Autoharp Chord bars

[Corgicrazed]

Recently my Mother gave me an autoharp. I can play tunes using single strings, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to the chord bars. If anyone has any experience with autoharps please help! Any tips will be extremely appreciated.Thanks!

[Tim2723]

It would help if you tell us more about exactly what problem you're having. If you press a chord bar and strum, and it sounds awful, there can be a couple of things wrong. An autoharp has a lot of strings that have to be in tune. An out-of-tune harp sounds bad no matter what you do. Chord bars can need adjustments in order to dampen all the strings except those in the chords, and an out of adjustment bar may allow an errant note to sound.

Does any of that sound like your problem, or is it something else?

[Corgicrazed]

The autoharp is in extremely good shape,and certainly in tune.The chord bars all work..... I just need to know how to apply the chords to music. Do I strum all the strings or only a few? I've tried playing songs with chords but it just doesn't sound right. Perhaps I'm using the wrong string section for chords? One other question: How do I go about cleaning it? It's been sitting around for about twenty years and is VERY dusty. lol. Can a large amount of dust damage the wood? I'm afraid to stick anything under there 'cause I think it would pop the strings. It's made by Oscar Schmidt and has fifteen Chord bars. It looks sort of like this:

http://www.websters-online-dictionary.o ... toharp.jpg

[MTGuru]

The easy answer is: Get a good instruction book or video on playing the autoharp.

The harder answer is that you need to understand something about what's called "chord melody". Basically, you determine which chords contain the notes of the melody you're trying to play, and then press those chord bars in the right sequence while strumming the chords with the melody note as the highest note in the chords.

That makes it sound harder than it really is.

For example, take "Mary had a little lamb" in the key of C: EDCD EEE DDD EGG.

Now look at the chord triads of the main chords in the key of C.

C chord: C E G
G chord: G B D

You'll notice that all the melody notes can be covered by playing one or the other of those 2 chords. So you can strum the melody notes while playing the chord bars in the following sequence:

Notes: EDCD EEE DDD EGG
Chords: CGCG CCC GGG CCC

The number of strings you actually strum is entirely up to you, as long as the melody note is the top note. A few strings gives you a small, tight chord; many strings gives you a big, rich chord.

Of course, if you just want to strum chords to accompany singing or another instrument, then ignore the melody and finger the chords you want.

As far as holding the instrument goes ... Most folk players cradle the authoarp vertically in the weaker arm (e.g. left arm) and use that hand to finger the chord bars, while strumming the open area of the strings with the strong hand. Like John Sebastian in this picture:



You can use a thin pick, thumb/finger picks, or strum with your fingers/nails, depending on the sound you want. And since you can't see the chord bars in this position, you need to memorize the layout of the bars so you can play them by feel. (You can also customize the bar layout, but that's a different topic.)

Hope that helps!

[Corgicrazed]

Wow! I just played a few simple songs and it sounds so much better! I was strumming the whole string section, so it was sounding very weird. Great improvement thank you! I'm going to see if my library has any books on auto harps.....Thanks again!

[MTGuru]

A pleasure!