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The hammered dulcimer consists of a trapezium shaped box over which a large number of strings are stretched. It is played by striking the strings with light wooden hammers. All you have to do is hit the right string at the right time!
The hammered dulcimer has existed for thousands of years and variants have evolved in many different cultures, including Europe, the Middle East, India, China, and North America.
Unlike most musical instruments there is no single standard layout for the notes on a hammered dulcimer. The instrument Alec plays (pictured here) is a "Washington model" dulcimer made by Gillian Alcock in Canberra, Australia. As the name suggests, its layout is based on a North American folk instrument that has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in recent years, although Gillian has added extra strings to extend its chromatic range. It has 32 courses of strings, with two strings per course tuned in unison. That's 64 individual strings to tune!
If you look at the photograph of Alec's instrument you'll see that there are three lines of bridges. Each course of strings goes over only one bridge, and the strings are struck close to the bridge. The central (treble) bridges are positioned so that the lengths of the string segments either side of the bridge are in the ratio 2:3, which corresponds to a musical interval of a fifth. You use notes on both sides of this bridge. Strings going over the bridges on the right are tuned a fifth below the adjacent treble bridge strings. Strings going over the left hand bridge provide some lower notes and some extra accidentals.
This tuning scheme makes it easy to play music that is diatonic, ie. doesn't have accidentals, and for this type of music transposing between keys is almost trivial - you just play the same pattern, but in a different place on the instrument. The down side is that although most of the accidentals are there somewhere, they are often in rather unexpected places!
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