The Appalachian Dulcimer is claimed as a true American folk instrument forged from the melting pot of the peoples who populated the Appalachian region as early as the turn of the 18th Century.  As with most American folk instruments they have no clear lineage, but derive primarily from early instruments of the immigrants’ homeland that settled in the American Colonies and brought their instruments and music of their folk traditions.  The earliest settlers into the Virginia Highlands were first predominately English and then later in the early to middle part of the 18th Century Scots-Irish immigrants settled throughout the Appalachian region.  

It is important to note that these settlers from the British Isles did not have a native instrument remotely like the zither form that became known as the Mountain Dulcimer other than the native instrument called the Hammered Dulcimer.  Though it shares the same name of dulcimer the Hammered Dulcimer has no semblance to the modern day Appalachian Dulcimer.  The Hammered Dulcimer is classified as a board zither, but its origin is related more to the lineage of the Psaltery that dates back as early as five thousand years ago from the region of the Middle East.

The word zither is a German word derived from the Greek word cithara from which the modern word guitar comes from.  The Cithara has an ancient background stemming from the Classical Greek era.  Historically the zither has been classified as any stringed instrument of the cittern family which has strings stretched across a shallow wooden sound box with strings numbering from one to more than fifty strings.  Commonly the zither has been associated with stringed instruments that are strummed or plucked with an accessory called a plectrum. The plectrum is often a quill, but some have been bowed or struck with small mallets.  Zither family instruments have characteristically no neck like a guitar or violin.

The Appalachian Dulcimer belongs to a class of instruments called Fretted Zithers.  This is a group of instruments that have a fret board that extends the entire length of the instrument with no neck. 

If these Appalachian settlers from the British Isles did not have an antecedent instrument remotely like the modern dulcimer in their homelands from where did this instrument derive?

Most music historians propose that the Appalachian instrument was a derivation of a German Zither called a Scheitholt.  Various versions of the Scheitholt with other instruments akin to it like the Swedish Hummel, the French Epinett des Vosges and the Norwegian Langeleik have been found throughout the Appalachian region.  Each of these could have had an influence in the development of the Dulcimer.  Each of these instruments is very similar in that they are long narrow zithers with straight sides with 3 to 9 strings stretched across fairly shallow wooden sound boxes.  They vary in size and number of strings and the fret board is set into the top of the soundboard. 

The earliest depiction of these types of instruments is found in a fresco of the Church of Rynkeby on the Danish Island of Fyn.  This depiction shows an angel musician plucking a long straight sided zither with her fingers.  It dates to the year 1560.  This long beam-like instrument spread throughout northern Europe.  Its German version the Streitholt is first mentioned in the book Syntagma Musicum II by the German composer Michael Praetorius in 1619.  He describes the instrument as being about 42” long with straight sides and having 4 strings that stretch across the entire body with frets unevenly spaced along the top of the soundboard.

Given the history of immigrants settling into various parts of the Appalachian Mountains this German instrument is considered by most musicologists as the antecedent instrument that influenced the development of the Appalachian Dulcimer.

An influx of Swiss-German Ante Baptist pacifists came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, having heard that the Quaker populace of Pennsylvania was tolerant of people of various faith traditions.  They came to escape the persecution and from being socially ostracized in their homeland, and to settle in the new land and freely practice their faith.  They arrived in the decades preceding and after the American Revolution.

Many of these Swiss-German Ante Baptist immigrants first ventured into the Pennsylvanian mountains and others traveled down the Philadelphia Valley Road into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, settling on both sides of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  They brought with them their traditional folk music and instruments from their motherland, particularly the Scheitholt or Hummel.  These instruments were well suited to play the slow tempo tunes of their traditional hymns.

There are various forms of these instruments with 3 to 9 strings and varying in size in length and width extant in various parts of Appalachia.  The one version that is believed to be the oldest since they were found in the highlands of Pennsylvania and Virginia has 9 strings.  This is believed by music historians to have been the original form of the Scheitholt and/or Hummel which the earliest Swiss-German immigrants brought with them from their ancestral lands.  It is believed that the forms that had fewer strings were instruments that they made in the Appalachian wilderness with the limited materials and tools that were available to them in the regions of the mountains where they had settled.  Wire particularly was a rare commodity so thus the reason for fewer strings.

Scheitholt originally referred to split logs for firewood.  The name coming from a conjunction of two words: Scheit meaning split, piece or chip and Holz the word for wood.  The instrument presumably took on this name because it had a resemblance to split wood.  In northern Germany the name that stuck for the instrument was Hummel which is the German word for bumble bee, which probably is a reference to the humming sound of the drone strings.  Incidentally Hummel is also the name for bagpipe.

It is believed that the nine string Scheitholt is the form of the instrument which the earlier Swiss-German Ante Baptists brought with them to their new land and the instrument which their English and Scotch/Irish neighbors first saw and heard.  This instrument has 3 strings on which the melody is fretted and the frets are imbedded directly into the soundboard.  The other six strings make up 3 chords of two strings paired together which are plucked individually making 1-4-5 chords.

It is believed that this instrument of the early German immigrants is the most likely to have influenced the development of what has come to be called the Dulcimer.  As the English and Scotch/Irish settlers heard this instrument played by their new neighbors, it is supposed that the droning sounds of the instrument reminded them of the bag pipes of their ancient English and Celtic folk traditions.  Thus it is proposed that the adaptation of this instrument began to evolve to best suit the music tradition of the earliest settlers of the Appalachian region.

