I should have said you cannot always play or tune to the pitch you might choose. If one can read music, the Appalachian Dulcimer, can play music written in a variety of keys. But since the dulcimer is usually tuned to open tunings one is limited to a rather small range of scales.

While Joni Mitchell made a rather limited use of the dulcimer, she did indeed attract attention to the instrument. Richard Farina was even more influential and I still like to listen to his recordings and play several of his songs particularly "Pack Up Your Sorrows" and "Children of Darkness". A co-worker mentioned yesterday having seen Cyndi Lauper close out a concert with the dulcimer. (Which she learned from David Schnauffer). David has played dulcimer with the Judds and Dan Seals as well. He even had a video track of "Fisher's Hornpipe" which played on one or two of the video channels.