Since the wee age of 10 (I think) I've been playing the tsymbaly, a Ukrainian sister of the hammered dulcimer. Most of my younger years were spent immersed in the Ukrainian dominated areas of northern Alberta, Canada 
and it was only natural to pick up an instrument in my musical family. Thus, my repertoire is mainly Ukrainian folk songs. Luckily, I am open to new sounds and my move to SoCal has increased my chances to diversify.
The picture above does little justice to my tsymbaly that was made by an old Ukrainian dulcimer master, but I wanted to give you an idea of what it looks like. When I compared it with the American hammered dulcimer, I noticed that my dulcimer was quite different. My dulcimer is smaller, only about 37 inches by 14 inches, and it has a floating sound board. This feature, coupled with the fact that it has six strings per note instead of two, amplifies the volume considerably. It doesn't have the sweet light harp-like sound of the American hammered dulcimer. Nope, this baby was made to polka! It is set up like a scale on a piano, with flats and sharps. In the figure below, the lowest note is the D on the lower right bridge and the highest note is the E on the upper left of the left bridge.
