I'm having WAY more fun than learning an Instrument Should Allow!

Ok, I admit it. I've played the basic strum for a while as I outlined in my original plan. But, frankly, I'm already board. I've found that it does not take very long and I can have a song down now. And, well, the song sound kind of boaring. So I finally decided I needed to raise the bar a bit. There's probably some music teacher out there some where who knows that I'm doing this way to early. Especailly if I'm not even sure that what I've learned so far sounds good, or is correct. It sounds good to me, but I'm a LONG way from an expert. I've only played songs in my "Simplified LDS Hymns" book. And the only other person that has heard me play is my Dad and I didn't sing for him. I just played the harmony. He was ambivolent... But then again, he always is about everything.

Any way, like it or not I decided to move on. But to what? I checked out the advice of our Mr. Terwilligar Jones on YouTube. Yet another, perfect pitched, former expert guitar player taking up the autoharp as a "beginner". He seemed to indicate that learning the auto harp followed these steps:

1. Get a chromatic autoharp
2. Learn how to tune it using an electronic tuner
3. After you've tuned it, chuck it in the trash and get a VERY, VERY fancy, possibly custom made diatonic autoharp.
4. Jam with a bluegrass band
5. Lean to pinch and strum your "dog"
6. Pinch out 70 - 100 scales every day like you've already been doing it for a year and a half

Although my "dog" Tiggy did really enjoyed my pinching out a tune on his back, according to Mr. Jones I'm well past due to chuck my harp in the trash and buy a very fancy, custom made diatonic harp. Problem is, I really love my harp! I think its the coolest harp around! (...and I'm right.) So chucking it is out of the question. (That and I can't afford a custom diatonic.) So it looked like the next step was to pinch out scales. But as I began my first ackward steps at pinching a scale, I realized that I had only been learning and using the very basic strum. I knew there were others. So I decided I needed to learn other, more complicated strums before moving on.

My Internet research on the subject lead me back to the same old instruction books, none under $25. On Amazon.com they had a preview of one of the books and it talked about using a thumb pick and two finger picks. (So does Mr. Jones by the way.) One finger pick on the pointer finger and one on the middle finger. I was just debating if I should contact my x-wife and have her send all my old autoharp books or just buy a new one, when I realized that I had seen some free guitar lessons on the web! They would have strums! So I checked it out and sure enough they did. On lesson 2, part 5 he shows the first strum. So that's where I'm starting. He has other strums along the way, and it's good to look over the instructions he has on fingering chords on the guitar. It reminds me how blessed I am to be just pressing chord bars instead of knotting up my fingers trying to make the chords like our guitar friends.

This strum is a little harder, but I'm having a blast going back to the same songs I've done before and trying this strum on them. That, and trying to keep up with the metronome at the same time! The only problem is that I've started putting off laundary and anything else I can to have more time to practice when I get home from work! This is GREAT! Who knew strumming could be so much fun!

What I Learned while My Computer was Out Sick Part 3

So I thought my autoharp life was getting wonderful with my new chord bar arrangement. That is until I really started digging into the songs in my book again. The base chord bars your fingers start on are usually in the middle row on these new chord bar arrangements instead of on the row nearest the high strings, like they are on the factory arrangement. To comfortably play songs, especially fast songs like "High on a Mountain Top", I need to hold the harp up higher and reach my arm around the harp further than I used to. I've been resting the harp on my knee and putting it against my chest. Now I had to prop my knee up uncomfortably higher and as I played, the harp moved around a lot more as I pressed chord bars with my left hand because of the slightly extended reach needed for the new chord bar arrangement. I noticed in a couple of old videos reproduced on YouTube, that the autoharp pioneer June Carter Cash had the same problem. In the first video she's still trying to play the harp flat on her lap and its shifting all over the place. In the second, later video she's playing the harp against her chest, but its still shifting all over as she plays it. This opened my harp's next evolutionary step.

From further Internet research, the answer to my problem was to hook a guitar strap to the harp. This involves drilling two holes into the autoharp. (YIKES!) Then screwing a metal "button" into each hole. A standard guitar strap hooks between the two buttons and you're up and running.

Ok, I'm up to switching around my own chord bars as long as I don't have to put new felt on them. But drilling holes into my beloved instrument is not going to happen by me! So it was off down the street to the good people of "Acoustic Music". In just a few minutes time they had the buttons mounted while they distracted me with trying to decide on the guitar strap I wanted. They already knew the correct spots to place them for the standard placement I used. (The standard "button" placement is shown here.) Once I selected the strap they put it on the buttons and checked it out. The metal buttons are placed on the surface of the harp next to the low F string on one side and the highest C string on the other side. The strap fits over the buttons just like a button hole fits over the buttons on a shirt. Because they took the time to test it, they were also able to trim the extra material around the "button hole" portion of the strap so that it didn't bump into the strings near each one. Except for my cringing at the sound of the drill, they made the whole process wonderfully painless for only $11.95.

Since doing this my practices have been so easy that, so far, I've been able to pick any song in my "Simplified LDS Hymns" book and learn to play it with the basic strum in about three to five days, with one hour a day practices! This is great!

