One additional point. I went to see yet another hammer dulcimer player
last night who plays in a group from Baltimore called Helicon. He used
the damping pedal on his instrument to produce wholly new tones on his
instrument... i.e., he lightly touched the strings with the damper (I
was watching him adjust the pressure of the damper with his foot) and
then proceeded to play sounds that were reminicent of a Peruvian
mountain instrument. Haunting sounds, a totally different use of the
damping mechanism than that used by Maggie Sansone.
Mike Nielsen