I'm wondering which shipping carriers you folks recommend for safely shipping a mountain dulcimer. Prices vary widely, and some do not offer insurance (UPS & FedEx). Your experience and recommendations, friends?
Nice to hear from @Doug-Jones and @Jeannie-in-Paradise. l consider both of you local friends. And Jeannie, you are the reason I am here. You found me at the original Everything Dulcimer site and encouraged me to join here. I will be forever grateful. 
Awww, thank you Dusty! <3
I'm sorry to hear that David is no longer building dulcimers. I've owned two of his exceptional instruments. I'm now trying to determine a fair price for the MMD koa chromatic that I still own (lost the other one in the Paradise Camp Fire), as I no longer play dulcimer. I'd think the MMD dulcimers would hold their value well, but I've been told that chromatic ones "sell for less." Hmmm?
I read that David McKinney of MMD may have retired from making dulcimers? Anyone know if that is true? Thanks!
I decided to post a 'hello' after not logging on to the group in a few years. I lost three gorgeous, chromatic mountain dulcimers in the Paradise "Camp Fire," and in the stress and chaos and recovery afterwards, I stopped playing, even though I did purchase a beautiful koa chromatic Modern Mountain dulcimer. Life has continued to move along, and I haven't played in a long time, but I did want to say hello and see if any of my old friends here remember me!
Thank you all! I had no idea that so many folks would remember me! I appreciate the kindness and healing wishes from you folks. I'm recovering fairly well from the trauma of losing our house. I can also use the healing wishes for a health issue that surfaced just a month before the fire. I've been undergoing treatment, and so far things are looking very positive.
Hello folks. I haven't been active on here in a long, long time. Partly, I just lost motivation for playing my three beautiful mountain dulcimers and got involved in other activities. Then along came that horrendous Camp Fire which destroyed thousands of homes, including ours and all our instruments.
As I gradually recovered from the fire trauma, I realized I wanted to play mountain dulcimer again. So I put the word out, and wow, Jim Woods from McSpadden made me a new walnut one. David McKinney of Modern Mountain Dulcimers made me a new Koa one at a major price discount. Someone else gave me a very old, beautiful dulcimer that needs work, but I'm back to three again! <3
My very favorite is the one that David made for me, and I love the sound of it. So far I've been focusing on just a couple tunes, as we're still dealing with lots of stuff regarding insurance and housing and health, but I'm feeling motivated again.
I want to show off the Modern Mountain, so here's a photo.
I just want to add my May 2012 experience here. I had decided to buy a Clemmer "Sweetie" church style dulcimer to take to Wisconsin, so I could play at a private memorial for my mom. It has a well-fitting soft bag. When time came to fly with it, for each flight I made certain to board early... sometimes claiming to belong in the group of "people who need extra help," sometimes just being sure I was at the head of the line. Each time I carefully positioned my Sweetie into the overhead bin right above me, and then halfway stood right there, keeping track of what else was about to go into that overhead bin. I found passengers and flight attendants to be very respectful and cooperative, and Sweetie made it safely through five separate plane rides. (Maybe my nearly white hair and occasionally limping a bit helped, too!) 
Jeannie
I'll throw in my point of view here, too. When I make a short webcam video, I work diligently to play through the tune without errors, get the sound to work and sound good, and frankly I generally scrunch up my face intensely while doing it! No way am I able to focus on "smiling from the joy that playing brings me" when I'm concentrating so hard! That being said, I do appreciate when others manage to include their heads, but mostly when watching a dulcimer player I really want to see their hands and the instrument so I can learn from their technique. So, sorry to say, you won't see much of my face and/or head on any video, by design! ;-)
Diane
I decided to record Wayfarin' Stranger in DAC tuning (Aeolian mode) and upload the sound file to this discussion so the mp3 file is at the bottom of this reply. The version is very simple played on the melody strings only (no chords) with a light random picking on the drone strings. If you tune your dulcimer to DAC, you can play along with the recording to learn the song. Wayfarin Stranger starts on the first fret and it repeats the song twice with a tag (repeat of the final phrase) at the end. It takes a minute or two to load but once it is loaded you can replay it as many times as you like while learning the song. Try it and let me know if it works for you. Dave
