Roosebeck DMCRT4 Mountain Dulcimer 4-String with Cutaway Upper Bout and F-Holes. New with Full Warranty!

Features

• Strings: 2-Melody, 1-Middle & 1-Bass
• Narrow Upper Bout Allows Guitar-Style Fingering
• Vaulted Fret Board For More Reactive Sound
• Spruce Soundboard, Cream Colored, Straight Grained
• Scroll Carved Peg Head with 4:1 Tuners
• Sophisticated F-Shaped Sound Holes

The Cutaway Dulcimer plays the same and sounds the same as a traditional mountain dulcimer. One side, however, is narrower which allows the dulcimer to be played in a "guitar position" in addition to the normal "lap position". Thus the fingering is inverted from normal style. It is kind of a missing link between the traditional mountain dulcimer and our "stick style" Wildwood Dulcimer. The inverted fingerings are a little easier for guitar players, but it still produces the rich, full sound of a mountain dulcimer. When you want to play in a traditional style, lay it flat and play it like any other mountain dulcimer.

The solid spruce soundboard features three F-holes. The back, sides, and fret board, are sheesham. The fret board has arches underneath allowing free space between the soundboard and the fret board. The carved scroll peg head features gold colored, geared 4:1 banjo style tuners. Many tunings will work, but we recommend the traditional DAD to make it easy to pick up and play. A pick and noter are included.

Traditionally, mountain dulcimers had three, equally spaced, strings: a melody string, a middle string, and a bass string. Later developments created a 4-string dulcimer by changing the string spacing and doubling the melody string. Doubling the melody string created greater volume to the melody line. Contemporary dulcimers, such as ours, include extra notches on the nut to allow more personalized string patterns. The inside doubled melody string can be removed completely to revert to the traditional 3-string set-up. Or the Inside melody string and the middle string can both be moved over one notch to create an equal spacing between all four strings. Find the set-up that works best for you.

The 6 1/2 and 13 1/2 Frets:
This model includes the 6 1/2 and 13 1/2 frets. Most early dulcimers had a strictly diatonic scale; that is, the frets were placed so as to produce a major scale (do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do) with no extra half steps. More recently, dulcimer players have found that the placement of an extra fret between the 6th and 7th frets and between the 13th and 14th frets allows two things; (1) a major scale can be produced starting at another point (on the open string), and (2) most songs containing "accidental" notes can be played. The 6 1/2 and 13 1/2 frets add versatility. The disadvantage is that it takes a while to get used to the extra frets if you have been playing a dulcimer without it.

Item Weight: 2.5 lbs.
Item Length: 34 Inches
Item Height: 3 Inches
Item Width: 7 Inches
Origin: PK
UPC: 844731041891

Packed Weight: 4 lbs.
Ship Weight: 8 lbs.
Ship Length: 36 Inches
Ship Height: 9 Inches
Ship Width: 5 Inches