Autoharp
Encyclopedia
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
having a series of chord bars attached to dampers, which, when depressed, mute all of the strings other than those that form the desired chord
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
at all, but a chord
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
ed zither
Zither
The zither is a musical string instrument, most commonly found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary citera, northwestern Croatia, the southern regions of Germany, alpine Europe and East Asian cultures, including China...
.
History
There is debate over the origin of the auto-harp. A GermanGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
immigrant in Philadelphia by the name of Charles F. Zimmermann was awarded in 1882 for a design for a musical instrument that included mechanisms for muting certain strings during play. He named his invention the "autoharp". Unlike later autoharps, the shape of the instrument was symmetrical, and the felt-bearing bars moved horizontally against the strings instead of vertically. It is not known if Zimmermann ever commercially produced any instruments of this early design. Karl August Gütter of Markneukirchen
Markneukirchen
Markneukirchen is a town in the Vogtlandkreis district, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It lies in between the Erzgebirge and the Fichtelgebirge in the Elstergebirge, southeast of Plauen, and northeast of Asch ....
, Germany, built a model that he called a "Volkszither," which most resembles the autoharp played today. Gütter obtained a British patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
for his instrument circa 1883–1884. Zimmermann, after returning from a visit to Germany, began production of the Gütter design in 1885 but with his own design patent number and catchy name. Gütter's instrument design became very popular, and Zimmermann has often been mistaken as the inventor.
Trademark
The term "Autoharp" was registered as a trademark in 1926. The word is currently claimed as a trademark by U.S. Music CorporationU.S. Music Corporation
U.S Music Corporation is a company based in Mundelein, Illinois. US Music Corp is an international musical instrument company that manufactures and distributes products worldwide under the Washburn Guitars, Parker Guitars, Randall Amplifiers, Eden Electronics, Oscar Schmidt, Hagstrom, Jay Turser,...
, whose Oscar Schmidt
Oscar Schmidt Inc.
The Oscar Schmidt Company designed and manufactured numerous models of parlour instruments including lap harps, autoharps, germania harps, chord zithers, regent zithers, and ukelins. The company, now owned by U.S...
division manufactures Autoharps. The USPTO
United States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...
registration, however, covers only a "Mark Drawing Code (5) WORDS, LETTERS, AND/OR NUMBERS IN STYLIZED FORM" and has expired. In litigation with George Orthey, it was held that Oscar Schmidt could only claim ownership of the stylized lettering of the word Autoharp, the term itself having moved into general usage.
Construction
Modern autoharps have 36 or 37 strings, although some examples with as many as 47 strings, and even a rare 48-string model exists. They are strung in either diatonic (1, 2 or 3 key models) or chromaticChromatic scale
The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone apart. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the half steps are the same size...
scales. Standard models have 15 or 21 chord bars, or buttons, available, a selection of major
Major chord
In music theory, a major chord is a chord having a root, a major third, and a perfect fifth. When a chord has these three notes alone, it is called a major triad...
, minor
Minor chord
In music theory, a minor chord is a chord having a root, a minor third, and a perfect fifth.When a chord has these three notes alone, it is called a minor triad....
, and dominant seventh chord
Dominant seventh chord
In music theory, a dominant seventh chord, or major minor seventh chord,is a chord composed of a root, major third, perfect fifth, and minor seventh. It can be also viewed as a major triad with an additional minor seventh...
s. These are arranged for historical or systemic reasons, as for example:
Eb Bb F C G D A
F7 C7 G7 D7 A7 E7 B7
Ab Bb7 Cm Gm Dm Am Em
Although the autoharp is often thought of as a rhythm instrument for playing chordal accompaniment, modern players can play melodies on the instrument. Diatonic players are able to play fiddle tunes by using open-chording techniques, "pumping" the damper buttons while picking individual strings. Skilled chromatic players can perform a range of melodies.
Diatonically strung single key instruments from modern day luthiers such as Orthey, Fladmark, Hollandsworth, D'Aigle, Baker, Daniels and Goose Acres are known for their lush sound. This is accomplished by doubling the strings for individual notes. Since the strings for notes not in the diatonic scale need not appear in the string bed, the resulting extra space is used for the doubled strings, resulting in fewer damped strings. Two- and three-key diatonics compromise the number of doubled strings to gain the ability to play in two or three keys, and to permit tunes containing accidentals, which could not otherwise be rendered on a single key harp. A three-key harp in the circle of fifths, such as a GDA, is often called a festival or campfire harp, as the instrument can easily accompany fiddles around a campfire at a festival in their favored keys.
