These are the instruments we play, with a bit of an explanation of each:
"Big gob" doesn't qualify as an instrument, so Kaz hasn't got a section here.
Melodeon
This is a bellows instrument, akin to the accordian and concertina. The two-row diatonic melodeon that Pennie uses can play in two major keys, D and G. They will also play in other keys, notably Em and Am, but A is also possible.
Pennie plays a Hohner 2 row or a Salterelle for bookings and occasionally a Castagnari.
Appalachian dulcimer
This isn't the dulcimer made famous by Coleridge in his poem about Kubla Khan, but a relative from the American Appalachian mountains. It's a diatonic fretted instrument - that is, it doesn't have a fret at every semitone interval like a guitar, but at the intervals of a normal Western diatonic scale. Clif plays six-string instruments with the strings tuned in three pairs, which, due to the layout of the frets, will only play in one key. Clif uses two, one tuned to D and the other to G (which, eagle-eyed readers will note, are the same keys as Penni's melodeons).
Guitar
Peter uses a normal hollow-bodied six-string acoustic guitar in standard tuning, fitted with a piezo-electric pickup for use with amplification.
Bass
Both the bass guitar and the double bass are tuned to the same notes as the bottom four strings of a guitar but an octave down. The scale length of a bass guitar is 34", while a 3/4 double bass has a scale length of 41". Five-string instruments have the top four strings tuned as the bottom four of a guitar but an octave down, and an additional B string tuned lower than the bottom E. Mike uses either an NS WAV-4 4-string electric upright bass or an Ergo Instruments 5-string upright bass, a Mazeti 5-string fretless or a fretless customised Warwick Thumb 4-string, and an Ashbory, a tiny instrument with silicone strings tuned the same as a bass.
