Spoil the Autoharp for me

Cafe Society
1

While spending some completely non-autoharp specific time on the internet a short while ago, I somehow caught a random autoharp comment somewhere that said the autoharp has an extremely short learning curve.

Now, I’ve never had a specific interest in the autoharp but I do have a personal mission to be mediocre on as many instruments as possible.

I’m currently mediocre on guitar, bass, and very mediocre on mandolin (don’t you love it when people say “very mediocre” like it actually means something?). I currently own and am practicing on a big fat piano-accordion on which I hope to acheive mediocrity sometime soon.

So, if the autoharp is such an easy instrument to learn I figure I might as well pick one up and learn to play it.

So, once I learn it what do I do with it?

The OP’s principal question:
Is it valid to assume that since there’s so little to learn that there is also very limited versatility? very limited range? Is it good for both melody and rhythm, or is it pretty much just meant to be strum? What limitations (if any) are there on what keys you can play in?* Who should be my autoharp idols?

*The “limited key” question is inspired by a fun little Lisa Marr song that has the lyric “so what you wrote a song in the key of F#, you’ll never rock it on the autoharp” (this is the second Thread in which I mentioned this song lyric- find the other Thread and you win a donkey!)

2

Years ago a friend of mine had an autoharp. I thought it was kind of cool - buttons to press for chords. It didn’t take me long to start making interesting sounds on it, so I think it is a good choice.

I have seen both Cindy Lauper and Joni Mitchell live play the dulcimer and it seems to be an extrordinarily lame instrument that may be worth your investigation.

3

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=5701158&postcount=7

gimme my donkey.

4

Wow, don’t ask! You so have me figured out! Although I happen to think the dulcimer is pretty cool, I have myself been accused of being extraordinarily lame. Go dulcimer!

Rufus, congratulations! I’ll have your donkey in the mail early next week! (I hope you tipped your mail carrier at Christmas!)

5

For ideas on what to do with an autoharp, listen to recordings by master autoharp player Bryan Bowers!

For information on him I suppose you could try Google, or a specific folk music site, like the Sing Out or Dirty Linen magazines, or the Elderly Instruments (Lansing, MI) or Golden Ring (Manitowoc, WI) music stores.

6

I think I played an autoharp in music class in 3rd grade. It’s a whole set of strings (every half step), with a bunch of buttons that each mute most of the strings – in fact all the strings except those in a given chord.

So, to play, you hold down one of the buttons (say, D), and strum. Voila, you’re strumming a D chord. Now hold down the G button, keep strumming, and you’re playing a G chord. I suppose if you really wanted, you could learn to pick out a tune by playing one string at a time, but it’s not designed for that. Really, it’s designed for third graders to play in music class.

In other words, if you’ve played the guitar and therefore have experience in strumming, you are already mediocre on the autoharp. I say, go to a music store, play one for ten seconds (so you can honestly say you have played it), and then go ahead and add it to your list.

I’ve also played a mountain dulcimer. It’s got a drone string and a melody string, typically fretted in a mixture of half and whole steps, so you can only play the notes of a major scale. In other words, it’s a two-string guitar you can only play in one key. If you’re already mediocre at mandolin and guitar, you may be already pretty close to mediocre on a dulcimer, but I think you’d need to play it for oh, at least a couple days to make that claim.

This is not to be confused with a hammer dulcimer, which is completely different – it’s sort of a hand-hammered piano, or xylophone using strings – a box with a complete set of strings, played by hitting the strings with sticks. Not as versatile as a piano, but you can make it sound pretty good. And it will take you at least a little while to be mediocre at a hammer dulcimer, if you’re looking for something to do.

7

You can check out The Autoharp Page , complete with an Internet Autoharp.

And there’s Autoharp Radio

Autoharps and mountain dulcimers can be played at a basic level very quickly. But you can also get fancy with them and play absolutely lovely stuff. I’m not having any luck finding a link I went to the other day from a player who did a lot of melody picking on his autoharp. I’d had no idea that you could get sounds like that from an autoharp!

Archergal
another musician dedicated to being mediocre on many instruments

8

My mom has an autoharp that she would happily sell, if any of you are interested. It goes back to at least the early '80s, and is still in decent shape. Unfortunately, it could use new strings. It has a case too, though. Please e-mail me if you want to talk autoharp!

–Lou
Plays sax (well) but also has a Melodica and Irish tin whistle to be mediocre on