The dulcimer looks wonderful, but the main point for me is that it sounds great and plays well. I designed this to let me play more complex music, hence the wider fretboard. It's also a bigger body than my 30-year-old 4-string Folkcraft dulcimer, which delivers a 12-string-guitar-like sound when you carry a melody in the bass. It's a differnt animal.
My new dulcimer lets me play in the style of the late Bert Jansch without actually using my guitar!
Of course I agonised over the addition of a 11/2 fret and considered reducing it to a mini-fret under the middle string (I really wanted the C natural) but I was happy when I discoverd that the added f naturals let me play blues riffs in DAD. I think I will always think of the 11/2 fret as 'the extra fret for specific purposes' so I've filled the space behind it with a large, ornate position marker (a pentangle in memort of Jansch) so I'm always aware of it. Problem solved. Looks cool, too.
Murray Laing
Scotland
