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Hello everyone, I just purchased a vintage tear drop dulcimer and was wondering if I should tune to DAA or DAD. I tried to tune the melody string to D but there was to much tension so I defaulted to DAA. I have a few questions as a beginner☺️ - Do I need to purchase new strings in order to reach a DAD tuning? - The wood pegs tend to slip at times and I loose the tuning. I pushed the pegs inward to bite tight on the peg hole. Any thoughts to keep the pegs tight? Anything used to coat the pegs to keep them tight? Lastly, does anyone know or have met John D. Young the builder? How rare is this instrument? It’s so beautiful... I really love it and the sweet crisp sound. (See photos) Thank you for your assistance. Kevin

I have a CD player that will allow me to load 6 CD's, so I load it with CD's while I'm working in the garage/work shop. One of the CD's I had loaded was the Classic Folk Music CD from Smithsonian Folkways. A song came on and as I listened to it I stopped working on whatever I was working. I went to the CD player and examined the CD insert and found the song to be "John Hardy" by Mike Seeger. I knew I had to learn the song. I found many versions had been recorded in a major key but Mike and Pete Seeger recorded versions in a minor key. I found I liked both versions and worked to learn both versions. Attached are PDF files and MP3 files for the versions that I learned. The DAC/CGC version has a CGC tuned dulcimer playing chords where the melody is played on the DAC dulcimer. I hope some of you will add one or both versions to your songbook. Dave P. S. You can listen to Paul Clayton's version of John Hardy on YouTube at this link. John_Hardy_DAC_CGC_20200211.mp3 John_Hardy_DAD_20200211.mp3 John_Hardy_DAG_20200413.mp3 John_Hardy_DAC.pdf John_Hardy_DAG.pdf John_Hardy_DAD.pdf