What I've Learned while my Computer's been Out Sick

Well, its been a long time since I've updated this blog. It seems my computer picked up a nasty bit of malware to the point I had to reformat the drive and start all over again. I'm still recovering from this, but I"m mostly back in business. To prove that there's even a silver lining on the darkest cloud, there is good news. I was able to spend more time with the autoharp as a result of my lack of computer access. I didn't quite get as much practicing in as I had hoped, but I have learned a LOT! Here's what's happened so far.

First, I'm not too impressed with "The Autoharp Store's" customer support. It took a long time for them to get me the stuff they forgot to put in my initial package in the first place. I finally got them and part of the order was still wrong. As expected the electronic tuner they tossed in to the deal for an extra $15 bucks, is useless as a tuner. Like most cheep tuners it requires extra settings to make it work right. If you knew the values of those extra settings you wouldn't need a tuner. But it will still make a good metronome, which is what I was looking towards. But the part of the order they screwed up is the hex key for the fine tuner. The one they sent me was too big. Despite calling them three times and emailing them once to make sure they knew I needed a smaller hex key and not a tuning wrench, they still sent me a tuning wrench. Seeing that "The Autoharp Store" has the listening skills of spam, I didn't bother with them again. I went to my local Ace Hardware store and bought a basic, metric hex key set. Sure enough, after trying different hex keys from the set against the fine tuner and the hex key the Autoharp Store sent me, I found that they sent me a 3mm hex key instead of the standard 2.5mm. (Bone-heads.)

I didn't think of having a fine tuner much until my strings became fully stretched and stabilized about last Monday. Since they've stabilized, I haven't needed to use the tuning pegs to tune. I just make small turns with my hex key in the fine tuner. I've read that this will save wear and tear on my tuning pegs and the wood they are embedded in, and it's a lot easier to turn and control! So now I'm really happy I have it.

Second, I learned I was strumming wrong. Even though I'm still just using a thumb pick to run across the strings, I learned that I was doing it wrong. Cathy Britell wrote a very nice web post called Introduction to the Autoharp. In it she states:

"When you strum the `harp, your shoulder and elbow should be as still as possible and your forearm working like the hand of a clock in a smooth vertical arc from the lowest to the highest strings"

I was just kind of running my thumb across the middle group of strings as near the chord bars as I could. If I felt really athletic I would run as close to the high strings as possible. But to do that my arm moved in a horizontal "pumping" action similar to an old steam engine. (Probably not a very pretty sight.) Using Cathy's instructions, my arm starts up much higher, nearer to the tuning pegs. But not too near. My elbow acts as the center point of a clock and my arm acts like the hand of a clock moving across the strings in a, more or less, 12 o'clock to 3 o'clock arc. This lets me go from the lowest strings all the way to as close as I can get to that little pocket of high strings, and gives a much fuller and nicer sound! I almost had my first song, "The Spirit of God" down. But I had to start again doing the very basic strum correctly. I now have both the correct, basic strum down as well as the song. Although some times I still have to remind my lazy arm to go back up when it starts slowly sinking back down toward the chord bars during a practice.

There's still much more I've learned, but I'll have to try and do it as a "Part Two" tomorrow since I'm trying to get to bed earlier.