Thanks Ken. Good advice, and something to strengthen my mettle. Related to this - how do you know *where* to place your fingers when changing chords? I can almost master re-placing my fingers to strum a repeated set of strings (for example, repeated F chords or arpeggiated F chords). But moving my h...

Thanks Dave! It's good to be back, altho' my sore fingers may argue with that! Say, do you know where I can buy another thumb ring (pick)? I have a #3, but I think I need a 4 or 5. My #3 keeps turning around my thumb as I play, then eventually just slides off. If I bend the ring wider to move higher...

Gruss Rudi. Thanks for the follow up. Please permit me my "gut" question: what printed source should I use to actually learn right hand control? Finding the needed strings, as well as moving my hand from one "chord" to another. I literally find myself overwhelmed, regardless of u...

Something that really jumps out at me, as I return to Zither.US after a break of almost two years. Two years ago we had several new posts a day, on zithers, technique, problems, hardware, concerts, methods, music, etc. But in the last 30 days there have been only one or two new posts on the entire F...

Thank you Dave!

Good morning all. I'm just getting back into learning. I got my zither several years ago, but unfortunately got busy with life and took several years off. Before I jump off a cliff ... could someone please advise me how to tune the low "contra-saiten" strings? I have an old Schuster (photo...

Thanks for the reply. I was thinking of making an ebony bridge but I got reccomendations, in an earlier post, that maple is stronger and less likely to break than ebony. I asked about ebony and the metal rod because I thought the ebony would be much less likely to break because of the metal rod. An...

Just my two cents, but the violin family has strings which are bowed, and very rarely plucked. Thus the plucked string gives a continually diminishing energy to the bridge, while the bowed string gives a relatively constant energy. Also, on many violin bridges I've seen, the E string (thinnest gauge...

Commercial purfling seems to be of 2 x 6 mm in size. What was needed was 1.5 x 2 mm, which was fabricated from scrap white vinyl. Repairing purfling is not unlike repairing doll house furniture. When working on these fine surfaces, even 400 grit sandpaper tended to be a little too aggressive. When ...

Rudi - how old is the instrument? I'm assuming by veining you mean purfling. If modern, it could be white plastic; if old, it could be ivory or whale bone.

Tom