What type of wood makes the best dulcimer?
This is a tough question, and one which will prompt widely varying answers from different craftsmen. In general, walnut and cherry are my favorites for fingerboards, sides, and backs. Spruce is my first choice for soundboards, although butternut and walnut are both excellent alternatives. Depending upon availability, black locust makes a wonderful sides-and-back choice. Its density, hardness, and other properties are VERY similar to Indian rosewood: it has tremendous volume, while also possessing an uncommon richness and fullness of tone. Q4. Does soundhole design have any effect on the sound of the dulcimer? A: Again, as in Question 2, it is probably the overall size of the soundhole–rather than the shape–that is more likely to affect the sound of the dulcimer. In a very general sense, HUGE soundholes remove large sections of the vibrating area of the soundboard. This certainly doesn’t seem like a great idea, and the large-soundhole dulcimers I’ve played in the past all had a kind o
