The forgotten tuning?
By Dan Evans
Editor’s Note: Dan has a fully linked version of this story on his website at bit.ly/dpn-daa. A version of this story appeared in the Autumn 2023 Nonsuch News, a quarterly magazine published by the Nonsuch Dulcimer Club, “the friendly U.K. club for dulcimer enthusiasts.” You can join for as little as £10 a year at dulcimer.org.uk.
Introduction
I was first introduced to the Appalachian dulcimer back in the early 1970s. At that time, DAA was the main tuning used for major scale songs and tunes. Living in England, London’s Roger Nicholson was a major influence when I started out, and Roger used DAA as his major scale tuning.
Today, DAD is by far the most dominant tuning for the modern mountain dulcimer, and DAA is now perhaps seen as a dated or beginner’s tuning. My 2021 YouTube film of Roger’s pastoral piece “Spring Season” may challenge that perception.
DAA is not only alive and well but can be used to play meaningful, and perhaps even moving, music.
What is DAA?
Tuning to DAA (D=bass, A=middle, A=1st/chanter) supports the major scale, which is sometimes referred to as the Ionian mode. Some players call this tuning 1-5-5, which is perhaps a more meaningful name, as it explains the relationship between the pitches of the strings.
I prefer to call the tuning Ionian as I’m not always in the key of D, but often in the key of E (EBB) and occasionally in the key of C (CGG). For the purposes of this article, however, I will use the common term DAA.
No need for half frets
Almost all modern mountain dulcimers have additional frets compared to the diatonic fretting pattern of the original Appalachian dulcimer. These are referred to as half frets, and in DAD, the 6.5 fret is essential if you want to play major scale melodies. DAD without the 6.5 fret will give the Mixolydian scale.
DAA does not need any half frets to play major scale music. For me, and how I play the dulcimer, half frets are a huge disadvantage and it is desirable, nay crucial, for my dulcimers not to have them.
What is a mode?
Vol. 3 No. 1
By Bonnie Carol
A scale consists of 8 notes and a mode is a description of the arrangement of the intervals (whole steps and half steps) between those 8 notes.
If you look at the fret scale on your dulcimer, the whole steps are the wide spaces and the half steps are the narrow spaces. Here is a chart showing the whole and half steps and where on the fretboard each mode begins.
You can see that the arrangement of the whole and half steps depends on where you begin the scale.
Melody-and-drone style
One of the simplest but most pleasing ways of playing the dulcimer is that of melody-and-drone style. The melody is played on the chanter string and the other two strings are plucked or strummed as drones. Melody-and-drone style works well in DAA.
Chord style
Accompanying songs in DAA can be done using the melody-and-drone style, or chords can be strummed or picked/arpeggiated to create a harmonic accompaniment to the song. DAA not only supports major and minor chords but also 7th chords, suspended 4th chords, and many others.
Chord inversions can add variety to the song, give a sense of the melody in the accompaniment, and support the voice of the singer.
These chords are sometimes called triad chords, as most dulcimers have effectively only three strings. Despite this limitation, very effective accompaniments to songs can be played in DAA using triad chords. My YouTube film of the song “Let It Be Me” uses inversions of triad chords, arpeggiated to accompany the vocal parts of the song.
Airs style
What I call airs style of playing in DAA is a halfway house between melody-and-drone and chord style playing. The melody is played on the chanter string, then a harmony note is played on one of the other strings, leaving the remaining string as a drone.
To my ears, airs style is one of the prettiest ways of playing music on the dulcimer.
Sometimes the bass is the drone and sometimes the middle string is the drone. When the bass has the harmony note and the middle string is droned, I call these “open chords.”
With a mixture of styles, using chord inversions to add a sense of the melody and fingerpicking to add rhythm, I can make very comprehensive arrangements to songs in DAA.
The mixture of styles and when they are played can be different for each song, adding interest and variety to a set or recording.
Sweet thirds
If you have seen me play, you may have noticed that when I play airs style with the harmony on the middle string, the harmony note is often two frets below the melody fret. This interval of a third is very pretty.
If the two frets are three semitones apart, it is a minor third; four, a major third. Playing a scale on the chanter string with thirds on the middle string will result in a pretty, alternating pattern of major and minor third harmonies.
Conclusion
While I sometimes use other tunings for major-scale pieces, DAA has been my go-to tuning for the major scale on the mountain dulcimer for over 50 years, and it will be for the foreseeable future.
In case you still think that DAA is a thing of the past, go to YouTube and check out my new composition “Tumbling Skies,” with varied and fast picking. It has become one of my favorite pieces and is played in Ionian in the key of C (CGG).
Evans lives in Olney, England, the home of Amazing Grace. He has made frequent visits to the U.S. to teach and perform at festivals and gives occasional concerts in the UK. Find him online at english-dulcimer.com.
