I’m Daniel Johnstone — an English writer, musician, and something of a folk instrument obsessive.
I’ve been playing stringed instruments since my early teens. Like most people, I started on guitar — but somewhere along the way I fell down a rabbit hole of folk music and never quite made it back out. A cavaco arrived next, then a tenor guitar, and eventually I discovered the autoharp, which I’ll defend to this day as one of the most underrated instruments in existence. More recently I’ve been getting to grips with the harp and have spent a frankly embarrassing amount of time with mountain dulcimers.
Folkstrings.com started because I kept running into the same problem: advice about folk instruments online was either vague, clearly written by someone who had never touched the instrument, or aimed at professional musicians with budgets most of us can’t stretch to. I wanted a place where someone who genuinely plays these things could give you a straight answer — whether you’re a complete beginner choosing your first folk instrument, or an experienced player looking to add something new to the collection.
These days I mostly write buying guides and reviews, drawing on my own playing experience and a lot of time spent researching what’s actually worth your money at different price points. I also cover tuning, technique, and the occasional deeper dive into an instrument’s history — because you can’t love folk instruments without loving their stories.
If you have a question about anything on the site, the contact page is always open.
— Daniel