I wanted a dulcimer for a long time, but since I never played one before and have limited musical (as well as financial) talents to put towards it, I thought well here is one I can afford and if I can’t play it, well I can probably get my money back out of it. I also thought what kinda dulcimer am I gonna get for this cheap of money. My expectations were not high. I was pleasantly surprised. The dulcimer is handcrafted (in Romania) made with all solid woods, mine appears to be spruce.

This dulcimer is VERY nice. It is quite lovely actually and it came with a pick and noter devise as well as a limited instruction sheet and a first song. Within 30 minutes I was able to make the song sound actually pretty good, and I have never played dulcimer before,ever. The only thing that this one needed was to be tuned when it arrived. I tuned it according to instructions found over at […] and it is just lovely sounding. A very nice first instrument.

First off let me say I have zero musical background and can’t read music. In addition I have substantial orthopedic problems with my hands and fingers making it virtually impossible to play most instruments. That being said, for a long, long, time I have wanted to learn to play an instrument.

The last few years I have attended the Old Time Fiddler’s Convention and each year the desire to play something kept growing. Last year I had seen some people playing Mountain Dulcimers and I thought “Gee, I could probably play that even with my physical limitations.” I bumped into a friend from church there and made the same observation to him. Not only did he agree with my assessment he told me he belonged to the local dulcimer club (and has since become my dulcimer mentor).

Since other ideas in the past didn’t pan out I did not want to spend a lot of money on a dulcimer. I bought the Apple Creek dulcimer knowing full well that it would probably be a cheapy and if I stuck with the dulcimer playing that I’d probably upgrade later.

To be honest it was a much better dulcimer than I anticipated. It did what I wanted and demonstrated to myself that I could indeed play the dulcimer and when I did upgrade to a higher end dulcimer my wife started playing the Mountain Creek dulcimer and she has since gotten a higher end dulcimer. Tonight I am giving this dulcimer to a fellow dulcimer player’s grand-kid. That’ll make three or more people getting their start on just this one dulcimer.

If you don’t compare the Apple Creek dulcimer to higher end dulcimers and rate it as an entry level dulcimer it is worth every penny. It is well made and easy to play. The sound is OK but not great (but I didn’t realize this until I played it side by side with a higher end dulcimer). The nice case it comes with makes it even a better buy.

Long story short this dulcimer help to fan my dulcimer fever.

I bought this dulcimer as well. I dont really play string instruments but I love the way a dulcimer sounds and thought it would be one of the easiest string instruments for me to learn as for all intents and purposes the dulcimer has 3 strings ( this one has 4 but 2 of them are melody strings which produce the same note ) This is NOT a 6 1/2! It is a plain old dulcimer. If you are unclear on what this means, it means: each string can not range a full octave. Which is fine if you are playing a lot of folk music, kids songs and older songs. However if you are needing to make chords for playing pop music this dulcimer is not for you. If you are just learning to play and you know you can resell it for a good price and buy a better one later if you like it, then this dulcimer IS for you. and yes I do agree some of the parts are shoddy, but for learning to play this instrument and not using it to perform its just fine.