Beginner's Guide To Hammered Dulcimers - Dusty Strings

The "other" dulcimer

People use the word “dulcimer” to refer both to the hammered dulcimer and to the mountain dulcimer. Hammered dulcimer is the type we make, and it is played by striking the strings with a pair of special mallets called hammers. Mountain dulcimer looks more like a guitar (often hourglass-shaped) and is played by fretting and strumming the strings.

Hammered dulcimer anatomy

A hammered dulcimer is usually set up on some sort of stand or leg, with the strings facing up and the longest edge of the trapezoid facing the player. You can play standing up or sitting down, depending on the height of the stand. Strings are grouped together in courses, most commonly in pairs on modern instruments, and all the strings in a course are tuned to the same note. Strings are usually anchored at one end on a hitch pin, and they wind around a threaded zither tuning pin at the other end.

How do you make a sound?

You play by striking the strings with a pair of hammers, which are often made of wood and can have a variety of striking surfaces to produce different types of sound. You hold a hammer lightly between your thumb and pointer finger and let it bounce on a string, preferably close to one of the bridges. Playing with bare wood hammers gives you a sharper, more percussive tone, while playing with a softer surface like felt or leather produces a gentler, more piano-like tone.

How do you find a major scale?

How long does it take to tune a dulcimer?

The first time you tune a dulcimer, be prepared to spend a while on it! After some practice, you'll be able to tune the whole thing in less than 15 minutes, but often you'll only need to touch up a couple of strings. A well-built, stable instrument can stay in tune for a few weeks in a constant environment, although changes to temperature and humidity will affect even the most stable hammered dulcimer!

What kind of music can you play on a hammered dulcimer?

Most traditional American hammered dulcimers have the major keys of F, C, G and D easily available, which works well for a variety of musical styles like old-time, bluegrass, hymns, Celtic tunes, and even some pop music. In a very basic sense, you can think of a small dulcimer as being similar to a piano with only the white keys. If someone calls a tune in E-flat, you might be sitting that one out.

The larger the dulcimer is, the more keys there are available, and certain instruments might also incorporate additional chromatic notes outside of the traditional major-scale tuning scheme. This allows you to play music that modulates or is full of accidentals, and is more like having both the black and white keys on a piano. It makes certain styles like blues, jazz, classical and non-Western folk music easier to play.

To get an idea of the wide range of music that people play on hammered dulcimer, check out the videos in this blog post. Dulcimer is also being used more and more by composers who write for film, and you can hear some examples of that in this post.