I was going through some of my old notes and drawings, and I laughed at some of my early thoughts. Some ideas were good, and turned out really well. Some ideas were, well, not so good. (Like experimenting with glass soundboards…)

One feature that stood out quite early was the actual shape of the psaltery;s body. It may come as a surprise to some that I struggled on this, going back and forth between a simple triangle (as the psaltery seen on A Psimple Psaltery), and the five-sided shape that I now use pretty much exclusively today. But back then, it wasn’t so clear.

Early drawing of a 3-sided model

Here’s one such drawing that I made back in 2006. It’s simple, but the fact that I went to this trouble at all shows that I was seriously considering the plan.

In retrospect, I’m glad that I’ve stuck with the design that I’m currently using.