Welcome to HarpersGuild.com!

This is Paul Race, musician and primary contributor to the musical instrument articles on this page and several others, including Creek Don't Rise.

After about a decade of dabbling with autoharps and writing about my findings, I have met plenty of newbies looking for information that most long-time autoharp players know, but few newbies can track down easily. And some resources, such as Becky Blackley's excellent The Autoharp Book, are out of print and hard to find.

This site is an attempt to gather what I've learned and to link to other reliable sources. We are still "filling in the gaps," but it's a start.

For now, many of our resources are on other sites, including several of the articles listed below.

I have also created a Facebook page that you can use to ask questions or to contact me privately through direct messaging.

Here is an index to the resources I have so far. Note: We started out putting these resources on our CreekDontRise.com site, but after a while there were so many articles we decided to dedicate a whole new site (this one) to autoharps and related instruments. Since then we've been updating articles and porting them over, but a few are still on the old site. Please bear with us. :-)

• Harper's Guild Home
• Introduction to Autoharps
  • What Are Autoharps Good For?
  • Is my Autoharp a Type A or Type B?
  • Autoharp Factory Chord Setups
  • Autoharp Pickups
• Choosing Autoharps (Overview)
  • Shopping for Used Autoharps
  • Autoharp Buyers' Guide on Riverboat Music
  • Finding Folk- and Bluegrass-Friendly Autoharps
  • Autoharps for People with Short Arms
  • Autoharps for Children
  • How Much is my Autoharp/Chromaharp Worth?
• Playing Autoarp: Overview
  • Transposing Keys on an Autoharp
• Autoharp History Overview
  • Mountain Music, Bluegrass, and Autoharps
  • The 5-Chord Wonder
  • OS 15-Chord Appalachians
  • Early Autoharps Video
  • Early Autoharp Chord and Note Numbers
  • Shifter Autoharps
  • Hopf Autoharps
  • Musima Autoharps
  • Autoharp Precursors
• Tweaking Autoharps Overview
  • Making Your Autoharp Folk- and Bluegrass-Friendly
  • Simplest Folk Chord Addition for 21-Chorders
  • Making Your OS73C Folk- and Bluegrass-Friendly
  • Video: Cutting New Chord Bars for an OS73C
  • What is a Diatonic Autoharp?"
  • Chromaharp Bluegrass Reconfiguration
• Autoharp Repair Overview
  • Replacing Loose Felt on an Autoharp
  • Cleaning Dusty Autoharps Video
• Other Resources
  • Autoharp Discussion Groups
  • Informative Autoharp Sites
• Introduction to Zithers
• Contact Pages:
  • Message Us
  • Sign Up for Our Momma Don't 'Low Newsletter
  • Paul's Facebook Music Page
  • Paul's Blog Site

Since my autoharp journey started, I have written and rewritten any number of articles, and done autoharp workshops at several Folk festivals, where I learned the questions that many people have about the things but are afraid to ask.

As a longtime Folk singer, I can't help bringing my own POV to some topics, like tweaking autoharps to make them play in keys that Folk, Bluegrass, Country, and other guitar-based genres use. Some of my friends are deliriously happy playing Tin Pan Alley songs in flat keys, so, I'm just trying to say, there's room for a lot of different approaches and preferences. Don't let what anyone says about your autoharp or your autoharp playing intimidate you. Even me. :-)

Whatever else you get out of our pages, I hope you come away with some great ideas for "sharing the joy."

And please stay in touch!

    - Paul Race