 Tweaking Autoharps - Overview |
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| Tweaking Autoharps - OverviewUnlike most instruments, the autoharp seems almost designed for user modification. They can be disassembled with screwdrivers. The chord bars can be moved around, altered, or replaced altogether, all while retaining the same general bright, sweet tone of the instrument.Many tweaks have become common among autoharp communities. The vast majority of them have to do with changing which chords you can play on the thing, which sounds daunting, but is actually not hard once you've done a couple. This overview is simply an introduction to the working parts of an autoharp, and the most common kinds of "tweaks" people consider and perform. Note: - Please note the "gotchas" further down in this article. Also, we can't guarantee that every reader will do the job carefully or that every autoharp is in reparable condition, or even in "spec" The vast majority of readers find our tips reassuring and have no trouble doing what needs to be done once they get the chord bar covers off and see for themselves how things go together. But not everybody. If things go wrong, we'll try to help, but nothing is absolutely fool-proof, and we can't guarantee things that are obviously out of our control. Autoharp Moving PartsThe following pictures and descriptions are borrowed from our "Autoharp Repair Overview" article. I've included them here to help you familiarize yourself with the terminology. And to be honest, a lot of autoharp "tweakers" started out by performing some minor repair, such as gluing a felt back into place, then realized that working on these does not exactly require a rocket scientist. The following drawing (not to scale) shows the principle working parts of almost every autoharp ever built (except for the Oscar Schmidt 21-chorders).  The following drawing (not to scale) shows the principle working parts of Oscar Schmidt 21-chorders (including the OS73C and OS73CE).  A chord bar is a long square rod with felts glued to one side. On older autoharps, the chord bars are wood, or wood with a plastic cover. On most instruments built since 1970, they are extruded aluminum. The OS21 chord bars have a slot on the side opposite the felts that the chord buttons go into. Each end of the chord bar rests on a little spring. On 15-chorders, the chord bar ends slide up and down in little slots that the springs sit in. On 21-chord Oscar Schmidts, the aluminum chord bars have holes and slots in the end. These sit over little posts like teeth on a comb. The springs sit on the post below the chord bars. The bottom edge of each chord bar has felt pieces. As they come from the factory, they're usually in little blocks like the pictures show. Each block of felt mutes a string that doesn't belong in the chord. There are gaps over the strings that are supposed to sound for that chord. For example, if you have a "C" chord bar, the felts will be in position to mute all strings besides C, E, and G. There will be open spaces wherever that chord bar crosses strings that play C, E, and G (except for low G and E on some autoharps. Go figure). Above the chord bar is a felt or foam rubber pad that's supposed to keep the chord bar from clanking back into place when it's released. On 15-chorders and Chromaharp 21-chorders, the pads are at each end, over the comb. On Oscar Schmidt 21-chorders, the pad is on the underside of the chord bar cover. Most Common "TweaksTweaking Playability - Some minor tweaks help autoharps to be easier to play. For example, some players adjust the pads that keep the chord bars from clanging back into place when they're released. They make them thicker, so the chord bars are closer to the strings and you don't have to push them down as far. Once you're in the community a while, you'll come across other suggestions, some of which may work for you and some of which may not. Chord Bar Resequencing - Once autoharp owners realize that the chord bars are easy to move around (sometimes too easy), they may resequence them to make the lineup work better for them. For example, on standard 15-chorders, the D major chord bar is at the opposite end from the G major chord bar, and the A7 is in a similarly random place. There's no perfect way to fix that, but some folks who play a lot in D shuffle things around to bring those three chords closer together. For my part, I have reconfigured an unusual 60s Chromaharp 15-chorder called a "Bluegrass" to make playing in D easier. (I also changed E7 to Em by moving some felt around, but that's more of a "reconfiguration" activity.) Chord Bar Reconfiguration - Once you start moving chord bars around, you might start wondering why you have an F7 on your 'harp if you never play in Bb or some such. Countless 'harpers have tweaked or outright refelted chord bars, sacrificing chords they'll never use to get chords they need for their favorite kinds of songs. Here are two major trends:
Currently Available Tweaking ResourcesOn our pages (or sister sites):
On Third-Party Sites:
Other Articles and ResourcesCurrent autoharp repair resources we offer include:In addition, our articles on tweaking and reconfiguring autoharps also offer some tips that may help you get through repairs regarding chord bars, springs, etc. As I have time, I'll write more specifically about these problems and others you may encounter. In the meantime, I hope our available articles help answer your questions about these under-rated instruments.
And please stay in touch! - Paul Race
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