My first MD :)

On March 17, St. Patrick's Day, I've received my dulcimer from Rodney Hensley!

I like it very much. It has adorable sound - not so mellow, but not so bright.Suitable for me. And it's very, very beautiful - color, smooth lines of shape, all!

Also I want to say some words about international post delivery from USA to my country, Belarus (I think, it's very similar with delivery to any ex-USSR slavic country). I was very afraid of it. And I was ready to receive broken instrument, honestly. But it surprized me that instrument came to me non-broken, packed back carefully after customs clearance (here we have awkward gossips about local customs'work).

Dulcimer was sent in soft shell case 'Flight Form', and the case was in the cardboard box, surrounded by paper pieces. It was enough for safe transportation.

Now I'm going to order some books from Amazon to start study fingering style. I've decided to start with books of Mark Biggs, Jean Ritchie, Mike Casey, and then - Aaron O'Rourke, because I like very much his playing of Irish Tunes.

But it'll be later. At the very first I'll work with Strumelia lessons and study Noter&Drone style.

And I've a question already.

The suitable tuning for Noter/Drone style is DAA, as I understand. But my dulcimer is in DAd tuning. Is it normal to tune first strings to A simply, or should I change that strings for more thick gauge, or something else? Thanks.