Wow! Here I was feeling like a traitor because I stumbled across the kantele this fall (2013) and fell in love with it. There was a Finnish music concert at a summer camp out here. I had no idea what a kantele was - I went because "Finlandia" was listed as a tune they would be playing, and I play that on my mountain dulcimer. They played all kinds of wonderful stuff - polkas, songs, waltzes. Now I see that other MD players have found the same instrument. I have the Music Makers kantele with 10 strings. The sound is really nice. (I do divide my time with my mountain dulcimers, too, so that they don't get jealous.) There are some good books out there with Finnish tunes, they are by Lani K. Thompson. Also Gerry Henkel has a pdf book at his site listed on a post above. Ms. Thompson's book is not 'numbered' for the non-music reader. Mr. Henkel's is numbered. I found that by focusing on learning to read the 5 string tunes real notes first that I could then learn the rest of the notes. I suggest that since there are some other numbered tunes and everyone seems to number the strings differently. Also you can just noodle around and ignore reading notes all together which I love to do on a snowy day except that I almost drift off to sleep. (You can get more volume by placing your kantele on a hard surface - a counter or table. There's a nice ring, but sometimes I have to dampen notes because they sustain too long and sound discordant with the remaining tune.)
