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Instruments

 

Hammered Dulcimer Models

 

Other Instruments

Instruments No Longer Supplied

  • The Augusta Grande.  was a great instrument in its day: one of the earlier 16/15 production instruments., It has a lovely mellow tone, but there are now a number of good 16/15 instruments , like the D-45.

  • Cimbaloms: I once thought a decent cimbalom could be made lighter than 100 kilos, and made a couple. Having been at the Cimbalom World Congress in Budapest in October 2011, I had a lot of questions answered, including, whether I should build them. The answer for now is, no. The cimbalom i but there are still some excellent makers and they are not sitting still. Some are making lighter instruments with, for example, hollow legs. Some are using the older Bohak scaling of the earlier 20th century, which is shorter than the Grand Piano-influenced scaling of the later 20th century and (to my ears) much sweeter. And some very short-scale, small-range instruments are also being made for students that don't sound great, but do the job. I still have an idea or two about building a cimbalom, but I no longer think that it's possible to make one that sounds right and can be easily picked up.

  • The Pico was a smaller version of the Augusta Grande, a lighter instrument built on the Compact template. A CF version, weighing 10 lbs., is possible but so far there is little interest for a CF instrument of significant expense but only 16/15 range. 

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