6 String Travel Guitar - Blue (Blowout Sale - Limited Time Only!)

by Austin Bazaar

Product Features

• StrollingTrapezoidal Shape
• Full linings attaching top and back to sides
• Two crossbraces each on top and back
• Adjustable trussrod
• Color: Blue

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds
• ASIN: B0007KHVIW
• Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #72,865 in Musical Instruments (See Top 100 in Musical Instruments)
  • #53 in Musical Instruments > Folk & World Instruments > Stringed Instruments > Dulcimers

Product Description

This is a 6-stringed instrument (three courses) meant to be held and played like a mandolin or banjo, rather than on the lap. It has a diatonic dulcimer fretboard and is tuned similarly to most dulcimers, D-A-D. The first and second strings are strung as one course, tuned in unison to D. It uses standard dulcimer strings. It is well-built, with full linings attaching top and back to sides, two crossbraces each on top and back, and an adjustable trussrod. The sound is bright, with plenty of volume despite its compact size. The tone is somewhat like a mandolin. It is about 25 inches long overall; the body is just over 7 inches wide.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice for Beginner - All Others - Find a Real Dulcimer, April 30, 2005

By 

rb - See all my reviews

This review is from: 6 String Travel Guitar - Blue (Blowout Sale - Limited Time Only!)

First, this is more of a strum stick than a bona fide dulcimer.

It will be hard to find music for a 6 stringer, but you can adapt the strings to a D-A-D configuration. You play this like a cheap guitar.

Second, it should always be priced in the $30 range or less because it is inexpensive quality and mass produced so this advertisement about "Blowout Sale - Today Only" which has been going on for awhile really isn't true. It is not worth $90+ to begin with.

Third, you will need a tuner because this strum stick comes untuned. It does come with a nice carrying case, extra string, and a pick.

Conclusion: If you want to play an authentic 3-4 string dulcimer on your lap like the original musicians did and do, this is not the instrument for you.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not a Dulcimer, September 2, 2005

By 

Doctor Lu - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 6 String Travel Guitar - Blue (Blowout Sale - Limited Time Only!)

This is actually not any sort of dulcimer. It is a sort of cheap knockoff of Martin's Backpacker guitar. The Martin is quite clever in that the neck and sides are all one piece of wood. This one is merely a neck glued to a similarly shaped body. The construction and finish are rather crude. The fretboard is whatever nondescript wood dyed black, body is plywood, and the finish looks like sprayed enamel.

This guitar differs from the Martin BP in having a floating bridge and tailpiece. The bridge is deeply slotted, which robs tone (what tone you could get from the small plywood body), but is necessary in order to get a more reasonable spacing of the strings, since the tailpiece is way too narrow (and probably from a children's toy guitar). I could position the bridge to give reasonable intonation, but the break angle of the strings is too small to give good tension on the bridge. The tuners are about in par for the rest of the gutiar. They do turn, actually, just not well.

Actually, I mostly wrote this review to point out that the demensions are similar to the Backpacker. The guitar is actually nearly 36 inches long, not the 24 or 25 inches described.

In short, you are getting what you pay for. And $30 for a guitar will not get you much.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Woops! I bought a cheapie., January 9, 2009

By 

Gregory Cornell "Dredry Toenail" (Flint, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 6 String Travel Guitar - Blue (Blowout Sale - Limited Time Only!)

I don't know what I was thinking when I bought this one. I opened it up, tuned the strings and started playing. Some of the frets couldn't hold the strings and the bridge is a floating-style - not very durable for a traveler.

I returned it the next day for a full refund (shipping at my expense). Spend a little extra dough and get a better guitar. This one is not even good enough for a toy.