Beginning of Essay
The dulcimer is a member of the string family. It is further categorized into the Psaltrey family, a group of instruments that are comprised of strings stretched across a frame and played by plucking or drumming. The only difference, in fact, between the dulcime ....

Middle of Essay
.... with padded wooden hammer. It is commonly believed that the dulcimer came to Europe from the East sometime in the fifteenth century. This cannot be true. The dulcimer is closely related to the yang ch'in from China. However, the yang ch'in was introduced to the Chinese around 1800. A similar traditional dulcimer found its way to Korea in about 1725. The dulcimer originated as the santir in what is now Iraq from a Greek instrument, the psalterion. The santir was a trapeziodal box covered with strings. It was played by striking the strings with light sticks. From there the Arabs carried the santir through North Africa where it was integrate ....