Dulcimer Mute

I found the hair scrunchies and tried them out as a mute for the dulcimer. It worked great. It stopped a lot of the ringing and, unlike the cardboard, had a clear tone. The closer I slid it up toward the frets, the more it muted but didn't changed the tuning.
Now I have a pickup to make it louder and and mute to make it softer, for practice.
Still waiting for the bass mute.

Cardboard Dulcimer Mute

I discovered today that the cardboard mute, mentioned below, also works on dulcimer. I had to fiddle with it a bit to keep it from migrating to the middle of the strum area and damping everything down. I actually turned in upside down and slid it tight against the bridge. It worked great, especially on loud and fast pieces.
For slower pieces, I found I didn't like to use it so much. I can play softer and like to hear the strings ring on a song like Ashokan Farewell.

My brother mentioned that the hair ties, or scrunchies work on the nut end of a guitar. I have some scrunchies somewhere - just couldn't find them. (the story of my life.) I'm not sure how one would get them over the scroll and tuning pegs and still be tight enough to mute. I'll try it sometime when I find them...
Can't wait to get the bass mute.I won't have any excuse now not to practice!

One of my main reasons for wanting to have a ukulele, was the ability to play in any key. My sister has just decided to take up the banjo. She loves bluegrass, and everything she has learned so far is in the key of G. My dulcimer is in the key of D and G is hard to get to.
The other reason is that I can't find a comfortable place to play the dulcimer. It won't stay on my lap and I hate being strapped in to whatever I'm doing. I jump up and down too much. Besides, I don't have much of a lap left. I don't have a comfortable chair for the dulcimer either. My only two chairs are a low slung lawn chair and a straight chair that is falling apart. The dulcimer is too long to fit on the first and the second is stationed in front of the loom and not easy to access.
The little ukulele fits right in my lap and takes up hardly any room. I can relax in front of a movie on the computer in that low slung chair and practice chords or strumming.
My fingers are pretty large and I'd love to have a tenor uke. But for now, I'm happy to have this little antique.
Here's a video of some members of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain playing even smaller ukes.

Starting From Here

 My sting bass fell apart. A friend said he could fix it. He never did. I left to move back home without it. I had sold my wonderful Fender fretless jazz bass to pay the mortgage. I lost my house anyway. I started really playing my lovely dulcimer, but being limited to one or two keys was frustrating. I wanted a ukulele. .By some miracle, I was given one. I'm having a blast with it.