How adorable! But I can feel my allergies acting up . . .
Susie, your gliders look very comfortable!
Thank you Jan, they are very comfy!
They fit me perfectly, but I am tall (5'9").
Susie, your gliders look very comfortable!
For me, seat height is key. I'm fairly tall, but have disproportionately short shin bones. A child's chair works pretty well for me--17 inches, tops. Office chairs which can be lowered often work well and they often have arms, which I need for support. My right arm, after complex shoulder surgery, can't just hang free; it has to be supported or it feels like gravity is pulling it out of the socket--very painful).
I have several 3 legged folding stools and an assortment of folding chairs, but my favorite remains my recliner!
Here’s my favorite spot. I’m pretty jittery so the glider is perfect for me. The hardest part is trying to be still if I’m making a video, LOL.
I keep a drummer's stool in the back of the van in case the venue had no chairs (outside in the park, camping, etc.)
I have not made the transition to standing and playing as I've been playing for nearly 40 years and just can't find a position where I can still do the technical work.
In my studio I use an office chair that I fitted with "rollerblade" type wheels and removed the arms. Super comfy. I also use a keyboard stand fitted with padding for standing and playing flat.
I realize in reading this discussion that seven years ago I promised to post a picture of the dolphin soundholes on my Eedy Beede octave dulcimer.
Since David makes his dulcimers in Florida, the Atlantic dolphin soundholes seem appropriate. What you can't tell in the photo is how small they are. Each is smaller than my thumb.
Nice!!!!
These days my 'performance' playing is standing up with my dulcimer on a waiter's folding table 30" high. If I have to sit and play I look for a standard metal folding chair.
<<<<< The floor, as pictured.... 
My favorite chair is 'Zetti Mid Back Executive Leather Chair'! I believe that one must always choose the chair in which he/she find themselves comfortable. This is the chair which I have ordered from office furniture Miami , as suggested by my friend. It gives me the required comfort and flexibility avoiding my back pain while playing the online game. Happy with the quality of service.
Just a reminder to everyone that we have a Site Questions Forum where you can find answers to many of the most common questions about how FOTMD works:
https://fotmd.com/forums/forum/site-questions-how-do-i
Not sure how to start a forum thread? How to add a video? How to change your avatar picture? How to send a private message? ... take a look there and you will likely find an existing thread explaining just how to do that! If you don't find the existing answer, then add your own new thread in that forum asking how to do a particular thing on FOTMD.
Our site questions forum is the EZ place to get answers on how to use our FOTMD site! 
I realize in reading this discussion that seven years ago I promised to post a picture of the dolphin soundholes on my Eedy Beede octave dulcimer.
Since David makes his dulcimers in Florida, the Atlantic dolphin soundholes seem appropriate. What you can't tell in the photo is how small they are. Each is smaller than my thumb.
Lisa -- your jouhikko looks a lot like my Anglo-Saxon Lyres -- but with sound holes!
I've made soundholes in all sorts of shapes over the years -- from circles to the Space Shuttle. All my instruments now have plain circles, in patterns, but I'm partial to leaves -- maple and tulip poplar in particular.
One of my favorite sound hole shapes is the quatrefoil ("four leaf"). Not sure why, I just like it and it has an old feel to it.
I had it used for sound holes on both my jouhikko and my "Elizabethan Garden" epinette des Vosges.
For a traditional dulcimer the classic Dutch Heart soundhole is my favorite, but as others have already said the choice really has to please only one person. In a way it's kind of like choosing a tattoo. Some prefer no tattoo at all. Others prefer to have their whole body covered in tattoos.
One consideration is whether or not you ever intend to resell the dulcimer. Dulcimers with standard heart-shaped soundholes and/or circles will probably have more resale value. A personalized soundhole will only appeal to someone who can appreciate the choice you have made.
