Who Can Play the Autoharp?
Estimated reading time 1 minute
Table of Contents
Autoharp: The Othello of Instruments
Who can play the autoharp? Just about anyone!
- It is sort of like the Othello of instruments.
- Othello is a board game that claims it takes “a minute to learn and a lifetime to master”, and so it is with the autoharp.
According to noted teacher Meg Peterson:
Everyone can play the autoharp at his or her own level. Young or old can ‘mash the button’ and stoke; school children learn basic harmonies and accompany singing…
…teen-agers can play favorite rock sequences and create unique strum patterns; and professional musicians can perform complicated and exciting melodies or rhythmic accompaniments (Peterson 2).
It is easy to get started because you simply press a chord bar and strum the strings.
- In the hands of a master, though, it is capable of surprising depth and intricacy.
- Also, it usually comes with either 15 or 21 chord bars.
- What you get depends on your budget.
Ideal for Teachers and Special Needs Students
The autoharp’s simplicity is particularly useful for elementary school teachers, and for students with special needs.
- If you are a teacher who wants to learn an instrument to accompany singing and is a relatively easy instrument to pick up.
- Then, autoharp is perfect.
Also, it’s a substitute for the guitar that is within the reach of many developmentally delayed students.
- In the early stages, the order of most difficult to least difficult goes: guitar, piano, then autoharp.
- In typical learner students, the difference in difficulty between the guitar and piano will probably not be noticed.
- However, difficulty is a real factor when deciding which instrument to choose for your special needs child.
- The autoharp is the easiest of the three to learn.
- Guitar is usually not a good fit for special needs students unless a chord buddy is used. It gives the guitar a very limited autoharp-like experience.
- Conversely, I have special needs students who have low expressive language skills that do fine on piano.
- It all depends on how good the student’s receptive language skills are.
- So, it’s a matter of knowing your special needs child.
There are many makers of autoharps, but the original is Oscar Schmidt.
Reference
Peterson, Meg. Mel Bay’s Complete Method for Autoharp or Chromaharp. Pacific: Mel Bay Publications, 1979.
© 2020 Geoffrey Keith
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