Hammered dulcimer

Stringed instrument which looks like gusli or kantele, but player doesn't pluck strings. Instead of this he use small hammers.

Some information from Wikipedia:

The hammered dulcimer is a stringed musical instrument with the strings stretched over a trapezoidal sounding board. Typically, the hammered dulcimer is set on a stand, at an angle, before the musician, who holds small mallet hammers in each hand to strike the strings. The Graeco-Roman dulcimer (sweet song), derives from the Latin dulcis (sweet) and the Greek melos (song). The dulcimer's origin is uncertain, but tradition holds it was invented in Persia, as the santur, some 2000 years ago.

Various types of hammered dulcimers are traditionally played in India, Southwest Asia, China and parts of Southeast Asia, Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Scandinavian. The instrument is also played in Great Britain and has been revived in the folk music traditions of the U.S.

The hammered dulcimer comes in various sizes, identified by the number of strings that cross each of the bridges. A 15/14, for example, has two bridges (treble and bass) and spans three octaves. The strings of a hammered dulcimer are usually found in pairs, two strings for each note (though some instruments have three or four strings per note). Each set of strings is tuned in unison and is called a course. As with a piano, the purpose of using multiple strings per course is to make the instrument louder, although as the courses are rarely in perfect unison, a chorus effect usually results like a mandolin.

The strings of the hammered dulcimer are often tuned diatonically, according to a circle of fifths pattern. This diatonically-based tuning results in most, but not all, notes of the chromatic scale being available. To fill in the gaps, many modern dulcimer builders include extra short bridges at the top and bottom of the soundboard, where extra strings are tuned to some or all of the missing pitches. Such instruments are often called "chromatic dulcimers" as opposed to the more traditional "diatonic dulcimers".

How it looks:




Example of playing: