Hello folks, my name is Brian Bowers and I'm here to give you an instructional video with
homespun tapes and I would like to tell you that that old tune of course is the Battle
Hymn of the Republic and I just kind of gave you the whole ball of wax right out of the
gate and now I'm going to take it apart and show you how you take a simple thing and put
all the fancy you want on it or not maybe all the fancy, maybe only as much fancy as
you want but the simple thing becomes as much as you want if you have the simple thing together
so to show you what the simple thing in that tune is, it's thumb coming forward only across
the strings and having the correct chord down with your left hand at the correct instant.
That looks like this and sounds like this.
All the other stuff will go right on top if you have that much with nothing more than
the thumb coming forward, no hard deal with the right hand but the left hand having the
correct chord down at the correct instant, you can do that much and hear the melody sing
as you play it with only your thumb and of course the acid test is to ask your friends
what's this song I'm playing.
If they can tell you the title, you got the melody.
You can't get them to tell you what the song is, you need to go back out in the woodshed
and get them to tell you what the song is and you can do that in some oil but if you've
got the melody with nothing more than the left hand giving the correct chord at the
correct instant and the right hand coming across that thumb then you're ready for the
second step which is to add the middle finger giving you the melody.
That looks like this.
Then you put in that middle finger as you've just done, now you've got the melody, you've
got the rhythm with your thumb, now we're going to add the index finger in the middle
and that's going to give you a low line harmony, a melody coming from the middle finger, a
rhythm coming from the thumb, now a low line under the melody and above the rhythm, bass
note with your index finger.
Now I can't emphasize strongly enough that all of this layered stuff is built on only
the melody coming from nothing more than the left hand having the right chord at the right
instant, so basic for all of these layers but presuming you have that together on your
tune that you're working on, now you're ready to add your ring finger to get a high harmony.
Then the very last thing on the top is another high harmony with your little finger and I'm
going to turn so you can see how each one of the fingers is doing its job as I do this
last part, you just add this on top of the things you already have going.
That's how you take a simple melody that you have corrected yourself through listening
and playing over and over again and have learned where the melody pattern lives in your left
hand and then you add on one layer at a time, being aware you cannot add layers until you
have the simple, most simple form which of course is the and so on with regard to whatever
tune you're working on, so the first thing I want you to concentrate on is a reiteration
of what I've told you already about how the left hand pattern is absolutely essential
to get this melody to be able to be layered up, whatever melody you're working on, in
this case it's the old tune, the battle hymn of the republic but whatever tune you're
working on this principle applies, so for the next moment or so here during this next
verse I want you to just concentrate please on looking at my left hand only, do not look
at the right hand, just look at the left hand and watch the pattern because as I go through
and very slowly play each finger, adding each finger, you're going to see as you glance
back and forth, you're watching the fingers to see what they're doing but also I want
you to from time to time glance back and notice that the pattern of the left hand stays the
same through all these additions of different layers, so first thing now watch the left
hand to see the pattern and how it's going to be enacted out time and again throughout
the tune, here it is.
Now you have watched that left hand pattern which is going to be repeated again and again
throughout the tune, now I'm going to turn so you can watch and look in on the inside
vision of the right hand as each finger comes across and takes up and adds its role, so
now we're going to start once again and you watch the thumb and occasionally check the
left hand also to see it's still doing the same pattern to reassure yourself that it's
still the same, so here we go, thumb only.
Now you add the middle finger, thumb keeps doing the same thing, middle finger helps,
get the melody, here we go, here it comes for your visual satisfaction hopefully, yeah.
I feel like the old battle hymn of the republic is trapped in molasses here but if it goes
slow enough to help you that's what I want to do, so now we've got a rhythm with the
thumb, we've got a melody with the middle finger, now I'm going to add in that low line
with the index.
Now that's kind of like an old three finger Travis pick is almost exactly what that part
of the whole thing is like, now we're going to add on a ring finger high harmony.
And finally the last one, that high line on the top with your little finger.
