Hammered Dulcimer. I love guitar for all that it can do what you can do with it, even if you're lousy, but Hammered is an old instrument, elegant in it's design with a certain symmetry that appeals to me. It's not a difficult instrument and yet to be played well involves a lot of touch. It works well in it's simplest form on a variety of music types and though it's the forerunner to the far more complex piano, it has a sound, related to it's size, that is distinctive and all it's own. People with no interest in folk or even in music are prone to ask, "What instrument is that?" when they hear it on a recording. Hearing one live, people often ask a lot of questions and and make a lot of comments on what a pretty sound they have.

Also, I used to feel that autoharps were the world's biggest dummy instrument, but that was strictly due to my own stupidity about the nuances of the instrument and what you can do with it.

Spaw