As one of our most recent additions to our Roosebeck Mountain Dulcimer line, this Grace model has many great features! Its vaulted fret board makes it lighter and as a result there is more soundboard vibration and excellent sound quality. It has an hour glass shape and its body, neck, nut, bridge and fret board are solid sheesham. Its tail piece has a silver color and is shaped like a crown. The soundboard is spruce and has a charming sheesham skirt design on both ends, as well as 4 rose openings. This model also features 4 mechanical geared right angle tuners with a 14:1 ratio and has 4 strings, including 2 melody strings, 1 middle string and 1 bass drone string. Many tunings will work, but we recommend the traditional DAD method to make it easy to pick up and play. The following accessories are included with item: pick, noter and owner's guide. Traditionally, mountain dulcimers had three, equally spaced, strings: a melody string, a middle string, and a bass string. Later developments created a 4-string dulcimer by changing the string spacing and doubling the melody string. Doubling the melody string created greater volume to the melody line. Contemporary dulcimers, such as ours, include extra notches on the nut to allow more personalized string patterns. The inside doubled melody string can be removed completely to revert to the traditional 3-string set-up. Or the Inside melody string and the middle string can both be moved over one notch to create an equal spacing between all four strings. Find the set-up that works best for you. There is no warranty on strings. Manufacturers recommend that you change the strings every 3-4 months. The 6 1/2 and 13 1/2 Frets: This model includes the 6 1/2 and 13 1/2 frets. Most early dulcimers had a strictly diatonic scale; that is, the frets were placed so as to produce a major scale (do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do) with no extra half steps. More recently, dulcimer players have found that the placement of an extra fret between