Neb and I went to visit Grams the other weekend, who gifted us with this awesome thing! A dulcimer! More specifically, a psaltery! It’s a little dusty, and the strings are a little corroded, but it’s been well cared for, and we’re both excited to get to playing with it.

While trying to figure out how to tune it (thank you for labeling the strings! I’d have been so lost otherwise!) I did manage to snap one string, which sprung me into research mode! Okay.. so what kind of strings do I need for this thing? What size? Are there even sizes? Are they even different sizes? Hoo boy.

Some Google Fu has revealed that yes, there are different size strings, and yes, some psalteries do use different gauge strings, some are strung with only 10 gauge. So I busted out the trusty calipers and got to measuring! We have 3 different gauges of strings here on this one, 10, 12, and 14! And apparently they’re guitar strings. Easy peazy, as the kids say.

While doing this research, I’ve been trying to find out who the maker of this psaltery is. I just like to know these things, they’re interesting to me. Grams said the dulcimers they have (and they have quite a few!) came from the Smokies. The bow she gave us with the psaltery is labeled “Amsden Handcrafted”. So of course, I plugged this into Google.

Googling Amsden psaltery really didn’t pull up too much information. It seems this maker does not have a website, but there is an email address if you dig deep enough. I shot them off an email, and I’m hopeful! Most of the information I’m finding is from around 2012. It appears that the couples names are Kelly and Susan, and they’re from Somerville, TN. They have been to some fests, and have taught about the psaltery… and that’s really about all that I could find about them. There aren’t even many pictures out there of the psalteries they’ve made, which is really pretty sad. It’s also possible this psaltery is from Mountain Made Music in southern Indiana. I sent them a picture as well, and am waiting to hear back.

I did manage to eventually get the thing tuned (sans the one broken string), as I thought it would be good practice! I struggled to find the B, though. Not being familiar with instruments at all is proving a struggle — I played violin in 4th grade, a billion years ago. The only tuner I have is a tiny one for my ukulele (which I still don’t know how to play hah), and though it is chromatic, it doesn’t give me any information on adjacent notes. I ended up downloading a tuner app on my phone, and that was a huge help! It showed me nearby notes, and I was able to track down that pesky B I couldn’t figure out that way. Apparently the notes on these are very similar to notes on a piano, which makes sense why Grams likes them, as she plays piano.

Once I get new strings sorted out, and have all of the old ones taken off, I’ll give it a good cleaning and get all of the dust off. If I can find the maker, I’ll ask them the best way to care for it and get all of the advise I can. I know with wood you tend to need to polish or feed it in some way to keep it in the best shape, and I’m sure something like Pledge wont be want I want to use! Not that I would even think of that, but you know… that’s the typical wood cleaner people have at home.