The first alterations to take place were probably the introduction of a raised fret board that runs the entire length of the instrument so they could suit it more to play the fast tempos of their jigs and reels which they plucked with a turkey or goose quill.  Simultaneously the number of strings was reduced to 3-4, because wire was such a rare commodity in the Appalachian wilderness, but also to make it easier to play than its ancestor the Scheitholt.  The size and shape of the sound box was enlarged to increase the volume and sustain of the instrument.

The earliest modern Appalachian Dulcimer we have that was actually signed and dated by the craftsman comes from the mountains close to Roanoke, Virginia which is dated August 28. 1832. This instrument has a teardrop or boat shaped sound box with a raised fret board that extends the length of the instrument and the dulcimer has 4 strings which is believed  was played with two strings being fretted playing the melody with a turkey quill and 2 strings were drone strings which were constantly strummed with the fingers.

It is likely that this form of instrument with the teardrop shaped sound box was in development much earlier than this signed and dated instrument.  The makers and musicians had eliminated the 6 chord strings of the Scheitholt and instead made 2 strings the drones to constantly strum to make the chords.  The English and Scotch/Irish people first called their emerging instrument Dulcimore and later simply Dulcimer, which comes from a conjunction of two ancient words: the Greek word Dulci meaning sweet and the Latin word Melos meaning song, tune or melody.

It is believed that after the American Civil War, the Dulcimer made its’ way down the Wilderness Road into West Virginia and Kentucky.  The teardrop shaped instrument of Virginia took on different shapes at that time.  West Virginia is known for a large hourglass sound box and Kentucky has a more delicate and narrower hourglass shape.   Later the instrument found its way into the Carolinas and eastern Tennessee, which had a rectangular sound box which they called  a Music box or Harmonium.

Each maker added their unique styles and used the materials that were available to them.  They were commonly made out of Poplar, Cherry, Walnut and Maple which are woods plentiful in Appalachia.  There were variances in the number of strings but usually 3 or 4 and sometimes the frets were placed simply under the melody string or strings and sometimes the frets extended across the width of the finger board.  It is not unusual to find frets made out of bent nails or out of screen wire.

Few true specimens exist from West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and the Carolina’s that can be dated by the maker’s mark much before 1880.  At this time,  J. Edward Thomas of Knott County, Kentucky started making and selling them out of the back of a mule cart as he traveled the rough paths throughout the isolated coves of Appalachia.  It is believed he made as many as a thousand instruments.  His hourglass shaped instruments with a variety of different shaped sound holes has been copied more than any other Dulcimer form throughout Appalachia and beyond.

The instrument remained rare, especially outside of the Southern Highlands up until the middle of the 20th Century.  Most instruments were crudely made in the home and there were few professional makers scattered throughout the mountains making instruments for musicians of the region.  There are virtually no audio recordings of the Dulcimer and the Appalachian Folk Music before the late 1930’s.

Just before World War I soprano, Loraine Wyman from Kentucky sang traditional Appalachian Songs to the accompaniment of her hourglass shaped dulcimer in concerts throughout the eastern United States, including audiences in New York.  There is a photo of her holding her dulcimer on the cover of an issue of Vogue Magazine. 

The most notable musician of Appalachian Folk Music, accompanied by her hour-glass shaped Kentucky Dulcimer, to bring the instrument and traditional Appalachian music to the world outside of Appalachia is Jean Ritchie.  Born in Viper, Kentucky on December 8, 1922, she was the youngest of fourteen children.   She grew up in a musical family where she learned the old time ballads, jigs, reels, hymns and laments from her grandfather and other members of her small community.  She had an avid interest throughout her life to learn the ancient folk music of the British Isles and she also composed many of her own pieces inspired by the ancient traditions of folk music.

Jean Ritchie brought her dulcimer with her to the University of Kentucky where she earned her bachelor’s degree in social work.  She performed with her dulcimer and sang the folk songs she had learned and taught others how to play the instrument and sing the old time songs.  Her first assignment after graduation was to a children’s home in New York where she continued to play and sing for the children under her charge.  She also performed for larger audiences in New York and by the 1950’s she had popularized the instrument and the songs of its folk music tradition.   She married George Pickow, who encouraged her to record her music and she made numerous record albums.  She and her husband began selling and distributing Kentucky Dulcimers made by her Kentucky relative, Jethro Amburgey.  This led to them starting a small factory in New York City to reproduce the dulcimer – it was known as the Kentucky Dulcimer.

By the late 1950’s and through the 1960’s, there was the rise of the Urban Folk Revival. By 1965 the Appalachian Dulcimer had become a common instrument seen in the Folk Music repertoire.  Jean Ritchie continued to record and perform her old time music for audiences up until her death in Berea, Kentucky June 1, 2015.  The Appalachian Dulcimer has continued to grow in popularity and is known and played in nearly every corner of the globe.

Similar to all folk instruments, the Appalachian Dulcimer continues to evolve in order for it to be fitted to a broad range of music and musician styles and as varied in style and form as the crafts people that make them and the musicians who play them.  Though more inexpensive versions made of plywood are now mass produced in places like Pakistan, the best instruments are still made out of solid woods in small shops by individual crafts people.

Generally speaking most modern Appalachian Dulcimers use an open tuning method, meaning that the strings harmonize whether or not they are being fretted with the left fingers of the player.  The Appalachian Dulcimer is referred to as a modal instrument being tuned diatonically with no flats and sharps on the two fretted strings that are plucked for the melody, though there are modern musicians who tune their instruments to include at least some notes in the chromatic scale (half steps in the octave notes like the black keys of a piano) to play their style of music.  The modern Dulcimers by and large have from 3-5 strings with at least 1 string to play the drone which is simultaneously continually strummed while the melody strings are picked with usually a plastic pick affixed to the thumb or other fingers.