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EverythingDulcimer

14/13 Tuning?


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Hello all! My Dad bought a Rick Thum Meadowlark (that is what the sticker says) years ago and never learned to play it. He is letting me borrow it to give it a try, but I am at a loss as to the tuning. I have a beginner's book but it only shows tuning for 15/14 and 12/11. If I am counting this right, it is a 14/13, and the 3 lowest strings on the bass bridge are not even courses but singles. I have read about a traveler that was made by Rick that was a 14/13 but would it still have the meadowlark sticker on the inside? Any help identifying it and giving me some guidance on tuning would be a huge help. Thanks!

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  • 2 weeks later...

You can contact Rick and he can give you a tuning chart or at least tell you what notes he intended those 'extra' courses to be.  Likely the lower and upper couple courses are not the standard 'fourth / fifth' and you can set them to notes that you need (within the range).  You may have to change the string gauge as I did on my 17/17.  Single-string courses are not unknown; perhaps the structure can't take the tension of dual strings on the largest strings.  

You can send Rick a note from his web site https://www.rthum.com/

and tell him I said Hi. I have one of his 17/17 Professional. 

I don't know that he makes the Meadowlark models any more (I thought that the 'Meadowlark' model name was a Songbird.  For that matter, Songbird may have a tuning chart  https://songbirdhd.com/ ). 

Edited by gscratchhd
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