The beautiful aeolian mode

If you've been following along with this blog, you have already tried playing in two different modes: the mixolydian mode (such a DAD) where you tune so that the base/tonic note is located on the zero fret (open string)....and the ionian mode (such as DAA) where you tune so that the base/tonic note is found on the third fret.
Now I'd like to get you playing in the truly beautiful and haunting aeolian mode. The base/tonic note of the aeolian mode is found not on the open string or the third fret, but on the first fret. Remember how I said most songs end on their base note or tonic note? Notice that the tab below for Shady Grove in aeolian mode ends on the first fret then.
The aeolian mode has a minor sound to it, often mournful, sad, or spooky. It's probably my favorite mode. Many of the loveliest and oldest ballads of them all are in aeolian mode... Some modern guitar players don't quite know how to accompany aeolian mode tunes, and as a result they sometimes play non-modal-y minor chords to them that are close, but don't 'quite' match, and they wreck the delicately mysterious aeolian sound of special intervals and dissonance, instead making it sound rather peppy and cheerful. Ugh. Try this tuning on your dulcimer and see how very special and wonderful the aeolian mode is just by itself. I bet you'll get hooked on it like I did.

Here is a simple tuning chart to help you get into aeolian mode. It is in the key of D because you are probably already familiar with tuning and playing in DAD, key of D.To get into aeolian mode from DAD mixolydian mode, all you have to do is tune your melody string(s) DOWN one whole step from D to C.
To get into aeolian mode from DAA ionian mode, all you have to do is tune your melody string(s) UP two whole steps from A to C.
Your end result either way will be DAC. DAC is an aeolian tuning for the key of D.

If you are now in DAC aeolian mode, you can play Shady Grove, one of the most beloved old-time ballads from the hills of Appalachia where the dulcimer itself was born. Shady Grove has various versions of lyrics that have been passed down, and I have collected a few of my favorite traditional verses here for you to enjoy. See if you can sing a verse while you play. See if you can play it after a while without looking at the tab anymore.
The beauty of noter style playing is that it is less complicated than constant chord fingering, thus it is easier to learn to play a tune without reading the tab. This is worth repeating:
We are giving up 3-finger chording here in favor of using open drone strings- but to use drones effectively we have to be able to tune into 2 or 3 different modes. After the first little learning hump, it is a much simpler method of playing. Is it not a ballad that somehow touches the very soul in a lonesome way? I could play it for years and never get tired of it.

Now I'll point a few things of interest...
You may ask Why should I have to learn to play in different modes? Why can't I just play Shady Grove in DAD or DAA anyway? Well, if you try to play the same ballad Shady Grove in mixolydian DAD tuning or ionian DAA tuning, you will quickly discover that it's impossible- you are missing some of the frets you need to play the tune, as though it were a piano with some of the keys missing. This is what they mean when they say the dulcimer has a diatonic fretboard. It is missing certain notes on the fretboard and was intended to be played in open tuned modes. If the dulcimer had no missing frets, in other words if it had a fret for every note and every half note on the fretboard, then it would have a chromatic fretboard instead of a diatonic one. A piano is a chromatic instrument, so is a guitar. They have 'all' the notes. That's why you can play them so easily in all the different keys with minimal fussing.
Some people have additional frets installed on their dulcimers to enable playing in various keys and modes without re-tuning so much. The most famous additional fret to the diatonic dulcimer is the six and a half fret (and it's corresponding 13 1/2 fret one octave higher). Most mountain dulcimers made today do have the 6 1/2 fret, but before 1965 or so it was almost never seen. We'll look more at why it's so popular and how it's used later on in this blog.
Other people have a couple more frets added, such as a one and a half fret (and it's corresponding 8 1/2 fret one octave higher). I myself have dulcimers with these added frets. I'll discuss their use much later on as well. We can get along just fine without them, so don't get all worried. ;)
Going to the end extreme we have the fully chromatic dulcimer, with no missing frets at all. Some people like them, especially people who like to play more complex modern music on their dulcimers, such as blues, jazz, klezmer, etc.

Besides having extra frets, another way to avoid retuning to play in different modes is to use a capo. A capo is a little clamp that raises the string pitches across all the strings at once without re-tuning them. Capos can be convenient, and we'll discuss them in the future as well, but for now we are learning simple basic things and we don't really need to mess with capos yet. Besides, capos really change the sound of the dulcimer- making it less resonant and more 'shut' sounding, so let's enjoy learning to do things without capos for a while. I actually never use a capo, so don't get all worried about capos either. ;)

So far on this blog we have been playing only simple folk music that can be played on traditional diatonic fretted dulcimers having no extra frets. We've been playing only in three modes: mixolydian, ionian, and aeolian. We won't be complicating our lives with having to learn any more than just these three modes until quite a bit later in this blog!
We've learned that we can re-tune from D ionian down to G ionian for instance, and then play a song using the very same tab/fret numbers...because we are in the same mode, just a different key. Thus, we have begun to understand that we can re-tune to play in a key other than D while still playing in the same mode (more on that later on).

The good news is that ...you've already gotten past the most difficult part of playing your dulcimer in the traditional way! If you can re-tune your dulcimer into ionian, mixolydian, and aeolian modes, then you can play most common tunes easily on your melody string, and you will find there are more than enough beautiful and exciting traditional dulcimer tunes and songs played in these three modes to keep you thrilled and busy for a long time to come!

Although there are several other interesting and useful modes you could learn, just knowing these first three that we've tried so far is enough to cover most typical playing circumstances. The fourth mode that you'll probably discover you need eventually is the beautiful Dorian mode, but for now, using just these first three modes is fine. Another reassuring fact is that in old-time traditional music, you can usually get by just fine if you can play in only four keys: D, G, A, and C. And most old-time so-called "modal songs" or "minor songs" can probably be played in your aeolian mode tuning, if you can get into the key that's called for. Now, remember, if you find yourself in a jam with singer-songwriter guitar players with big egos who like to sing songs they wrote in keys like F sharp and E flat, then run like the wind. I tell you this for your own good. Just stay away from them and play your Shady Grove until it erases the strains of their whiny frou-frou songs from your brain.

Now, lest you start thinking I'm a stuffy old poop, I feel compelled to include here one of my favorite versions of Shady Grove....but it has almost nothing in common with the Aeolian beauty we are talking about in this post. But I still think it's darned cute! Here it is- Charlene Darling from the old Andy Griffith show, singing Shady Grove. Has anyone else ever been as impossibly perky as this??