Now I had a little tiny almost messed up trying to play it so slow for you all but I think
maybe you got the idea, we'll check with the fellas and see if they think we got it right
enough so you can get the gist of how the finger's working if I might have messed up
a little tiny bit on that one chord.
So now folks that is the old tune, old Joe Clark of course and I played it like the way
I would play it normally if I was playing for folks in a show up to speed but now I'm
going to take it back down and show you that that whole thing is sweet and sprightly and
full of energy as it seems is nothing more than once again your left hand correct chord
at the correct instant as you've figured out your melody you want to be clear that you
don't need anything more than just your thumb and just the correct melody coming out of
the left hand right chord down at the right instant to get great music out of the auto
harp.
So I'm going to show you a little taste of how that works now you want to watch left
hand once again.
You're watching the left hand.
Now we're going to do a thing where you're going to see that left hand only peripherally
you're going to be now watching the right hand and seeing that it's just a thumb and
giving it a melody and it goes like this.
Now we're going to add one more thing.
Now you're going to add one thing and it's a real simple thing but it's a thing that's
going to make this thing come alive in the later stages when you start playing it up
to speed and that simple thing is you're going to add the index finger coming on a backstroke
and it looks like this cross with the thumb back with the index cross with the thumb back
with the index no big deal and very very slow be aware that speed is illusory when you're
playing the auto harp in the early stages what you really need to do is try to concentrate
on getting the melody correct and the timing right and then speed later will come and take
care of itself.
So now you've just seen the left hand pattern and now you have also seen the left hand pattern
with the thumb only and now the same two things only we're going to add a backstroke we're
going to add this finger coming on a backstroke so it looks like this.
Nice broad strokes.
Goodêtions!
Now, that's how that works in its slow form.
That is the very thing that I played for you first, only in its real slow, trying to show
you how it works in its basic elements form.
Now, here's how you practice getting it up to speed after you've worked out your melody.
You just sit on this chord you're starting on, and then you do the nice broad stroke,
seeking to get an equal volume of sound out of each stroke, forward and back.
You do not want heavy front, light back.
You do not want light front, heavy back.
You want a quality of stroke coming out of each, and a quality of sound.
As much as you can get, try to get a nice even quality of sound, and nice broad strokes,
and then gradually, dropping your elbow down on the corner of the harp, letting it lay
there relaxed, you just go a little bit faster.
And without even trying to, your strokes will become shorter.
And you do that sitting on this one chord, and finally you go a little bit faster, and
you without trying once again will find that the strokes will become shorter across until
you're working at about a two inch space.
And then you are ready to keep your elbow down on the corner of the harp, and move that
two inch stroke into the bass.
Just moving your wrist.
And then you move across into the mid range, still only a two inch stroke, back and forth,
forward with the thumb, backward with the index.
Up into the high.
Now.
Which is the A part, and A part slowed down, same fingering, same left hand, same right
hand motion slowed down.
A part sounds like.
When you're practicing it.
Now the B part.
Which of course slowed down is once again nothing more than the same pattern you started
working out, nice and slow, forward with the thumb, backward with the index, the B part
sounds like this.
And up to speed.
So that folks, is thumb lead, where you play the lead with your thumb, and you get a back
stroke to keep a nice balanced kind of feel in your right hand with the index, just the
back of the index finger pick, and forward with your thumb.
Now folks I want to talk with you about auto harp tuning.
This is the thing that's gotten more auto harps consigned to the closet and never taken
out and played than anything else.
People getting them in tune.
In the old days the people that used to buy them from the traveling salesman and get them
in tune, they used to call them in the hills the mountain piano.
And the people who couldn't get them in tune, well they called them the idiot's delight.
So I want to say to you that it doesn't have to be a huge deal.
And here's the way it works.
There's three levels of tuning that I use to get ready to play my shows.
And I use nothing more than a ten dollar pitch pipe to do that.
You can also use electronic tuners and you can pursue incredibly specific number of cents
sharp and flat per note tunings in various magazines, which will be presented to you
later in this video telling you which magazines that you can find these things in.
