#hammered dulcimer

i got a hammered dulcimer recently and decided immediately that to help me learn to play it i had to transcribe some songs from lamento so heres this, the audio is kinda shit cuz i havent quite figured out how i want to mic it for recording. i recorded the backing part on a classical guitar

[video ID: a person playing the first part of the leads to Wily Castle 1, from Mega Man 2, on a hammered dulcimer. End ID.]

I got the paint on the strings last week, but then I got distracted by Monster Hunter Wilds and didn’t bother tuning it back up until now. The paint doesn’t seem to have negatively affected the tone, which was my biggest worry (or biggest gamble, maybe) in this little update. It’s also a bit easier to tune now just because it’s easier to see which string you’re messing with!

[image Id: the hammered dulcimer in question. The strings are painted in rainbow colors. End ID.]

doesn’t show up flawlessly in the pic, but this is a big improvement. It was previously extremely hard for me to see which strings I was aiming any given swing at! It’s still a bit of a challenge, but significantly less so. If anyone’s contemplating a similar project, I just used undiluted enamel paint straight out of the jar. The colors weren’t all equally easy to use, but they all ended up more or less working.