Hi. Just got back from an extended enforced absence due to misbehavior of some software.

Thanks, thanks, Chet, for the guitar-zither site! It's fantastic. He can tell you far more than I can about them. I play a six-chord guitar-zither, date and origins unknown. It came with a playsheet in German, my mother's best friend had it in her attic and offered it to me. It also came with all its strings, and the musical notation and name of each note is printed in gold on the instrument (but, alas, at the other end from the tuning pegs.) It has a decal of a red rose on the front. Inside it says, "Made in Germany .. Marke Fomen."

I play it the way Kelly Williams does, rather than in the traditional German or Austrian style, for the reason he mentions: that way, you can use your fingers as well as your thumb for picking melodies.

I also was given a concert (fretted) zither for my last birthday (by Lorraine, SongBob and their significant others). Bill D and Songbob found it in a flea market. It only had about five strings, all pretty ratty. More on that later. A few comments on what Williams says:

Zithers can cost anywhere from under $50 to over $2500 for a new concert-zither. Generally, the plain zithers and guitar zithers run under $100 for several reasons: They are very hard to play, it's a pain (and expensive) to find strings, and many times the back will bow if you tune them up to standard pitch. I tune mine a half-note low, i.e. B-flat is tuned to standard A-440.

Strings can be a real problem. A couple of years ago, the House of Musical Traditions had to locate strings for a zither. The number of configurations and possible sets of strings is huge. They ordered strings from Germany, (La Bella, I think) and it took months to arrive. They shuddered when I asked if they could order strings for my new one. BUT. Lark in the Morning does have them, and they seem to know how to describe what you need, eg for mine there are 6 sets of chords and 2 octaves of melody strings, including all the accidentals. I think from that sort of description, they can figure out what you need. I don't have the site address for Lark in the Morning, but I'm sure you can find it with a search.

Thanks again, Bill for starting this thread, and Chet for pointing to that great zither site! - Rita Ferrara