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Permalink Reply by Diane in Chicago on July 10, 2009 at 10:52am

Diatonic fretting much like only the white keys on the piano, so it is very hard to play a wrong note. Dulcimers use this kind of fretting. (Chromatic fretting is the standard guitar fretting, with all the sharps and flats.)

The StewMac fret calculator (stewmac.com) has a fret calculator that will compute the fret distances for you. Just specify "dulcimer" and specify 22.5" scale. The spacing will be irregular, just like Chickenbone's.

It is easier if you convert to millimeters, though. Unless you have a ruler that divides inches into .10s. 22.5 inches = 571.5mm, for example, and go from there.

Hope this helps!

There are other fret calculators out there that will print a scale for you, too.

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Permalink Reply by Jkevn on July 10, 2009 at 11:23am

You can also use this download calculator: http://www.dougsparling.com/software/fretcalc/index.php

If you use WFRET to print a template use this method for any scale length:

Reply by Matte Resist on May 5, 2009 at 11:12pm
I just noticed the formatting didn't work on this. Let me try it again

GUITAR FRET = DULCIMER FRET
2 = 1
3 = 1.5
4 = 2
5 = 3
7 = 4
9 = 5
10 = 6
11 = 6.5
12 = 7
14 = 8
16 = 9
17 = 10
19 = 11
21 = 12

That comes from another discussion here that has more info...http://www.cigarboxnation.com/forum/topics/fret-calculators?groupUr...
I'm gonna try this myself. My playing needs all the help it can get. If Kenni Lee heard my playing he'd take all those videos down...quick!

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on July 10, 2009 at 11:45am

Diatonic (as opposed to chromatic)...just think do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do..major scale, that's all..nothing fancy about it. Just like harmonicas...blues players & Dylan use diatonic harps, players like Larry Adler and Toots Thielemans use the bigger chromatic harps.

The great thing with playing diatonic is it's almost impossible to play a wrong note..pretty much everything sounds OK. Effectively when you make the fretboard, you just miss out all the frets you don't need...quicker to make, more economical on fretwire, easy to play, and folk seem to like them..a winner all round.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Doug on July 10, 2009 at 4:28pm

Thanks for the replies. I went to Stewart Mc Donalds wed and printed out a scale. Got it hanging on the wall waiting. Got a couple ukuleles to finish befor I get to it. For some reason I cant figure out I couldn't work the dougsparting down load. I'm not real smart about zipped files.



Thank you

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Permalink Reply by William Bannier on July 10, 2009 at 4:55pm

Diatonic is not fretted the same as a regular guitar. It is based on the diatonic scale which means all the notes on the fretboard are in the same scale. This means that any note played after any other note will sound "right." You can more or less pick random notes on a diatonic fretted instrument and it will sound like it was intentional. The strings are strung to a chord and they are generally played by fretting the 3rd string while the top two strings are played open. There are advanced players that fret on all three strings but for the beginner, that is the easiest method.

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