What I Learned while My Computer was Out Sick Part 2

After learning to do the basic sweep across the strings strum correctly, and learning my first song, I went through a micro evolution. Probably the same evolution the early autoharp players went through except they knew what they were doing and I had their experience documented for me. You see, the next song after what I had just learned was "High on a Mountain Top" It's written in 2/2 time. The last song I learned was in 4/4 time so I strummed once for each beat. (I think that's right...) So for 2/2 I assume that I strum once for every two beats. So "High on a Mountain Top" is harder because its faster. On top of that it has two very hard chord transitions. The first one is D to Em to A to D again. The second one is even harder with G to Em to A7 to D. I don't know about you, but for my stubby fingers this was quite a reach. Then, by the time I got to D, my fingers were off their base chord positions and I had to stop in the song to get reoriented again. This was impossible! Then I remembered what I had read about alternate chord bar arrangements. Remember, I mentioned that earlier and how I did not understand how you could know how to rearrange the cord bars if you had never played? Well, now I know. I had to do something to at least get that Em chord bar closer to the G and D chord bars. In all the web sites I looked at, one chord bar arrangement kept coming up again and again. I found out that this chord arrangement was created by the famous autoharp player Bryan Bowers.

I leaned that the chord bar arrangement you get from the factory is arranged best technically. But as a computer programmer I've learned that the arrangments I've come up with that make the most technical sense are not always the best arrangement for the people that use my software. This seems to be the same story here. Mr. Bowers seems to have come up with a better trade off between the technical arrangement and what works best for the player. This page of the "Autoharp Works" web site gives three different arrangements for the 21 bar harp. But only Mr Bowers (marked on the page as the "Lewis Standard", allows you to rearrange the chord bars without changing the felt on the bars. The other two require you to change the felt on at least one bar to get a different chord from the factory original.

So you think I'd have gone with the "Lewis Standard". Wrong. After finally understanding this whole chord bar rearrange thingy, I did some experimenting on different songs in my simplified LDS Hymns book and found that the best arrangement for me was the one marked as the "Tuck V7th middle". This arrangement wants you to replace the factory Bb7 chord bar with a Bm chord bar. But I haven't had a strong need for either a Bb7 or a Bm chord. So I don't currently see any problem in just putting the Bb7 where the Bm should go.

I didn't see any problem with me swapping around the chord bars on my harp except for one, such swapping would require me to rearrange the placement of the chord bar buttons. How was I going to do that? My harp is from Oscar Schmidt. It appears that to the rest of the autoharp world the solution to this problem is such a "no brainer" that almost no one has bothered to document it. That's unfortunate for beginners like me. After much searching on the subject, it was the "Autoharp Store" that slightly redemed themselves by having a paragraph in their document on changing chord bars that says:

"21 Chord models are designed so that you can arrange the chord bars to your preference. You can create your own arrangement by simply arranging the chord bar to the position that you desire. Fit the chord buttons so that they align with the holes in the cover."

The reference to "21 Chord models" is strictly to Oscar Schmidt models like mine. WAS I EXCITED! Everything was in place for my new arrangement! I made the change myself. I found that the Oscar Schmidt chord bar buttons have a tab on the bottom. This tab fits into a gutter on the chord bar that allows the button to slide up and down along the length of the chord bar. The corrisponding hole in the chord bar cover is what holds the button in place. The actual chord bar has a hole on the high string side and a "U" shaped grove on the low string side. You put the bar's hole over the correct peg/spring combination at the new position. Then you rotate the bar into place so that its button doesn't slide out of place or knock into the button next to it, and the "U" grove fits over the peg/spring combination on the low stirng side of the new positon. Its VERY simple even for a legally blind kluts like me!

The new arrangement is WONDERFUL! every chord combination I've needed so far, and I've tired it on a lot of songs since doing the change, has been within very easy reach, including the infamous Em chord!

Now that I had this done, I ran into my next evolutionary step that I'd better cover next time, since it's getting a bit late.

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.

Ok, I’m a Believer Now

On my Monday’s practice I tried holding the harp with the strings vertical like everyone else does… Ok, they’re right. It is much easer. You don’t have to move your fingers around as much. I admit it now. I put my middle finger on the first chord and my ring and pointer finger line up to the two most likely other chords that will be used in the song. In fact I tried all the same songs I originally tried under the horizontal strings method and all the songs were easier to play except one. It had a long reach from the D chord to the Em chord and one other chord that went beyond the normal three fingers. But, over all, I’m convinced.

Tuesday I couldn’t stand waiting any longer for the Autoharp Store to send me my “deluxe” tuner. So I went down to Acoustic Music and just bought one. It was pricey, but I’m tired of just pretending to play the strings while I focus on the bars. It took me the rest of Tuesday night to tune up the harp. I tuned it sharp in hopes that it would stretch out more quickly that way.