But for now I'm going to show you simply three forms of tuning that I use to get my harps
in tune with nothing more than an old ten dollar round pitch pipe.
The first kind of tuning is called rough tuning.
And it is comprised of nothing more than playing the note on the pipe and tuning all of the
notes that correspond to that letter on the pipe in sequence.
So here we have at the bottom E. You tune all those Es and you tune them on only those.
On the presumption that you don't want to go across one note at a time because by the
time you get to the top the stuff down here will have all stretched.
If you start from the top and go to the bottom it will all have stretched out from the bottom.
So what you want to do instead is tune one set of notes and all of those notes in that
set boom, boom, boom, boom across the harp.
So what you're doing is balancing the top.
You're balancing the top.
You know people would call it tuning.
But think about being in balance.
Think about how you feel when you go to work after a good night's sleep and a shower and
a real breakfast and have loud enough time to drive to work and get there a few minutes
early and read the paper or chew the fat with your co-workers.
Contrast that feeling with out half the night not enough sleep, donut and coffee for breakfast
instead of something balanced.
No time for a shower.
Run in at the last minute after honking your horn all the way through traffic to get there
and you get to the desk.
That's not balanced.
So balance on the auto harp is tuning these notes by sets across.
So you do the E's and then you have A's.
You tune all the A's.
Then the next note.
You keep looking down here at the bottom end.
What's the next note in the sequence?
Here's B's.
Then all the B's.
Then C sharps.
Then D's.
All the D's.
Then E's.
Now you've done E's.
But you have since you've done E's tuned half a dozen more strings.
So you tune the E's again.
You check them because they're starting to slide around a little bit.
They're going, oh what's this going on?
I'm being tuned.
You know if you could give anthropomorphic feelings to strings, you know, they're trying
to figure out if you mean it.
And I'm trying to tell you that the auto harp indeed wants to know if you mean it.
If you are intending to tune it again and again until you get it to stay in good tune.
And believe you me, if you do this, it will help because the auto harp will be in tune.
And after a while of continual tuning, the auto harp starts to believe that you want
it to be there.
And it will actually go there of itself.
When you put it down, even out of tune, leave it overnight, it will come back.
Many times it will have tuned themselves.
So you tune all the sets of notes as they come up in groups, like I said.
And when you come to a group of notes that you've already tuned, you tune them again.
And the reason for that is because through all this tuning, you're finding yourself in
a situation where you're changing a lot of things.
So you want to check everything you've done.
And even when it comes up the third time, the E set, you tune them again.
When it comes up the fourth time up top, you tune them again.
And you do the same with each one of these sets of notes.
Now that is the first type of tuning.
And that is called rough tuning.
Now the second type of tuning is where you put your pipe down and now you're going to
do what we call chord tuning.
And the first thing you do when you do chord tuning is you want to think about the speed
at which you strum the chord to listen to the chord.
You don't want to go too fast.
And you don't want to go too slow.
If you go too slow, your ear can't retain all that information for that length of time.
And by the time you get to the end of that incredibly long, slow strum, the ear doesn't
remember what was at the front end.
And if you go too fast, it's gone and the ear can't pick it up.
So you want a nice, median-paced strum.
And you listen to that.
And then you strum the next chord.
You're listening for out of tune.
You try all the chords.
Now this harp I've been playing and I've been tuning like a wild man to get in good shape
to play for you all on this homespun videotape.
But a normal harp, quote unquote, will not be so well in tune and well balanced.
So I'm going to tune a note out of tune and show you how when you find a note that's out
of tune.
You tune it along.
You're coming through your chords.
So now you've found a note that's out of tune.
So the first thing you do is you put your tuner on that string pin and you ask yourself,
is this note sharp or flat?
Well, to me it sounds like it sounds flat.
So now what would you think you would do?
Just tune it up?
No.
You do not do that.