I wanted to bump this thread because I have that exact instrument, except mine has no decorations. I found it in a Pittsburgh Guitar Center of all places. There were a couple of articles about them in Dulcimer Players News a couple of years ago. The one the article was acquired originally in a folk music shop in NYC circa 1970’s. The strings on mine were original and very corroded so I replaced them all. It was tuned like a DAD dulcimer, more or less, when I got it, but using a caliper to figure out gauges, plus some research and a little math, told me this particular instrument was supposed to be in G (all Gs and D’s). The citera comes in different sizes and tunings, but on this size G works well.
I wanted Ted to add that some of my pins were loose and would not hold tune. I removed them and discovered that although they look like zither pins, they are not! They are larger (zither pin wrench will not fit) and they are smooth, no thread! I made the worn holes smaller with the old super glue trick, and they are holding fine now. But they are true friction pins. It is good to remember that. Mine came with the correct size wrench, thank goodness. I understand Dave’s comment about not enough leverage. The previous owner solved that problem by sticking too small metal handle of the tuning wrench into the top of a standard wooden file handle. Works like a charm.
Another question-does anyone have a sound clip of a Beard?
Ariane, you're so welcome! Your lovely story made me smile :-) Thank you for sharing that!
Oh Bob - you made such a nice present to me with the upload of Tiny Tim-Tiptoe Through The Tulips!
I heard it when I was a child in the radio here in Germany and I loved it. It was played by a radio station (if I remember correctly every Friday) early in the morning when I had a homey (gemütlich) breakfast with my father before he had to go to work and I to school.
I have never heard it since then and never knew who sang it - and now it brings the best childhood memories back to me - thank you, thank you, thank you! I have tears in my eyes...
Scent and music can be very evocative 
Ariane
All this Ukulele talk- I can't get Tiny Tim out of my head; "Tip-toe thru the tulips..."
A while back I was playing around in a music store and had an acoustic bass guitar on my lap. I don't play the bass but can fake it after decades of guitar playing. I was playing the bass line to Taj Majal's version of "She Caught the Katy" and was trying to sing, too. But I couldn't do it. When I expressed frustration, explaining that I can play guitar and sing with no problem, the owner of the store replied that I had to "own the bass" before I'd be able to sing along to it. I thought at first that he was trying to sell me the instrument, but what he meant was that before I'd be able to accompany myself singing I had to really know the bass line perfectly without having to think about it at all.
I think that's right. You can only work on one thing at a time. So if you have to think about where to fret the fingerboard or how you want to vary your vocal line, you can't also be thinking about strumming or picking with your right hand. You have to know one part so well that it's automatic, allowing you to think about the other part.
I don't know if there are any shortcuts. Just repetition. I developed a steady, back-and-forth strumming pattern on the guitar many years ago. It enabled me to become a passable mandolin player pretty quickly and also sped up dramatically my improvement on the dulcimer. I sometimes mess up my right hand in that I don't play the exact rhythm I had intended, but I never get off beat. My right hand just goes back and forth, out, in, out, in. Sometimes I strum all three strings, sometimes just two, sometimes I pick a single string, and sometimes I skip a beat and don't hit any strings, but my hand feels that back-and-forth movement anyway. In fact, if you see me play a half note you will often see an extra little jerk in my hand as I move just to keep the beat even though I am not playing a note. Before you will be really comfortable singing, your strumming hand has to become automatic. Not robotic, for you can still swing and play with feeling, but it has to be something you don't have to think about at all.
And think of how quickly you could learn new tunes if you only have to think about your left hand!
I would suggest muting the strings of your dulcimer with your left hand so that when you strum them you just hear that vamping scratch. Then put on your favorite CD or turn on the radio. Strum along. Find the beat and just strum out once per beat. Once you're comfortable, add the in strum, counting 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & and strumming out-in-out-in-out-in-out-in. (You can reverse those outs and ins, but you have to reverse them all; be consistent!) Do that over and over and over. Once you're comfortable strumming in both directions, then try to replicate the rhythms you hear. It might involve skipping, accenting, or muting strums, but when you can hear a rhythm and replicate it with your right hand (always maintaining that steady, back-and-forth motion), then I think you'll be ready to sing or play and not worry about that right hand at all. By then you'll "own" it.
