it on 2 and play it in C. Even though that means learning it all over again in the key of A.

--Jake Bell--Taking into consideration the half-step between the notes B and C and E and F, the C chord changes in the following manner:

In the meantime, you are kept happy because the song is still going to be played in the Mixolydian mode keyed to D.

Additionally, the chords C, F, and G comprise the "key of C". The F chord played while barred on the third fret is another position of G; the G chord played while barred on the second fret is another position of A; and the C chord played while barred on the second fret is another position of D.

The chords D, A, and G, then, comprise the "key of D". The same musical logic works for other modes and other keys. If you've gotten this far and can do it, the other modes and their chromatic relationships will fall readily into place.

By all means, experiment. Dulcimers and guitars can be played together as long as each musician understands what musical direction (different terminologies) the other instrument is coming from.

Good luck.