Wendy Grethen first touched the strings of a mountain dulcimer at a fair 27 years ago. She learned to play the Appalachian-region American folk instrument as a child in Illinois -- then stopped ...

Dulcimer lovers unite every January in the Poconos at the annual Pocono Winter Dulcimer Fest. This is the 13th year for the popular festival that brings two different types of dulcimer lovers together ...

WANTAGE -- Her hands hovered over the mass of strings, thumbs and wrists working closely to flip the decorative wooden hammers onto the strings. As Donna Traylor played, Merle Tanis was making similar ...

Warm tones of old-time music fill the living room of Gregg Schneeman’s Arcadia home, as he bends and gingerly plays his bowed psaltery. On another chair sits San Dimas resident Leo Kretzner, who ...

The Blue Ridge Institute and Museum in Ferrum premiered an exhibition in 2011 that provided a sweeping history of the dulcimer across three centuries. That show, “The Virginia Dulcimer: 200 Years of ...

Balancing on his lap a tear-shaped piece of wood with frets and strings, Powers demonstrated how to pick the strings to produce a melody. “I can play a few of the old-timey songs like ‘Old Joe Clark’ ...

NORTHUMBERLAND — Tom Jolin has been playing the music of Appalachia for decades. The folk artist and instrument builder is fulfilling a two-week residency with the fifth-graders at the Priestley ...

CENTERVILLE - These people do not need electronic equipment or expensive acoustics to make toe-tapping, knee-slapping music. There are no iPods, iPads, stereos or amplifiers here. It's just a circle ...

HINDMAN, KY. — The heritage of handcrafted stringed instruments runs deep in this tiny Appalachian village (pop. 770) stretched along the banks of Troublesome Creek. The community has been known as ...

LINCOLNTON, N.C. — Lincolnton resident Frank Brown likes knowing he can take a piece of wood that would have otherwise been cut up or used to build a barn, he said, and turn it into an object that ...