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Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

Great photos!

It is a Robert Mize dulcimer (died 2003). Robert lived in Tennessee and learned how to make dulcimers from Homer Ledford, He produced more than 3500 himself. His dulcimers follow the Ledford pattern and, in this case, Robert has used Homer Ledford's fret layout. The instrument was designed to be played in noter/drone style and the tuning would have been C,G,G,G or D,A,A,A. Robert suggested his dulcimers were strung with slightly heavier than normal gauges so I expect he used C,G,G,G. Although the frets go all the way across the dulcimer's fretboard, only the melody string would be fretted - to play the melody! The other 3 strings would act as drones.

The fret pattern is interesting. It is in just intonation rather than equal temperament. If you look, you can see that the gap between the nut and the first fret is smaller than the gap between the first and second frets. The open melody string plays the 5th of the scale so the first fret is the 6th. In just intonation this note is 184 cents higher than the 5th rather than the 200 cents we are used to in equal temperament. Other notes of the scale are also shifted. The second of the scale (4th fret) is 204 cents away from the root note 3rd fret. The third of the scale (5th fret) is 184 cents away from the second of the scale. The seventh of the scale is also slightly flattened.

To get the instrument to play well you should not reduce the nut height to the level you would find on a guitar. It needs to sit higher so that the note at the 1st fret pulls in to sit just 16 cents below where an electronic tuner says it should be. Robert Mize (and Homer Ledford) left the nut high, and his fretting pattern is based on a high nut and a high saddle. This is not an issue if playing with a 'noter' just up and down the melody string.

If you tune the melody string a perfect 5th above the bass string (and have the nut at the right height) then the instrument will play beautifully in tune - in fact it will be perfectly in tune and have a very sweet scale with each note blending with the drone strings in a way that equal temperament cannot provide.

Awesome! Thank you so much for the information.