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#47 - Drew's "TIP-OF-THE-DAY" ... Stock 15 Chord Oscar Schmidt autoharps are at a disadvantage!Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 ...
Stock 15 Chord Oscar Schmidt autoharps are at a disadvantage! Hey
out there ... if you have a 15 bar Oscar Schmidt autoharp (or for
that matter a Chromaharp or similar "other make" harp
... all of which have copied the Oscar Schmidt harp with its disadvantages),
you can make them much more "user-friendly" and capable
of EASILY playing in MORE KEYS! I discovered
the trick many years ago, after I had gone to a "New Lost City
Ramblers" concert and met Mike Seeger. Of course Mike played
the autoharp among many other instruments. And I went up to him
at the end of the concert to ask about his autoharp. I learned
that you could rearrange the chord bars (which was a new concept
to me, over 30 years ago) and that you could convert the bars to
make chords that you did not have on your harp (within the limitations
of your available strings). All you had to do was to refelt the
bars leaving openings for the strings to produce the new chord you
wanted! A revelation to me at that time! Mike was very generous
with his time and explanation ... and I took that new information
home with me and I made a chord bar re-arrangement that was SO SUPERIOR
to that used on standard 15 bar Oscar Schmidt harps (that they still
use today on their 15 bar harps!). I had
only been playing the autoharp for a short while, and I felt frustrated
that I could not jam well with others in the keys they were playing
in, especially the key of "D," and the key of "A,"
and the key of "E." In
addition, I was aware that the popular string band keys people play
in are the keys of: A, C, D, E, F, and G. Yet I could not play in
all those keys with my 15 bar harp! I had no A or E chord, and no
B7 or Em chord. These are very essential chords! SO
... I refelted six chord bars, and rearranged the 15 bars to be
able to play in ALL those popular keys ... with the I, IV, V chords
in the exact same relative positions for EACH AND EVERY CHORD! This
meant that I could play using the SAME pattern for each and every
one of those keys! WOW! All
it took was the refelting of six chord bars and relabeling their
buttons to conform with the changed chords. Boy, I could then go
to town and jam with other groups, and also sing in keys that were
unavailable to me before! BUT,
I noted that the E and E7 chords were really weak sounding. So,
to get a much better sounding "E" and "E7" chord,
I found I could retune the lowest 8 existing strings ( NO new strings
were even required) to obtain the essential missing G# note. This
note is the number 3 note of the E chord the low octave that makes
a standard Oscar Schmidt harp sound so weak in the "E"
and "E7" chords. This retuning works on all autoharps!
15 or 21 chord models! Even today, you don't get an E chord on Oscar
Schmidt's 21 chord harps. Of
course retuning those lowest 8 strings will require that you refelt
more chord bars ... but only the first time you do it ... and then
you're home free with a really improved sounding harp for all those
many keys! Hey, you may need to refelt your harp by this time anyway!
Again, this works on both 15 and 21 chord harps. And all that you
lose is the bottom F note! That's all! Now
is the time to start to get ready for a wonderful warm weather season
... and this can be one of your projects. Folks ... it's really
not hard! You have nothing to lose and everything to gain! I'll
be very glad to send you my chart with instructions for doing the
string retuning, refelting and chord bar re-arrangement ... if you
mail me a self addressed, 55 cent stamped #10 envelope.
Some
of the best darn Autoharp items at G-R-E-A-T prices! 15 & 21
bar refelt strips / OSI "A" & "B" string
sets in stock! YES, I SAID "B" MODELS STRINGS AVAILABLE!! 1st line, Spruce top OS73C 21 chord harps at a low, low price! E-mail me privately for this super good price. |
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