Customer Reviews

Mountain Dulcimer

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If you are willing to throw away a hundred bucks, give or take, just to find out if you (or your child) want to commit to playing a dulcimer, then fine, go ahead and buy one at that price. That's the best way for some people (I admit, I did it when I didn't have the money to spend on a nice one). But once you know how to play, even a little, you will NOT want to use it! If you KNOW you want to play a dulcimer or are willing to give it a good shot, then expect to spend no less than $300 for a hand-built, solid wood (not plywood) dulcimer, either second hand or at a good deal. There are a lot of good dulcimer makers out there, and there are a lot of styles to choose from. A good place to begin is to check out Jerry Rockwell's Muountain Dulcimer page, where he gives tips on what to look for when buying a dulcimer. Beyond that, do a search for "mountain dulcimer" and check out the different styles and makers. And if you find after making the investment that you just aren't playing it, then you can always re-sell it and probably recoup most of your investment much more easily than with a poor quality dulcimer.

To be fair, I own the Celtic version of this dulcimer (the only difference are the shape of the sounds holes-mine has knot work instead of Dutch hearts) made by the same company and mine is actually quite nice. I am a musician so yes I agree that if you already play dulcimer, you should buy a custom, but if you just want to learn on something, these are a nice start and it will not break your bank.

This company buys kits from the Early Music Shop (EMS) in England and then assembles them in Pakistan (cheep labor costs) so the base instrument is of decent quality but the assembly is hit or miss. I am fairly certain that these are not assembled by profession luthiers and therefore not always assembled for the best tone quality. I seemed to have lucked out as mine is lovely and has a great sound.

I immediately took mine to a luthier to install strap pegs and get new strings (I don't like their strings at all-get D'Addario .010 steel loop end strings for all 3 of your high strings and 0.28 for your bass-much improved sound quality). He also filed down the string grooves in the nut and bridge to make sure that they were smooth and even. Mine plays like a dream, and even the luthier thought it a pretty damn good little instrument. The sound board could be better but the design is nice and clean.

My original plan was to buy this cheap one to learn on and later sell it to the local music store when I buy a more expensive custom model but I have since decided to keep mine and mount it on my wall as it also looks great to hang and is perfect if you do not want to take your $700 dulcimer to the beach or out camping. So bottom line, these babies are hit or miss but when they hit, they are a home run.

cr**, cr**, **ap, **ap, CR**, CR**, **AP... POOP.

Reeeeaalllllyy bad.