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Informative Autoharp Sites
When I bought my first autoharp years ago, I had trouble finding trustworthy information about the things. As a professional writer and sometime fact-checker, I started doing my own research, and - in some cases - writing articles to debumk "urban legends," etc. that were rampant on the internet.
Since then, several folks who actually know what they are talking about have been posting their own blogs and articles, in many cases covering areas I haven't yet researched thoroughly enough to write about.
I am starting a list of the online resources I have found most reliable. No, I don't see eye-to-eye on every issue with every person whose resources I list. But I find them all to be well-meaning people, and most have far, far more experience playing autoharps than I, so their opinions are always worth considering.
One other note: Some of the folks whose sites are listed below are as bad about updating them as I am, which means that they may contain links to other sites that no longer exist. Pardon the inconvenience, but I have enough trouble policing links on my own pages.
The online autoharp resources I've found most helpful include:
- D'Aigle Autoharp's "How To Corner" - Articles and videos on care, maintenance, terminology, repairs, etc.
- Hal Weeks' Stalking the Wild Autoharp - A YouTube video channel with all sorts of autoharp information
- "The Autoharp Page. - Lindsay Haisley's list of autoharp resources, including several PDF articles of his own creation.
- Autoharpworks Information Page - Bob Lewis' "Autoharpworks.com" no longer exists as a business, but Bob's information pages are available on the web.archive.org "Wayback Machine." Note: These are mostly PDFs of resources that Bob published to provide "backup" to ongoing discussions, so some may not make a lot of sense when you're first starting out. Frankly, they lack the longwinded explanations I'm used to writing. :-) But they're valuable for folks who want to learn more and/or are thinking about making major changes to their autoharps.
- UK Autoharps - A great group that is very helpful to beginners in a country without a much access to playable used instruments. They even including an autoharp loaner/rental program for folks who aren't certain about making a big investment before they try one out.
- AutoharpWitch - Owner Joolz, based in Scotland, likes tinkering with autoharps even more than I do. You have to subscribe to her site to read the articles, but at the moment there's no cost involved. Like the UK Autoharps org, she's dedicated to helping area musicians acquire, learn on, and maintain playable autoharps.
I will continue adding more pages as I come across them, but hopefully this gives you a start.
Conclusion
An hour's "surfing" these links will tell you that there's a lot of great information out there. To some extent, HarpersGuild.com is an effort to make it easier for newbies to find those resources and to "bridge the gaps" that naturally occur when several individuals are writing mostly about their own areas of interest.
As always, "your mileage will vary." By its very nature, the autoharp is a highly personal instrument - very few other instruments offer the variety of playing styles or the ability to tweak and retweak your own instrument as you learn and advance.
Hopefully, the "experts" will help you make the most informed decisions. And you can ask some of those experts yourself on the Autoharp Discussion Groups. I guarantee I don't have all the answers.
 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
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All material, illustrations, and content of this web site is copyrighted ? 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009,
2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 by Paul D. Race. All rights reserved.
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