Electric autoharp
Prior to the 1960s there were no pickups to amplify the autoharp other than a rudimentary contact microphone, which had a poor-quality, tinny sound. Eventually a bar magnetic pickup was designed by Harry DeArmondHarry DeArmond
Harry DeArmond invented the first commercially available attachable guitar pickup in the mid 1930s. He established a working relationship with Horace 'Bud' Rowe's company to manufacture and develop these items...
, and manufactured by Rowe Industries. Roger Penney
Roger Penney
Roger Penney is an innovative singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He pioneered a style of American psychedelic folk music in the late 60s, early 70s and is known for his inventive performances and recordings as Bermuda Triangle Band as well as ROGER AND WENDY and EUPHORIA.-Early life:Born...
of Bermuda Triangle Band
Bermuda Triangle Band
Bermuda Triangle Bands wild psychedelic and delicately nuanced electric autoharp and transcendental vocals grew out of the late '60s folk rock scene. With an independent attitude, eccentric style and highly unusual instrument lineup, the group was unprecedented. Psychedelic rock autoharp was...
was the first person to introduce the electric autoharp to the public, as cited in a 1968 Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
article. In the 1970s Oscar Schmidt came out with their own magnetic pickup.
Shown at the right is a 1930 refinished Oscar Schmidt
Oscar Schmidt
Oscar Daniel Bezerra Schmidt is a retired Brazilian basketball player. He is also known as Oscar Schmidt Bezerra in Spain, where he played for Fórum Valladolid for the 1993-94 and 1994-95 seasons, and simply Oscar or Mão Santa in his homeland. At his peak, he was 2.05 m tall and weighed...
Model "A". This harp has 2 DeArmond magnetic pickups (one under the chord bars), with a d'Aigle fine tuning mechanism, and chord bar assembly, and was used in a 1968 MGM/Heritage Records
Heritage Records
Heritage Records can refer to:* Heritage Records , a 1960s label from Jerry Ross Productions* Heritage Records , 1960s Blues and early Jazz label founded by Tony Standish...
recording by Euphoria.
A synthesized
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
version of the autoharp, the Omnichord
Omnichord
The Omnichord is an electronic musical instrument, introduced in 1981 and manufactured by the Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation. It typically features a touch plate, and buttons for major, minor, and diminished chords...
, was introduced in 1981 and is now known as the Q-Chord, described as a "digital songcard guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
".
Notable performers
Autoharps have been used in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
as bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
and folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
instruments, perhaps most famously by Maybelle Carter
Maybelle Carter
"Mother" Maybelle Carter was an American country musician. She is best known as a member of the historic Carter Family act in the 1920s and 1930s and also as a member of Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters.-Biography:...
, Sara Carter
Sara Carter
Sara Carter was an American Country music musician. Known for her deep and distinctive singing voice, she was the lead singer on most of the recordings of the historic Carter Family act in the 1920s and 1930s....
, and June Carter of the Carter Family
Carter Family
The Carter Family was a traditional American folk music group that recorded between 1927 and 1956. Their music had a profound impact on bluegrass, country, Southern Gospel, pop and rock musicians as well as on the U.S. folk revival of the 1960s. They were the first vocal group to become country...
. They are relatively easy to learn to play as a rhythm instrument, but offer great rewards to the more committed player as a melody instrument. Grand Ole Opry
Grand Ole Opry
The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, that has presented the biggest stars of that genre since 1925. It is also among the longest-running broadcasts in history since its beginnings as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on WSM-AM...
star Cecil Null
Cecil Null
Cecil Allen Null was an American songwriter. He began writing songs and singing publicly while serving in the Navy during World War II. After leaving the service, he performed with various groups on radio stations in Bristol, Va...
was the first to develop the upright style for playing the autoharp that was in turn used by the Carter Family.
Outside of bluegrass and country music, both acoustic and electric autoharp were occasionally used in the folk-influenced parts of late 1960s/1970s progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
, psychedelia
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
and related genres by e.g. Genesis
Genesis (band)
Genesis are an English rock band that formed in 1967. The band currently comprises the longest-tenured members Tony Banks , Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins . Past members Peter Gabriel , Steve Hackett and Anthony Phillips , also played major roles in the band in its early years...
, Renaissance
Renaissance (band)
Renaissance are an English progressive rock band, most notable for their 1978 UK top 10 hit "Northern Lights" and progressive rock classics like "Carpet of the Sun", "Mother Russia" and "Ashes Are Burning".-Original incarnation :...
and Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
.
Two Lovin Spoonful songs feature the autoharp: "Do You Believe in Magic" and "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice".
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds is a 1978 concept album by Jeff Wayne, retelling the story of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. Its format is progressive rock and string orchestra, using narration and leitmotifs to carry the story via rhyming melodic lyrics that express...
