DPN Restrung: Frailing the Dulcimer

DPN Restrung: Frailing the Dulcimer

By Butch Ross

Hello and welcome to DPN Restrung, a new column where I revisit old articles from the early days of Dulcimer Players News. This is a pet project based on one of my favorite things to do – peruse old issues of DPN. 

You see, we tend to think of the dulcimer as an old instrument. And you have no doubt heard someone say they “like the old style” of playing or tuning the dulcimer. In fact, you may be one of those people yourself. 

The truth of the matter is that with the dulcimer’s surge of popularity in the early 1970s came a lot of people just trying to figure out what to do with it. Most of them had no direct connection to the instrument outside of a love for its sound. And while many were drawn to the music of Jean Ritchie, Paul Clayton, and Steeleye Span, they were just as likely, if not more so, to be influenced by Joni Mitchell, Brian Jones, and especially Richard Fariña.

All that to say, the dawn of the modern mountain dulcimer represented the early pages of DPN really was the wild west! People felt free to experiment with this odd little box and they did. Some ideas became canon – the first issue has an article on what to do with those new “extra” frets (i.e. the 6.5 and 13.5) – while others (like playing in the Locrian mode) fell by the wayside. 

The purpose of this column is to reintroduce you to articles and ideas that may have fallen through the cracks. So let’s get to it!

My first article comes from the first article in the first issue of DPN, published in January 1975. The original has no byline but was almost certainly written by DPN’s first owner/editor Phillip Mason. 

For clarity’s sake, I have changed the example song to Mississippi Sawyer, made better tab and illustrations, and fixed typos. But otherwise what follows – bad grammar included – is how it first appeared in 1975. 

Dulcimer Players News Playlist featuring frailing on the dulcimer.

Frailing The Dulcimer

Frailing is a playing technique used on the banjo which can easily be applied to the dulcimer with excellent results. The frailing style utilizes playing strokes which are always directed away from the player (downward & outward) and it is the back of the fingernail of the index finger (or middle finger if you prefer) which strikes the strings. The index finger stroke is sometimes followed by a quick flick of the thumb down across all of the strings, which enables the player to sound additional fill-in notes.

Frailing is best accomplished by holding your hand in a loose fist-like position which will allow it to strike the strings and hit them cleanly with the back of the fingernail.

1. The starting position. 2. Striking the strings with the nail of either the index or middle finger. 3. Following through with a quick thumb strike.
Photo by Butch Ross

When playing in the frailing style, the hand should remain relatively frozen into the position shown in Figures 1, 2, and 3 above. You should allow the wrist to accomplish most of the frailing motion. You will find it handy at first to steady your index finger with your thumb, as shown in the illustration above.

If you want to get that real galloping rhythm into your playing, try frailing the strings (hitting with the index finger) and then quickly follow up with a quick flick of the thumb across all of the strings before going on to the next melody note to be frailed. This will give you that “tick-ah tock-ah” rhythm. 

Try mixing up the rhythms to suit the melody of the tune you are playing. For example try a “tick-ah tock – tick-ah tock-ah – tick tock.” The “tick-ahs” and “tock-ahs” are index finger hits followed by quick thumb brushes; and the plain old “ticks” and “tocks” are single hits of the index finger upon one string only.

The frailing style can become even more exciting when you incorporate two-finger plucking into the basic frailing rhythm. To accomplish this on the dulcimer, you would stop your frailing on the melody string for part of a measure and start playing the melody string with your thumb while alternately frailing the drones with your index finger. 

The very essence of the frailing style is to mix the different techniques that have been discussed here around so that your musical phrases do not become overly repetitive.

Now try the technique with the A part of the following song “Mississippi Sawyer” (Figure 4) in the frailing style and see what you can do with it. The first two measures goes “tick tick-ah tock tick-ah – tick-ah tick tock tock” where “tick-ah” incorporates the thumb for the extra beat. 

Incidentally, you will find frailing an especially good technique for songs in a fast 2/4 time. 

Fig. 4: Mississippi Sawyer – Frailing Exercise

Courtesy of Butch Ross

Ross has been gleefully smashing disparate genres of music together for over a decade. He is an in-demand teacher and performer at festivals both in the U.S. and abroad. Find him online at butchross.com.