hi

With all the guitar talk around here, I thought I’d let folks know I’m moving toward buying a new instrument (not a guitar).

Extremely local news:

As I’m now back to playing hammered dulcimer in short periods (ten minutes or less, strengthening my hands, working on grace and deftness again, and getting back in practice), my wife offered an incentive.

She says that even after the hideously expensive HVAC system we had put in a couple months ago, there is plenty of money left in our checking account to buy both a new computer (I’ve worn the letters off the keys so you have to know where they are), and to buy a new “war dulcimer” (4+ octave chromatic hammered dulcimer).

She had me searching out companies that I might like to get one from.

There are only a few I trust that have been in business for a long time and are skilled at making hammered dulcimers; probably I will settle on Dusty Stings of Seattle, Wash.

Since I bought my current hammered dulcimer in 1991, Folkcraft Instruments (then based in New Caanan, Conn. where they had a shop and I’d replaced my previous dulcimer as the strings were starting to fold it up due to the tension and it would no longer tune properly), Folkcraft has gone out of the business of making hammered dulcimers.

She says she will spring for the dulcimer if I get back to regular playing (and not talk about politics so much).

I suggested their largest hammered dulcimer, the D670 4 1/2 octave chromatic dulcimer ($4,255), with optional acoustic dampers (those are on each side of the instrument at the bridges, and operate like a piano damper with a pedal which releases the dampers, $795), black soundboard ($130, my current dulcimer also has a black wood soundboard because as I learned on my first dulcimer, a polished wood soundboard makes it extremely difficult to see all those strings when they are also reflected in the wood), installed electric pickups (when I played gigs in Florida and Georgia I used two microphones on booms which is a pain in the butt to set up right) for $345, and a gig bag ($485). Locally, I would also hire the finishing carpenter to make me a wood case which would withstand potential damage better.

I expected her to come after me with a rolling pin for that suggestion. Instead, she said, “sounds good.”

So we might be soon supporting a local business on the Left Coast.