' score features a part for Autoharp.
Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
also played the autoharp, which can be heard in her early, unreleased recording "So Sad to Be Alone".
British musician PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey
Polly Jean Harvey is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, and most recently, the autoharp.Harvey began her career in...
played the autoharp on her 2004 album Uh Huh Her, specifically on the song "The Darker Days of Me & Him"). Her 2007 album White Chalk
White Chalk
White Chalk is the eighth studio album by PJ Harvey, released on 24 September 2007 in the UK, and on 2 October 2007 in the US.Work on the album started in 2006, with producer Flood and John Parish, who also worked on her To Bring You My Love and Is This Desire? albums...
also features the instrument on many tracks. She also wrote and recorded most of her latest album Let England Shake
Let England Shake
Let England Shake is the tenth studio album by PJ Harvey, released on 11 February 2011 in the UK. Work on it began around the time of White Chalks release in 2007, though it is a departure from the piano-driven introspection of that album. The album was written over a period of two-and-a-half...
on the autoharp.
Canadian singer song writer Basia Bulat
Basia Bulat
- External links :*...
, is a well known user of the Autoharp, using it both live and on her recording material, in particular her 2010 album Heart of My Own
Heart of My Own
Heart of My Own is the second full-length album by Canadian singer-songwriter Basia Bulat, released on January 26, 2010, on Secret City Records...
.
British singer songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae
Corinne Bailey Rae
Corinne Bailey Rae is a British singer-songwriter and guitarist from Leeds, who released her debut album Corinne Bailey Rae in February 2006....
regularly plays the autoharp and composed the title track "The Sea" from her 2010 Mercury Award nominated album called "The Sea" using chords that she composed on the autoharp.
James Dale from the British pop band Goldheart Assembly
Goldheart Assembly
-History:Goldheart Assembly formed in 2007, as a group of six musicians from various bands. They met at club nights, at Covent Garden’s Rock Garden, run by now-bandleaders James Dale and John Herbert...
used an Autoharp for their song "Last Decade".
American musician John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp, previously known by the stage names Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American rock singer-songwriter, musician, painter and occasional actor known for his catchy, populist brand of heartland rock that eschews synthesizers and other artificial sounds...
plays the autoharp in the video for his song "Cherry Bomb".
US band Midlake
Midlake
Midlake is an American rock band from Denton, Texas. The band first gained popularity in Europe, signing to Bella Union Records and playing at festivals such as Les Inrockuptibles, Wintercase, End Of The Road Festival and South by Southwest.-History:...
use an autoharp on the album The Courage of Others
The Courage of Others
-Credits:Midlake*Tim Smith - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Flute, Recorder, Piano, Keyboards*Eric Pulido - Guitars, Dulcimer, Autoharp, Percussion, Backing Vocals*Paul Alexander - Bass, Electric Guitar, Bassoon*McKenzie Smith - Drums, Percussion...
.
New York based band Billy Nayer Show
Billy Nayer Show
Billy Nayer Show is a New York based musical group of questionable genre. The band consists of lead singer and songwriter Cory McAbee, drummer Bobby Lurie and bassist Frank Swart .-Discography:*Meet the Bunny King *Married to the Sea...
uses autoharp prominently in their music.
Brian Briggs, lead singer of Stornoway (band)
Stornoway (band)
Stornoway is a British alternative indie folk band from the Cowley area of Oxford. It consists of singer and guitarist Brian Briggs; multi-instrumentalists Jon Ouin and Oli Steadman, and the latter's brother Rob on drums. The band is usually joined by trumpeter Adam Briggs and violinist Rahul Satija...
uses the autoharp in their new song 'The Sixth Wave'. He learnt the instrument especially for the song.
See also
- DolceolaDolceolaA dolceola is a musical instrument resembling a miniature piano, but which is in fact a zither with a keyboard. The strings attached look like a harp. It is used in traditional holy blues and has an unusual, angelic, music-box sound...
- MarxophoneMarxophoneThe Marxophone is a fretless zither that has four sets of chord strings to be strummed with the left hand and two octaves of double melody strings, which are struck by metal hammers activated by the right hand...
- Guitar zitherGuitar zitherThe guitar zither is a musical instrument consisting of a sound-box with two sets of unstopped strings...
(chord zither, fretless zither) - AirHarp / Aeolian harpAeolian harpAn aeolian harp is a musical instrument that is "played" by the wind. It is named for Aeolus, the ancient Greek god of the wind. The traditional aeolian harp is essentially a wooden box including a sounding board, with strings stretched lengthwise across two bridges...