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Post by PistolPete on Jan 19, 2019 20:42:18 GMT
I'm just trying to book studio time for a new project with a female singer and a fiddle player, with the idea we might do some gentler more folky material than I usually produce. Listening to some Carter Family the other day it occurred to me the autoharp would add an interesting texture to the recording.
Has anyone here got any experience of them. Are they easy to play? Can you find them cheap or are they silly money?
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Jan 19, 2019 21:11:39 GMT
I had one about 50 years ago - loved it. I used a thumbpick and fingerpicks to play similarly to (though not as well as) Maybelle Carter. I really enjoyed it - pretty easy to get the hang of and, as you say Pete, an interesting extra texture but also works well as a solo instrument either accompanying voice or playing "fingerstyle" solo instrumentals.
In fact I liked it best as a solo instrument because it was such a pain to tune all those strings to be exactly at proper pitch, though obviously much easier to keep it in tune with itself.
The more chord bars the better for flexibility.
You can get old falling apart ones for not much money, though new ones might be around £400 or so.
Something of a pain to restring, but I think I only did that after about 15 years of ownership...
Keith
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colins
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Post by colins on Jan 19, 2019 21:53:57 GMT
Yes, like Keith I had one back in the late 60s/early 70s. They are a bit of a pain to get in tune, but once settled they tend not to go out of tune very quickly due to the short string length, and of course they last a long time because they don't keep having sweaty fingers all over them. We did however tend to use it as the reference instrument when tuning. They can be played from a very basic strumming style to add structure to an ensemble or you can get fancy with the finger picking. Our female singer used to play it during instrumentals so that she wasn't just standing about with nothing to do. There are plenty of 21 bar ones out there as Keith said for about £400, for instance: redcowmusic.co.uk/product/ashbury-21-bar-deluxe-autoharp/?v=79cba1185463Colin |
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Post by lavaman on Jan 20, 2019 7:15:27 GMT
Pete,
PM sent
Iain
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Jan 20, 2019 15:07:24 GMT
For me it took a lot of work to play tunes to any effect, such that after Crom knows how many hours I only really know five basic things like Wildwood Flower, and have never moved on to getting creative with it. It's also a pig to record, by the by, as I found out last year when I was working up a version of Wabash Cannonball for my personal Woody Guthrie project.
That said, John Sebastian found a use for them in adding chordal emphasis and for intros on Spoonful sides, rather like one of Count Basie's signature techniques with big band chords writ small.
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Post by PistolPete on Jan 22, 2019 18:30:42 GMT
Thanks you all for the info. I won this one on ebay on Sunday after putting on an off-chance low bid, so I'll be seeing how I get on I guess. Not sure what state it might be in! |
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Jan 23, 2019 15:45:26 GMT
Good move, I think. You get to find out whether you get on with what is really a Cinderella instrument at a reasonable price.
A couple of autoharpy thoughts while I'm here.
If you have access to keyboards they are by far the best reference for tuning. While electronic tuners may seem the obvious route I've found that they produce a more sickly sound than using your ears.
Regarding the condition of your autoharp, you may find that some of the springs have lost their, um, spring or rusted up, a problem I had last year. I found some compression springs that were of a suitable diameter for mine on Ebay, but they were too long. In the event I cut them to a little over length, got my son to wind the cut ends around a screwdriver a few times and got two usable springs out of each big one.
By the way, there's a really odd moment on The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's first Will The Circle Be Unbroken album in which Mother Maybelle Carter asks Doc Watson if he's ever tried to restring an autoharp. The mind boggles.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Feb 17, 2019 15:43:44 GMT
Here's a seemingly bizarre autoharp trick, but one that worked for me this morning.
It's long been known that WD40 is good for preserving and "unsticking" piano wires and gears, and I've used it for that a few times down the years. My autoharp was getting very awkward and dull in its old age, even after replacing some of the springs, so I thought it wouldn't hurt if I took off the chord bars and gave everything, strings included, a spray and clean. It now works and sounds much better.
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Jo whoever he is.
