I went to a house concert by a fretted dulcimer player once, and he commented that supposedly you can't play blues on a dulcimer. Then he got out a special capo, played a blues song, and impressed us all.

(Actually, he impressed us all a lot of ways. His name was Steven K. Smith.)

Anyhow, I have no time for funny capos, and I've thought for a long time that you can't play blues on the dulcimer. I usually tune my ax DAA, and one day I looked at the C# fret (2nd fret) and asked myself what would happen if I fretted it and put a finger on the D string, same fret. C# - A - F#, an F#m chord!

The same simple pattern produces an A on the E fret (4th) and a Bm on the F# fret (5th). Thus armed, I sounded out "Since I met You Baby," and the blues was born.

Later, I decided that when I had a long E note in a tune, I would plop a finger on the D string - 2nd fret, to produce a bluesy sound that involves E and F#. No doubt this chord has a name, but I can't be bothered.

Now I have two songs in my dulcimer blues collection, "Since I met you baby" and "Just walking in the rain." Now I need more songs with that kind of tonality.

Ideas, anyone?