Aw Terry, I feel for you and for the residents who were so looking forward to your music and high-jinx. So sad indeed!
Keeping my fingers crossed that things will turn around very soon, especially for the old folks in nursing homes and assisted living residences. 
Stay well Terry!
You know your Dulcimer has a hold on you when you constantly pick it up to play whenever you have to wait a few minutes for something...
.. and then get interrupted by the very loud smoke alarms sounding because you forgot about the toasted cheese you were waiting for, that you put under the grill maybe 10 minutes ago.
Yup. Mrs. C. And the cats were very unhappy with me. Doors and windows open, extractor fan on, changed my clothes.
Cut the burnt crusts off and ate the chewy, cheesy middle bit though. 😂👍
Hi, @john-c-knopf , yes, I knew there would be a challenge to what song had the most. There's some generic portability if you choose to go that way. Speaking of Old Joe, I can never play it as fast as my banjo picking husband, so I don't try. Instead I have a jig where Li'l Liza Jane meets the Old boy. First half is her, second is him, then I quietly sneak in a whisper on the melody string giving her the last word. It's an arrangement by @Larry Conger and I should be practicing it. The June meeting will be impossible at Paint Creek Folklore Society, I'm sure, but the theme was "Youth to Old Age" and that was going to be what I played.
Lois, I always thought that "Old Joe Clark" had the most verses, but so many of those folk-song verses are portable!
I guess love songs have a lot of variety (cheeseburgers!, animal songs, cocaine?!?) , as @rob-n-lackey says, "It all depends on what you love!" Personally I'd choose Shady Grove. It's claimed to have the most verses of any song so obviously I'm not alone and your can pick and choose the way you want it to go.
Cedar Creek Dulcimers also makes a very nice selection of kits and the quality is excellent.
Dictum, the company in Germany who makes the Herdim picks, says that they began making them in the 1960s for guitar players and developed by Gunther Dick. There are three gauges of picks; yellow, thin; red, medium; and blue, thick. On each pick there are three points: I is thin, II is medium, and III is thick. Folks have measured the various thickness of points on each pick, but the measurements vary depending upon who does the measuring. I use the blue pick and mostly play with I point.
Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."
I like them. I bought an assortment of all 3 colors and I found the blue to be my favorite. The difference between each color pick is not so evident until you start to actually use them; the difference between the 3 points on each color is quite subtle, but it is there. What's nice also, is that the picks have raised areas in the middle which aids in gripping them. Also, they don't seem to wear out (I've been using the same pick and same point for 7 years).
Picks are a very personal choice...I use several different ones. Some seem to work better on different dulcimers, and I use them for different effects, or even for how I feel that particular play session.
Check your local music store, or, check the Folkcraft website, to see if they have individual Herdim picks. Or, buy the assortment of a dozen, and try them...if you like them, great! If not, they make swell gifts for your dulcimer playing friends! 
Welcome to the forum, Steve!
I vote for the McSpadden "Sweet Song" hourglass dulcimer kits, as I have assembled several with great results.
Depends on the kind of dulcimer you're interested. Generally speaking Folkcraft and McSpadden kits are very good. There are a few custom builders like Bobby Ratliff who produce a kit, but they are generally for more specific and specialized kinds of dulcemores.
Hi everyone, I’m new to the forum and new to dulcimers for that matter. But I thought I might enjoy building one.
I’m an experienced guitar builder, but thought I’d start with a kit so I didn’t have to build forms, jigs, etc.
So my question is, who makes the best kits out there? I’m more concerned with quality than cost.
Thanks in advance for your help
steve
denvirguitars.com
I see one comment on a store's website that reads, "Cant say if there is any difference between the blue, red and yellow one - all feel same to me." I have used one (beige?!), and they're fine. But it seems to me that the folks I've seen using them always decide they like one corner or another best, and just use that one. So why not just use a cheaper pick that is the thickness and stiffness you like? (I buy Dunlop .88mm picks by the dozen, but other folks like thinner or thicker. Personal preference. But I sure couldn't afford a dozen Herdim Triangle picks!)
You ask a good question. Herdim does not really publish the exact measurements of each corner, so it's hard to know if the different colored picks overlap or not.