What you do instead is you think to yourself, I want not only to get that note that sounds
out of tune in tune, but I want to make sure that I'm tuning any note I tune towards the
total of the harp towards not just that chord being in tune, but all the chords being in
tune.
So what do you do to do that?
You check another chord that has the same note in it.
So you have an A note in the A chord.
Now here is the related minor.
You can hear that it's out of tune there too.
And then we'll try the five chord.
It's not in there.
Not in there.
It's in the four chord.
So we'll check it against now.
So we found out that it sounds out of tune in the four chord.
It sounds out of tune in the one.
It sounds out of tune in the related minor to the one.
And so what do you do?
Now you have corroboration that it's out of tune.
Do you also have corroboration that it's out of tune the way you thought?
I said I thought it sounded flat.
Well, it sounds flat in all three of those chords.
So now I know that it's not just out of tune in one chord, but it's out of tune in three
chords.
I also know that it's not just out of tune flat in one of those chords.
It's out of tune flat in all three.
So now I feel confident that I can go ahead and tune it to the matched set there.
And now you check backwards.
The backwards check is you check the chord you found it out of tune in the one chord.
It's right.
You check the related minor.
It's right.
You check the four chord and it's right.
So now you have tuned that note that was out of tune to the total of the harp.
You were thinking about the whole harp being in tune and not just one chord.
And that is the principle involved in chord tuning, the second stage of tuning.
You strum through all your chords slowly at a median pace so you can listen to the whole
chord.
You listen for bad notes.
When you find a bad note, you put this tuner right on that pin, but you do not tune until
you have checked other chords that have the same note in it and make sure that they also
are out of tune and that also they are out of tune in the manner you think, flat or sharp.
When you get corroboration that it's out of tune in other chords that have the same note
and you get corroboration that it's also flat or sharp, there should be consistency.
If it's flat in the one thing that you heard at first out of tune, it should be flat in
the other ones.
If it's sharp in the first one that you heard it out of tune, it should be sharp in the
other ones.
If you're looking for consistency, then you can tune it.
And then after you tune it, you go back door and you check the chords you have already
gone through to find out where it was, if it indeed was out of tune in other chords,
and you check to make sure they are all in tune.
That is chord tuning in its simplest form as I can explain it to you.
And finally, the last thing I do before I walk on stage and try to play for folks is
I do what I call tonic tuning.
And that is nothing more than a safety policy.
It's kind of like having a spare tire in your trunk or knowing that, you know, you're having
a spare tire in your trunk is like knowing you're going to get home even if you have
a flat.
Well, checking tonic tuning, which is checking the main note in each chord, is the same thing
as giving yourself that spare tire, knowing it's pumped up and fixed in the back and ready
to go if you have a flat.
And what you do there is you strum through the chord.
In this case, it's an A, so you check all the As.
Then you've got the Ds, so you check all the Ds.
Ah, so you've got a...so now I've got a D.
Sounds flat up here.
So now we go back to chord tuning, see?
So I'll check it against the minor, related to my...it's flat there too, so now you've
had a corroboration.
It's not only out of tune in another chord, but also in the same manner, flat.
So now I'll tune it.
Then you back door, check it again.
Yeah.
Now it's in tune, so now you've done your tonic...you did your chord tuning to get that
one that I caught by accident here.
Now we're still doing tonic tuning.
You check the main note in this minor chord.
Then the minor note in this one.
Main note in this one.
And you do each one of the chords and check the main note that the chord names.
If it's an A chord, you check all the As.
If it's a D chord, you check all of these.
Whatever the name note is of that chord, that's what you check.
And the presumption is that then you've got a home place that's safe to go to, that's
in tune.
So that's something out of tune that you've missed after...in my case, I triple tune my
harps.
I tune each harp three times before I walk out on the stage to play for people.
Because I've heard so many times, you know, people come out and play with marginally tuned
harps.
And it makes me cringe.
I just want the harp to have all the chance it can get to be played in a beautiful manner.
So I try to take an awful lot of care with tuning each harp three times before I come
out to play for folks.
