Two years ago, I was trying to take my chromatic hammer dulcimer apart to clean inside it but I couldn't get the sound board off; the lacquer had bonded it. I also wanted to see if I could put it back together again; I couldn't. Every time I tightened the wires, the heads would slide to the middle. Hundreds of miles away from anyone who might know what to do, I packed it away to be finished some day in the future. Seemed like a good way to give more attention to the fiddle, anyway. Made some good progress on the latter as a result.
Two years later, just a few weeks ago, I was sitting around late one night and for no reason it flashed in my head from out of no where what I needed to do to tighten the wires and keep the heads in place. I hadn't thought of the dulcimer in ages, but I ran upstairs, unpacked it and sure enough the notion worked. I had it tuned and ready in a little over an hour.
Giving it equal time with the fiddle, within a few days I wasn't just playing it as well as I ever had, I was playing it far better. I even started getting chops all over the place. I'd never had chops before. I'm even using it (effectively) in sing-alongs. Disturbingly, the music that comes the most naturally is the Herb Alpert TJB songbook. But I'm laying down technique like never before. It's the weirdest thing!
