Rather than the figure 8 shape of most Appalachian dulcimers, the sheitholt is slab sided, narrower at the peg end, wider at the lower end. Very likely the predecessor of the dulcimer, according to Ralph Lee Smith, check out his books, as Pennsylvania Dutch settlers were not too far away from the mountaineers who developed the Appalachian dulcimer as we know it.Their British ancestors had no similar instrument, but they did have fiddles, also narrow waisted instruments Smith has found intermediate instruments to uphold his theory

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