This is a great question for a thread.
When I first started hearing 'fiddle tunes', I thought they all sounded a lot alike and that there wasn't much to them.
As I listened more, I began to hear the variety amongst them and appreciate their spare structure and little quirks. I grew to really enjoy them.
Aside from that though, I think there is not really a clear repertoire of 'dulcimer music' in the same way as there is 'piano music', 'guitar music', 'banjo music', 'accordion music', etc. That means that dulcimer players have to choose music from elsewhere and adapt it to the dulcimer. Since the dulcimer cannot exactly be chorded like a piano or guitar, most people attempt to adapt music to the dulcimer based first on the MELODY, and then to fill that out with either drones or chords. Traditional fiddle music is mostly chord free, and the melody is nicely laid out in a straightforward and simple way. This makes fiddle tunes very good candidates for transcribing into dulcimer tunes. so I think this has a lot to do with it too.
lol!
