"In the mid 1980s I came up with the idea that the diatonic scale of the dulcimer and the dulcimer style of playing the melody on the first string would lend itself well to clawhammer banjo so I made my first Dulcijo. It had a 4-inch round drum that had a piece of spruce rather than skin or plastic for a head. I loved playing that original Dulcijo but the volume was really low and it could only be heard clearly by the person playing it. I then tried a mandolin-type body but I preferred the banjo sound. A little later I found a Pakistan hand drum with a goat skin head. It sounded great but in humid weather the skin got soggy and it had no brackets to tighten the drum head. We now use a maple rim with a plastic head and brackets for adjusting head tension."