How to Use the Muted Damper Pedal on a Hammered Dulcimer

Video Transcript

"Hi! I’m Tim Van Egmond here for expertvillage.com and I am talking about the hammered dulcimer and if you would like to know more about me, you can find my website at www.timvanegmond.com. I would like to explore with you another feature of using the damper pedal for the dampers that can mute the strings. One of the purposes of it is simply to stop the ringing of the strings briefly and quickly so that you might change keys or try not to clash with some notes that are coming up that otherwise the ringing of the previous notes might be a problem with. Another way you can use them is to mute the strings but still play them. It gives a different affect on the strings kind of like a marimba and the way that this is sometimes used is perhaps for a full time through a melody in an instrumental version. For instance, you might do and then perhaps you could continue through the b part or you could take the damper off and go. "