dulcimer
A stringed instrument existing in two main forms: the hammered dulcimer struck with mallets, and the Appalachian dulcimer plucked or strummed on the lap.
In Depth
The hammered dulcimer is a trapezoidal instrument with strings stretched over bridges, struck with small wooden hammers. It appears across cultures — as the santir in the Middle East, the yangqin in China, and the cimbalom in Eastern Europe. The Appalachian (or mountain) dulcimer is a very different instrument: a fretted, hourglass-shaped zither played on the lap, with three or four strings and a diatonic scale.
The Appalachian dulcimer became a symbol of American folk culture, particularly in the Southern mountain regions. Jean Ritchie popularized it in the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. Joni Mitchell used a dulcimer on several recordings, including "A Case of You." The hammered dulcimer has seen a revival in folk and new-age music, prized for its shimmering, harp-like sustain and its accessibility to players without extensive musical training.
The Appalachian dulcimer is one of the few instruments that originated entirely in America — early settlers in the Appalachian Mountains fashioned it from European zither and folk instrument traditions.