Tonight I found that Tuesday’s tuning sharp, paid off. It only took a little while to get all the strings on tune (or as close as I can come until I get a proper hex key for the fine tuner) and that’s probably good enough for my uneducated ear. Then I had my first real practice. I seem to have the coordination down for strumming and switching chord bars at the right time. I’ve got it pretty simple right now. The song I’m working with is in 4/4 time and I’m just strumming right across the strings. It sounds good to me. But I think some of the strings started going flat by the time the practice was finished. I guess it will be a while before the harp and its strings stabilize. I’m hoping one or two more practices and I’ll have this song down. I’m already getting really board hearing myself sing. Oh well. At least its nice to be making some sound.

First and Second Practices

Yesterday was my first practice and I just finished my second practice. The memorizing of the cord bars I did while I was waiting for the harp to come really seems to have paid off. I was able to find the right cords in a short amount of time. To my surprise, I found I could not remember the first song in my Hymnbook, “The Morning Breaks”. So I’ve started learning on the second song, “The Spirit of God”. But here’s the kicker, all I’m practicing is pressing the cords and strumming with my thumb, and no picks. The reason is that I don’t have a tuner. This is good practice as far as focusing me on the chord bars, but it isn’t very satisfying from a sound point of view.

I talked with the “Autoharp Store” on the phone yesterday when I noticed no response from my email. The lady I talked to said that they probably forgot to put the tuner in. So she’s going to send me one with a smaller hex key for the fine tuner. Hmm, maybe my local “Acoustic Music” store would have a tuner I could rent for a while…

Anyway, since I’m focusing on chord bars I’ve run into a bit of a puzzle. By a VERY bizarre set of circumstances the flash player I’ve been trying to get to install for so long from Adobe’s site was successfully installed through another site with no problems. So now I’m able to view YouTube. FINALLY I’ve been able to view this autoharp clip that keeps coming up on the “autoharp” Google search. This led me to a bunch of other clips. One of which talked about how to hold the harp. He said that you hold it with the strings vertical. I’ve been holding the harp with the string horizontally, similar to the way you hold a guitar. I used to hold my old 15 bar harp the way this guy suggested, but it always seemed awkward trying to find a good finger arrangement on the chord bars. Each of the two ways means comfortable access to the chord bars is different. So taking my 21 bar harp as an example, each method works like this:

Strings Vertical
Your three fingers lay access each chord button by row. I’m not sure this puts each chord near each other. If you had a custom chord bar arrangement like most of the people in the YouTube clips seemed to have, I could see everything where you would expect it by row. But I’m not sure that’s true with the factory chord bar arrangement.

Strings Horizontal
Your three fingers lay across each chord bar by column. Looking at the chord bars, the buttons in each row are offset to the right from the row above them. This makes them really comfortable for access by column because, by its nature, you can’t hold the harp with the strings exactly horizontal. So it is held at an angle that makes each column line up nicely with your ring finger on the first row and your middle finger on the second row and your pointer finger on the last row. Then you just move your three fingers up and down the row. I’m not sure how this works for custom chord bar arrangements, but it seems to work well with the factory settings, very well on my first two practices, which isn’t saying much. The only setback I can see is that it seems to put a lot more effort on your ring finger.

Now I’m not totally alone on this horizontal method. I met a very good autoharp player in Nottingham England who plays this way, and I saw a page some where on the web of a guy talking about installing his guitar strap on his harp so it would sit this way. Also, one advantage I could see is that if you did do some customizing of the bars, you could just rearrange them without needing new buttons or felt.

I fell into using the horizontal method on my first practice. On the second practice I took some time to try it on some of the other songs in the book besides the one I’ve been practicing. There were two songs of the several I tried that caused my fingers to have a bit of a stretch to the next button. But even then the button after that was always near by.

All this love of the horizontal method may change when my thumb brushes past tuned strings with a pick on, or after I have more experience. But for right now, it feels really good. On Monday’s practice I’ll try using the vertical method and see what happens.

Oh, remember that first song in the Hymnbook I couldn’t remember? I went to the lds.org web site to see if I could find a recording of it to remind me. At this link, http://www.lds.org/cm/display/0,17631,4996-1,00.html they have a link to the “Interactive Church Music Player”. A very cool little page! Not only does it allow you to look for any music in the Hymnbook or the Children’s Hymnbook, but it also allows you to play the song and print out the actual music in different keys! Unfortunately it doesn’t print the music out with the chords. And for right now, it doesn’t help me because they are not simplified. Now even if you’re not interested in LDS hymns, there’s quite a few old standards in the LDS hymn book, like “Onward Christian Soldiers” that you could print out in different keys if you needed the music for private use.

IT'S HERE!

I was finally able to pickup the package from my apartment office and, sure enough it was the harp! All my fears about how it would come are gone! It looks beautiful! The styling is much like my old 15 bar Chromaharp, but MUCH nicer!

But, alas, there are two problems with it. First, the harp has a fine-tuning system that uses a hex key to turn them. The hex key that came with the harp is too big to fit in and turn them. The second problem is that I was supposed to get my “deluxe” electronic tuner. But there’s no turner. I’ve emailed this info to the Autoharp Store and we’ll see what they say. When I ordered the harp they told me it would be another week or two before I’d see the case. But it’s all coming together! This is exciting!

I’m going to have to return the cord that goes between the harp and the turner to my local Acoustic Music store because the harp comes with the cord and a 9 volt battery for the built in pickup. No problem!