When I first started on the dulcimer I bought a dozen of the yellow picks thinking that's what I was supposed to use. I found it too thin and too pointy and gave them all away.
Some people like them, but I prefer a traditionally shaped guitar pick and buy Dunlop Tortex picks by the dozen.
I see one comment on a store's website that reads, "Cant say if there is any difference between the blue, red and yellow one - all feel same to me." I have used one (beige?!), and they're fine. But it seems to me that the folks I've seen using them always decide they like one corner or another best, and just use that one. So why not just use a cheaper pick that is the thickness and stiffness you like? (I buy Dunlop .88mm picks by the dozen, but other folks like thinner or thicker. Personal preference. But I sure couldn't afford a dozen Herdim Triangle picks!)
Can anyone explain the Herdim three-strength triangular picks to me please? They do a thin, medium and thick (yellow, blue and red respectively, I think), but each of them has three points with three different 'strengths'... How does that work? Does the yellow go from very thin to thin to almost medium, etc., or do they overlap in thicknesses, or are the different 'strengths' to do with something other than thickness, or what? I'm thinking of trying them but they're expensive and I don't want to buy the wrong one(s).
Here is a link to the issue of DPN in which my article on Everything Dulcimer appears. It is on page 33.
https://issuu.com/dulcimerplayersnewsinc/docs/120823190208-24b1ef20f89d4e1e9cbb6004cdabb332
Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."
Yep -- ken's right. i joined Everything Dulcimer on the Ides of March 2002. Wow! Eighteen years ago...
I thought I had posted a response to Lisa's request for the exact year ED started. It was 2002. Bruce began running some tests as he built the website starting in January and went online full time in March 2002. I think KenH joined on March 15 and I I joined on March 18. I wrote a short article on Everything Dulcimer for Dulcimer Players News. I'll have to search for that article. I did some early testing of the site Bruce and he asked me to be a moderator. When Bruce was at sea Ron Zuckerman pretty much ran the website and I helped with some of the work. Now help me out, Did I respond to this request in some other discussion?
Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."
@john-c-knopf, I am a Veggie Tale fan, and there is guitar TAB for The Cheeseburger Song!!! I will learn it. My very favorite VT is Madam Blueberry.... 
That ED site has a lot of tab! Thanks for letting us know it exists.
Y'all are WONDERFUL!!!! Thank you for being FUN and CREATIVE and such a JOY!!! I have most recently added "Real Love Baby" by Father John Misty and "The Way I Am" by Ingrid Michaelson.
@dusty-turtle, YES about Erin Mae!!! I had to relearn quite a few bad, self-learned techniques~LOL. I have moved into playing a lot of chords via ultimate guitar's site and am enjoying a whole new world.
I'd love to hear that too! Can you post a quick video demo here in the discussion maybe?
I'd love to hear you play your diddley bow, @natebuildstoys!
Well, if we're including interspecies animal romance, my vote is "The Owl and the Pussycat," especially the melody put to the Lears poem by Burl Ives .
I get teary-eyed singing the last lines: "And hand in hand at the edge of the sand/They danced by the light of the moon, the moon/They danced by the light of the moon."
"Froggy Went A'courting"....No, I'm not kidding! 
That diddley bow you're playing looks pretty cool...what's the slide you're using? I'd like to hear you playing it! I wonder how it would sound played with a bow? I've never thought about a glass dulcimer, but I sometimes think about one made of brass or steel, like the National guitars.
The first instrument I ever built was a diddley bow. If you dont know its just a string stretched over a glass bottle laying on its side, which acts as a resonator chamber. I have attached a picture. I always thought it sounded very neat, jangly, and old timey. I have conceptualized a prototype and am whipping it up right now for a wooden dulcimer with a glass beer bottle for a bridge. I have also attached an image of some concept drawings for how it will work, and will post a video when it is totally assembled. What do y'all think? I find it very puzzling that so few string instruments use glass resonators, probably because they would be less durable, but most players take exceptionally good care of their dulcimers anyway. Has anyone ever seen a glass dulcimer? Ever tried building one?
