I try to coax Waldo into playing a couple of Christmas tunes: Waldo says my fingers must be too short and fat. You can also see the video here: http://honketyhank.com/2018/12/22/ch...reetings-2018/ Merry Christmas and Good Mandolinning to All for 2019.
Cool instrument, nice video. Thanks for sharing. Merry Christmas.
You two are sounding quite festive. Interesting to dig into the history of some of these old, traditional songs to see what you can find.
Looks like you were able to coax Waldo just fine! Nice restoration and sound - and thanks for the history!
Thank you for that very informative little video, Hank. Oh, and thank Waldo as well.
Very nice sound you get out of your Waldo, Hank. I like these instruments a lot. My Thuringian Waldzither is only 70 years old. Because of the open tuning it sounds well with double stops or chords thrown in. And have yourself a nice time with your instruments in 2019
I admit that I do not have Waldo tuned "properly". I currently have the four pairs tuned like a mandola with the ninth string a low G. This makes it easy to transfer mandolin logic over to Waldo as long as I can reach the notes. But it is an instrument that was originally intended to be strummed, not picked. So an authentic tuning would probably be an open chord that would ring out like a church organ with all stops pulled. I may experiment with that. But if you pick it gently, it will generate its own volume without getting all jangly like a zither is supposed to do. Plus I made that ebony bridge to replace the original glass bridge -- that tones down the jangly sound a bit too. The more I play on Waldo, the more I learn and the more I like it. Too bad it was so badly treated in the past, but then if it hadn't looked like a lost cause it would have had a higher price on it and I wouldn't have given it a second look.
Beautiful Waldzither, Henry. Good rescue. I have also a Christmas CD with a vocal of your first tune, quite lovely. We moved from our farm a couple days ago so I'm in a fortress of packing boxes waiting to be unloaded. As a friend help convey a couple of mandolins, fiddles and concertina to the car, I remarked that it's a good thing I didn't take up piano. Got to love an instrument so portable in these situations.
You and Waldo did a great job, Henry. Thanks for the video and Happy New Year!
Thanks guys. Waldo says he is ready for a nap. Don't want to put too much wear on his strings. Changing them is real special chore.
Ugh, you got that right, Hank. I just changed mine, and I'm too embarrassed to post a pic of the mess I made!
A "real special chore." That phrase says all you need to know right there!
Thanks for sharing. Sounds great and really enjoyed the explanation about the tune.
Louise, in reply to your question on the TOM thread: Theoretically, one could tune it without the clock key, but it is not very practical. Portuguese instruments usually don't have the square end for a key but the tuning shafts are longer and staggered so they can have bigger knurled tuning knobs. I bought at least three different clock keys on eBay to get one that fit nicely.
That looks like one for-sure engineering fail!
Interesting, Hank - are you winding the ends yourself? I thought about buying a winder, but decided to just knot them on the tuner side (I'm using ball ends wedged between the tailpiece posts). Boy Scouts was a LONG time ago, I think you'd agree, if you saw my work!!
Yes. I wind them myself. In the photo you can see my winding on the two highest strings. All the others have my wound loops down at the tailpiece. I used a vise-grip pliers to hold the two sides of the loop, then a screwdriver to turn the windings. There was a video recently on the main forum on doing this, which I also found last year and learned from. If you can't find the right guage strings in loop end, you can use a wire cutter pliers to cut out the ball in a ball end string. The handmade loops at the tailpiece are really snaggy. They'll draw blood and rip shirt sleeves. So I use velcro strip to cover the snags and also dampen some of the stray vibrations down there.
test of image posting from within group: well that did work but I didn't like the method. Mark has suggested a better way in the following post. El Jefe has expressed his displeasure over the method I had been using to post pictures here, so I have been looking for alternatives.
You can post it a couple other ways without using an external site, Henry. Oops, I see that for whatever reason, Scott is unhappy about one of them, LOL. Anyway, there is another way. You can go to your profile and create an album to put them in. Just use the My Profile link at top of page, and follow the menu in left column of your profile.
O wow. I wondered what that "album" thing was good for, and if anything, wondered how it worked. Was blind. But now IC. The following is from my new album, which is fittingly named My Albumin (no yoke):
Haven't heard Noel used in many decades here in Canada. Carol has become the default melody in all our hymn books. Thanks for the reminder of a beautiful melody.
Also nice to see someone else still remembers Walt Kelly.