I have a theory, sort of, or a bunch of assumptions about the unison tuning and old Virginia Dulcimores.
It might get dangerous around here!
So with a greater interest in traditional Virginia style dulcimores than dulcimores made in surrounding states, a few months ago something started me to thinking. I've been online looking at photos and gathering information from the few books on Dulcimer history since around 2007, but more so within the past year. I suppose deep down I've been hoping to find a dulcimore that was possibly made in my home county of Buchanan or at least close by, but to no avail.
I've also been gathering info for a new dulcimore I'm naming the Virginian. I wanted to find as much info as possible about their length, width, height, vsl, (vibrating string length). In my quest to find this info a couple things began to stand out. The first was the vsl. If you don't include the specs of the dulcimores made famous in the Galax area by the Melton family beginning around 1900, the average vsl of my findings is about 24 inches.
The other interesting thing I realized by accident was the number of strings of the early Virginia dulcimores. The number of strings....... yes, the number of strings. It seems the older the relics the more of them that had 4 strings and as time went on you gradually begin to find more with 3 strings.
Even the earliest dated dulcimore, the John Scales dulcimore, had 4 strings, equally spaced apart on a narrow fretboard.
So you may ask......... why does this interest me??
It shouldn't actually. I find it hard playing in the unison tuning which is sometimes referred to as Galax tuning due to a mild ear problem makes it hard for me to hear what I'm doing. You see, for those that don't know the Melton family began making this tuning famous by winning competitions. Instead of the modal tunings most players use now-a-days which are something like Daa, Dac, Dad, etc., the Melton family made the unison tuning famous and it's tuned dddd across all 4 strings and used a noter to note the two strings closest to them at once. All 4 of those strings are usually strung with around .012 gauge strings but from my research could be from .009 to .013 depending on the vsl. Whereas generic modern dulcimer strings tuned Daa would be strung with .022, .012, .012 and tuned to Dad would be strung .022, .014, .012.
So with those facts in mind, my my friend Dulcimore Dan Cox explained that most of the Kentucky dulcimores he had examined with old, or possibly original string on them used #4 and #8 music wire which are .013 for #4 and .020 for #8. So that gives us a general idea of at least what they were using in Kentucky.
But with info from viewing photos of vintage Virginia dulcimores, all the strings seem to be of equal size. So you may ask.............. can you really tell that from a photo?
An example: on a 24 inch vsl dulcimore tuned Ionian with around 15 pounds tension, the bass string would be around a .023 diameter string with the middle and melody strings being .015 diameter. Yes, I could pretty much tell that in a photo. There is a thought that most of the old dulcimers were likely tuned Cgg instead of Daa, but still, with the dulcimore tuned Cgg that would likely make it just as easy to tell with the bass string being .026 and the middle and melody being .017 diameter assuming the were around 15 pounds tension.
So lets assume for a bit the strings were all the same size. And let's assume the older dulcimers were tuned to what a lot of people think was THE tuning back then........ C. Assuming they were tuned cccc all across the 4 strings and let's say around 12-15 pounds tension, that would give us around .012 to .013 diameter string. I think if you looked at the photos closely you could probably agree those sizes are in the ball park.
But couldn't you tune it to Ionian with those gauges?
Here's where it really helps make my mind up about the unison tuning.
In order to make those 4 strings be tuned in Ionian tuning C you need to tune 3 of those strings to G.
Here's what you get with 4 strings of .013 diameter:
C-4th octave= .013 @ 15# tension at 31% breaking tension. (Meaning it has around 69% before it breaks)
g-4th octave= .013 @ 35# tension at 69% breaking tension. (!!!)
g-4th octave= .013 @ 35# tension at 69% breaking tension.
g-4th octave= .013 @ 35# tension at 69% breaking tension.
So you can see the tension of the strings tuned to G is much too high! So with your noter you would be pressing down 70 pounds of tension on the double melody strings.
Another scenario:
C-4th octave= .013 @ 15# tension at 31% breaking tension. (Meaning it has around 69% before it breaks)
G-3rd octave= .013@ 8# tension at only 17% breaking tension.
G-3rd octave= .013@ 8# tension at only 17% breaking tension.
G-3rd octave= .013@ 8# tension at only 17% breaking tension.
In theory this would be more possible due to the lighter pressure on the two G strings, but I tried it. It is a mess to try and play due to the 3 strings tuned to a 3rd octave G at only 8# being so slack and it's just not enough tension.
Scenario 3:
C- 4th octave= .015@ 20# tension at 31% breaking tension.
G- 3rd octave= .015@ 12# tension at only 18% breaking tension.
G- 3rd octave= .015@ 12# tension at only 18% breaking tension.
G- 3rd octave= .015@ 12# tension at only 18% breaking tension.
Scenario 3 would be the most likely and logical scenario if they tried using one string diameter over all 4 strings tuned in an Ionian tuning. A .015 or .016 diameter string would be more of a middle ground size to cover both C and G, even though it puts the C at a higher octave than the 3 G strings which makes it kinda out of line with our way of thinking today, which would most of the time put the lower ocatve on the bass string and the higher octave on the middle and melody strings.
So why would they even use the same size string on all 4 strings?
It could be a couple things-
(1) availability. Was it because the early times of development of the country not having stores which supplied multiple sizes of music wire or wire in general?
We know music wire was around then. But I suppose it was a item used for hardware supplies more than music instruments. Even today you can't readily buy any kind of music instrument strings in the county I live in. I suspect back then they simply went to a hardware store and bought some music wire that most people just used to hang pictures or used for general use around the farm and strung a dulcimore with it. Likely the hardware store did not stock several sizes either. So because of availability they were forced to find a tuning they could play with one size wire.
(2) Tradition. I also figure that more than likely this tuning had been passed down from kin folk that had used it on their dulcimores or the ancestor to the dulcimores...... zithers and such, and they kept using it until the lack of popularity rooted it out.
(3) Maybe it was a little or a lot of both the reasons mentioned above. But after much debate with myself I think it's more so along the lines of the second reason. It would not have been impossible for the builders or owners to order a spool of music wire in the correct diameter they needed and it would likely last for years for personal use. Which raises another question: If they could order wire why not just order two correct sizes if they used modal tunings? We will likely never know if that's the case, but I still think it's a traditional tuning passed down from long before the Melton family made it famous.
As I said in the first sentence............ it's just a theory based on a bunch of assumptions. But I believe the unison tuning was played throughout early dulcimore history right along side the modal tunings, or it's very possible, it was the earliest tuning at least in Virginia and what is now southern West Virginia. I have absolutely no way of proving this. But I honestly think the Melton family did not invent unison tuning. But more likely they were playing in a tuning that had been around 75 years or longer when they made it famous.
This is not a jab at the Meltons or a jab at anyone who believes or thinks otherwise. It's just a theory from the little evidence I've come across.
Edit: 6/8/2019- Recently another clue has come to light. I have been playing my new unison tuned dulcimore often and I noticed something. 14 frets, as a lot of vintage dulcimores from surrounding areas had, would not be sufficient for playing some tunes on the higher octave of the fretboard. So my new research is concentrating on how many frets the vintage Virginia dulcimores had.
With very little research I'm finding a lot of 4 string equidistant string spacing Virginia examples having 15, 16 and 17 frets.
I think this is more proof that unison tuning was around since the beginning of the Virginia dulcimore.
I will continue my quest to prove my theory.
