Scale Lengths, etc.

Comment

Comment by Rand Moore on July 19, 2011 at 5:20pm

Hi Brian Reagor

 

There is plent of information on diatonic fretboards here in CBN and at other websites on the Interent. You can use CBN's own search facility or Google (or other search engine) to search on them. Here are the basics:

 

The diatonic scale is a subset of chromatic (12TET) scale. The diatonic scale is based on 7 notes per octave, while the chromatic has twelve notes. If you are familiar with the major scales, you will know that the intervals used to select the notes are "W-W-H-W-W-W-H" (where "W" is a whole step and "H" is a half step). On a diatonic fretboard, the frets used correspond to this same pattern. So, if you are familiar with the piano keyboard in the Key of C, it's like your stringed instruments have frets for the white keys only (no black keys, no sharps, no flats) . Because there are no "accidentals" (sharps and flats), some makers claim that their instruments can play no wrong notes. In essence, you are limiting your instrument to a particular key, which makes playing songs in that key a lot easier. However, the mountain dulcimer (and stick dulcimers) were designed for "Mixalodian mode" (sp?) music where the 7th note of the scale is flattened. To make these instruments capable of playing Ionian mode (a major scale), they added the fret called "six and a half" (abbreviated "6.5" or "6*" or "6+"). This is the main stumbling block for folks trying to learn to play a diatonically fretted instrument.

So, if you plan to build one, you start with the chromatic fretboard layout with 12 frets per octave and you remove four of these frets per octave. If you have an old cheapy guitar, you can do this by ripping out the following frets: 1, 3, 6, and 8 for the first octave, and frets 13, 15, 18 and 20 for the second octave. The diatonic fret known as "6.5" corresponds to the guitar fret 11. On mountain dulcimers, you may also have a similar fret for the second octave called fret "13.5" which corresponds to fret 23 on a chromatic guitar.

If you are making a fret board (or fretting the neck directly), you can used any chromatic fret scale or fret calculator program (web site) and just skip those frets you won't be using on the diatonic fretboard.

Be sure to check the various discussions on this topic that appear in the CBN discussion group called Dulcimers and Strummers. This topic is a common question and it is discussed in there repeatedly.

-Rand

Comment by Brian Reagor on July 16, 2011 at 7:34am

Mr Robert Sears, Are you then saying that i can take a "Chromatic Scale" that is layed out and skip some of the fret locations and make a Diatonic scale...fretboard?

Comment by Brian Reagor on July 16, 2011 at 7:28am

I was going to ask if there were any templates to print and cut out to help me mark fret positions for a dulcimer fretboard but after reading all these other comments I'm a little more confused, and also why does it seem, so far, impossible to find any info on the diatonic scale and how I can apply it to actually marking a fretboard, is there a method to this madness...or should I just chant "diatonic scale" at the Shaolin temple and hope it appears to me?

Comment by Allan on June 1, 2011 at 11:35am

Jess I was born in Bozeman,, but am an expat now

Comment by Jess on June 1, 2011 at 10:59am

Hi Allan.  Where in Montana?  I'm a native of Shelby.

Comment by Rand Moore on June 1, 2011 at 6:07am

Hi Alan and Allan.

The ukulele has what's known as re-entrant tuning, which is to say the string closet to your nose is a thin string tuned to G tuned maybe an octave above what you might expect it to be were it a guitar. The reason they do this is to give it a livelier tone when you are strumming up and down. Each strum starts and ends on a high note. The other good thing about re-entrantly tuned instruments is that you can use a special old time banjo playing technique called "clawhammer"  (or "frailing"). Banjos are another example of a re-entrantly tuned instrument. So is the stick Dulcijo. And now you know.

-Rand.

Comment by Ben on March 20, 2011 at 8:50pm

Welcome to the group, Robert!

Comment by Robert Sears on March 20, 2011 at 6:04pm

new to this group so hi all. retired fretted instrument repairman but still build lots of dulcimers and cgb's and whatever gets in my head that is different. just in case some are not aware, there is a sight called wfret that will print out whatever scale you want. it no longer prints diatonic, only chromatic, so if you want dulcimer scale you have to skip frets.

Comment by Allan on March 16, 2011 at 2:34am

Me either and it has never really made any sense,, but that normal for me

Allan

Comment by Alan Roberts on March 15, 2011 at 8:01pm

Most stringed instruments have the good sense to have the strings sorted in order of size. I most recent instrument I've made (and am playing) doesn't... it's a ukulele. The strings are GCEA, with the C being the lowest. I have no clue why this is.

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