All this Ukulele talk- I can't get Tiny Tim out of my head; "Tip-toe thru the tulips..."
Sandi,
Our tastes change and methods may change over time. Sometimes we add something different. Sometimes we change to a different way of playing. How wonderful the versatility of this special instrument which we all love.
Ken, I always love the way you think! I'm not sure I explained well though... At times my timing is off with my strumming. Just in the middle of a song, sometimes more than once, out of the blue. So crazy!
Lois, you are so right about singing and playing together. Right now I have a song where I want to sing a word down three notes, but I find it impossible to keep strumming the melody while adding that little trill. LOL! I just shared in the noter thread that now I'm all about DAA with a noter, rather than where I was last year wanting to learn chords in DAD. SO fickle! LOL! Thank you ever so much for your encouragement and for becoming a following friend. 
Thank you, Lisa! ~great info~ Thank you, Ken! Thank you, Richard! Funny that I used to be all about wanting to learn to chord in DAD, but now I'm in a season where I'm all about DAA with a noter! LOL!
Sandi,
That little Wren sounds might good. Liked your playing
Definitely Laughing Out Loud over your dulcimer-playing KY moonshiner, Lisa. My best market for gigs is here in Michigan which has a doozie of rum-running type history from Prohibition, so my post-Prohibition reporter looking back at it will have more than enough to cover looking at that. My trick right now is organizing it in a compact format, there's so much available to say. I figure the Ooo-koo-lay-lay will help me keep it light and entertaining. I want to focus on how it turned normally law-abiding people into bootleggers and made drinking the opposite of what was intended. (I plan to start with a W.C.T. U. song -- learned years ago as KY's Carrie Nation came to Holly, MI to smash the bars and for many years there was an annual Carrie Nation festival and pageant.)
You and Terry have convinced me to stay with a tenor.
Heeheehee... us profezional editers love it anytime we can solve a problem by proofreading! It happens so seldom... 
As Ken mentioned, the Hawaiian pronunciation is different from what we typically say on the mainland. Ooo-koo-lay-lay (like the cow says "Moo"). If you pronounce it like a Hawaiian it's easier to spell. This is a good place for me to admit I typed "pronounciation" and would not have noticed except for the spellcheck squiggly line ;-)
I've been on the UU forum so long, I don't remember whether it was hard for me to get approved. "Junior Member" merely means you haven't posted much yet. Beware UAS (ukulele acquisition syndrome) -- there are a lot of enablers on that site.
Lyon & Healy marketed a "tenor ukulele" in 1923. No baritone is documented before 1948, though you could plausibly argue about tiples and taro-patch guitars. The classic 1920s sound is a soprano uke with re-entrant tuning gCEA or aDF#B. Any uke would pass for most audiences. I've pulled off some ren faire living history with my MD that only looks like a scheitholt if you're not a scheitholt expert -- because the only scheitholt experts I've ever met are MD players who would never out one of their own! I have to assume there are very few people who would notice a bari uke is out of period -- and they are probably fellow travelers.
Don't worry about matching your singing voice to the uke. If anything, contrast is good. I sing soprano and prefer a uke that can fill in my missing low-end resonance, like a concert Fluke or a warm mahogany tenor. My alto-singing friends often prefer a bright soprano/concert uke that adds some ringing high tones.
Please keep us in the loop about your prohibition storytelling. That sounds like a blast! You know... you could add a character who makes moonshine in Kentucky, fends off the revenuers and plays... a mountain dulcimer!
I could swear we've been talking about ukuleles recently on FOTMD, maybe off in a group discussion that not everybody sees. There are a bunch of uke players around here. Welcome to the underground.
Thanks, Ken, Susie, & Terry. I was wondering if this and my earlier trying to get started was worth posting. Just figured it would be worthwhile for someone, even though it's an"Other Instrument."
Terry, you gave me the rationale I tried to explain to my husband about why I bothered. Dunno if you know if the baritone uke was around by the early 30s or not. My voice is low enough I often sing an octave lower. Probably I'm better keeping the tenor for that 20s sound.
