Key tradeoffs

Having played around with the hammered duclimer more, I’m finding a few things about it. First, the one-to-one mapping isn’t really an issue. The strings are tuned in such a way as to make specific keys easy to play, albeit at the cost of making others more difficult.

D Major

F Minor

One significant limitation I’ve found myself run into is playing the odd note outside of the key, specifically within semitone scales. This short excerpt from Liquid Spear Waltz

demonstrates the issue. well enough. There’s no way I can move my hands fast enough for that. Practice, I suppose, but I don’t think it’s doable.