The strumhollow is certainly not redundant, in fact dozens of thousands of players pick & strum in that area. That area provides a slightly stronger and brighter tone which is precisely what many dulcimer players want.
A huge majority of dulcimers are built with strumhollows & that is driven by public demand. If nobody wanted strumhollows then builders would not build strumhollows.
Hello Corvus. The best I understand it is that the stronger and brighter tone noticeable over the strumhollow is due to picking/strumming near the end of the string length, not the hollow itself. An easy demonstration of this is if you strum the open string all the way at the top just above the first fret, the tone is nearly identical to over the hollow. This leads me to believe that the same tone could be accomplished without the hollow. It's also worth noting that the demand for strumhollows does not imply an actual utility function to them. A couple builders have already mentioned that they don't consider it functionally important, but know that their customers want it. It is aesthetically nice, and more importantly it is the norm, but is it actually useful?
Years ago at an open mic I used to attend regularly, the MC said we needed to do love songs. Being the great rule-follower, I got up and sang "Cocaine Blues" with slide guitar accompaniment. He tried to upbraid me that what I did wasn't a love song. I just replied, "It all depends on what you love!"
Seriously, one of my favorite love songs on the dulcimer (or guitar) is "Would you Lay with Me in a Field of Stone" by David Allan Coe.
One of my all time favorite pop love songs is Van Morrison's "Crazy Love." I've never played it on the dulcimer, but I don't see why you couldn't. I used to play it on the mandolin back in the day when I accompanied a guitarist who also sang and made all the ladies swoon.
Erin Mae is the best, isn't she? She's so sweet and encouraging and she can tear it up on the fretboard!
I have loved looking up all of these tunes and seeing what I might be able to play~thank y'all for that! I have added Tracy Chapman's "Baby Can I Hold You", "Come to Me" by the Goo Goo Dolls, and I am checking out other songs of interest as well. OH I am having so much FUN with my dulcimer~all thanks to a class I recently took from Erin Mae Lewis!!! WOW I cannot believe the difference it made for me. 
Our wedding song, Crazy, by Kenny Rogers.
Larry Conger did an arrangement of "Unchained Melody" that the Righteous Brothers did in the 60's. Simple tune, good lyrics, and easy play with 158. Check it out on youtube, you might like it.
Jill, thanks for the information. The Valiant looks like a powerful sailing boat and the Ranger Tug would be wonderful for inshore cruising ..... enjoy.
We left New Zealand in our double ended 36 foot Lidgard sloop in 1976 for what was supposed to be a 3 year trip and finally made it back to NZ in 1996. We did of course have to work whilst we were away and ended up running charter boats in the Mediterranean and in the Caribbean and I earned my Masters Certificate and spent time running freighters and tugs ... all good. Our two children became tired of waiting for us to get home and abandoned my wife and I about half way through the trip .... no loyalty!!
Enjoy your time away.
Rangers are really nice boats. I spent six weeks tripping parts of the Caribbean in a Ranger 41 as Chef for the owner. wife and adult daughter. Nice blue water boat.
HI Robin! I bet we're the same height. Good point about the chair - I might just sit in the cockpit on a seat/bench, cross my legs, and play with the dulcimer on my lap that way. Not sure yet, but thanks (I have a nice, low, armless chair that I got at REI but I doubt I'll be taking it along - used it for playing the dobro!)
Re: HobbyHorse - we lived aboard our sailboat (a Valiant 39) for ages and had prepared to sail long-distances until our parents/in-laws needed help. I did sail from Hawai'i to Alaska, but that's about as far offshore as I got. Our current boat is a Ranger Tugs 31 - we purchased it in February with the intention of having it delivered in March (the boat is in WA, about 1200 miles from here!) - well, you can imagine that we have yet to take delivery - waiting to see if/when we should go there? Our plan is to cruise the Pacific Northwest for a season or two, plus Canada. Well, we'll see. Thus the dulcimer is coming along with me!!!
Thank you all~these are GREAT! Keep 'em comin'! I would love a beautiful love song to play, as I think about my husband... Not finding it though. Just started learning "Eight Days a Week", but it doesn't quite embody all that I want~LOL!
