Below are pictures of my two dulcimers. One is a 3 string dulcimer, and the other is between 3 and 6 depending on what I am doing at the time. The dulcimer that can go up to 6 strings is also fully chromatic � that is if you were playing on just one string you would get all the "white and black notes". Most dulcimers are diatonic � that is just the "white" notes on any single string � except most have one "black" note added.

The vibrating portion of the strings are about 29" which is long for a dulcimer (I have big hands). 26" or 27" is fine for many humans. The white rectangle in the upper left of the picture on the right (the gray scale pic) is about 1 foot long � just to give you an idea of the size.

Well at this point you might be asking � um � if one of the dulcimers has six stings and is chromatic � why is it not a guitar? Well I don�t know what makes a guitar a guitar � but I do know why it�s not a dulcimer (and why a dulcimer is one). The short story is � a guitar has a neck � dulcimers do not. The strings (or at least the portion that vibrates) on a dulcimer are 100% (or close to that anyway) over the sound box. This makes dulcimers a type of zither.

My two "good" dulcimers were made by Aeolus Instruments. They can be found on the web at http://www.aeolusmusic.com