Vintage 1953 Oscar Schmidt Autoharp

I’ve been looking for a vintage Oscar Schmidt Autoharp for a while now.  But I’ve been fussy about the condition and concerned about not buying it in person.

But, the day has come, and I now await my little 1953 Oscar Schmidt 12-Chord Autoharp (pictured below)…

She needs a little cleaning and, no doubt, a lot of tuning, but I have my fingers crossed that she will sing in time for our August 19th & 21st showcases at the IndieGrrl Music Conference in Knoxville.

And for those of you that can keep a secret, I’ve located an 1890 Zimmerman Chorded Zither called, of all things, The Favorite too…

Do you think I can sneak it in when Jon isn’t looking?

For those of you unfamiliar with the autoharp, here’s a little lesson from wikipedia.org:

The autoharp is a musical stringed instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers which, when depressed, mute all the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, but a chorded zither.

There is debate over the origin of the autoharp. A German immigrant in Philadelphia by the name of Charles F. Zimmermann was awarded US patent 257808  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, Germany, had built a model that he called a “Volkszither” which most resembles the autoharp played today.

Gütter obtained a British patent 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.

Autoharps have been used in the United States as bluegrass and folk instruments, perhaps most famously by Maybelle Carter and Sara Carter of The Carter Family (Click on the picture at left to learn more about The Carter Family).

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 star Cecil Null was the first to develop the upright style for playing the autoharp that was in turn used by the Carter Family.

I still envision Dolly Parton playing that white bedazzled autoharp (pictured right) that you can see for yourself at the Dolly Parton museum inside Dollywood.

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, psychedelia and related genres by e.g. Genesis, Renaissance and Led Zeppelin.  Janis Joplin also played the autoharp, which can be heard in her early, unreleased recording “So Sad to Be Alone”.

I’ll post better pictures when she arrives!