You may not want to do all that, but this is what I do to get at that level of perfection
of tuning.
And I will tell you, if you do your rough tuning first with the pitch pipe and by groupings,
and if you do your chord tuning, check to find the notes at a median pace.
Put your tuner on the one that's out of tune.
Check the other chords that have the same notes.
See that it's out of tune the same way.
Tune it, then back check to make sure that you've got it just the way you want it.
Then finally do your tonic tuning.
If you do all those things, your harps will be in really fine tune and you'll be able
to feel like, hey, I did what I could do to get this thing ready to play.
And now it's time to go out and have some fun and play it.
So folks, these auto harps I'm playing are made by Dr. George Orthy of Newport, Pennsylvania.
And they are lovely harps, of course.
And I'm going to be using two single keys.
This is an A single key.
This is a G single key.
I'm also going to use a two key FC harp.
And I'm going to use this harp so that I can show you folks who have the harps that have
many chord bars, multiple keys to play in, that there's indeed ways you can set them
up in such a manner that your left hand, which is crucial to playing a nice clean melody,
gets to know what it's supposed to do all the time.
Now the things I've shown you so far, the battle hymn of the republic and old Joe Clark,
were songs that when you placed your fingers and your left hand on the bars, the middle
finger always controls the one chord, in this case F. And the index finger always controls
the four chord, in this case B flat.
The ring finger controls the five chord, C. So now we have middle, always starts on the
one chord, which in this case is F, four, B flat with the index, five, ring finger for
the C. And then if you need the seventh in the next key, the G seventh, it lays right
here.
And notice how the little finger lays right there on that row of buttons.
If you have your harps set up with majors in the middle, minors on this side, and sevenths
back here.
What happens is you get the one, the four, the five, and then your little finger, which
is shorter, fits perfectly on the seventh chord right here.
If indeed you have set your harps up with majors in the middle, minors on this side,
and sevenths back here.
Now the reason for doing this, years ago when I was still playing Oscar Schmidt harps and
such, I had my sevenths over here, my minors back here.
That necessitated when I got into a tune that needed that little seventh trick that my hand,
now watch closely, the left hand.
Watch what happens if you have to go across like this to get to that seventh chord.
Your left hand gets very crooked versus if you can just drop it and let it fit right
on the bar because you have put the bars where your hand is structured.
It's like adjusting the bars to make them fit the way your hand is given to you by God.
Now as an example of this, I'm going to do you an old Stephen Foster tune that's a great
favorite of mine.
The definitive version of course in my mind, of course I'm opinionated, but the definitive
version of this song done by the Red Clay Ramblers on a title by the same name, The
Hard Times.
And in this tune we're going to have, now watch the left hand once again very closely
folks.
You're going to have the one, the four, the five.
You're going to have this minor.
You're going to have this seventh.
And you're going to have this seventh.
Now watch what happens, but before I do it I'm going to tell you what's going to happen.
The first thing that's going to happen is that this finger is going to control this
row of buttons right here.
The chord, the major chord, the seventh of that chord, and the related minor.
This finger now is going to control major chord, seventh right behind it, minor right
in front of it.
This finger is going to control major chord, seventh, minor over here.
And finally down on the bottom you have major, seventh, and minor across.
Now equal division and labor, you never see this happening.
Here's what folks do playing usually on slow tunes and get away with it that causes them
problems later when they try to play fast tunes clean.
I'm going to do a verse of You Are My Sunshine and I want you to watch these three fingers
right here and notice that there's not going to be an equal division of labor because one
of them is going to try to do the work of two.
And this is what you want to avoid and this is why I'm showing you how to set your chord
bars up in such a manner that you won't have to do that.
Each finger will control a major, a seventh, and a related minor.
And only a major, a seventh, and a related minor.
Each finger is responsible for three and three only positions, never crosses over.
So now here's the way it gets done wrong many times where simple one, four, five tune, this
finger gets to collect unemployment for doing nothing.
Watch what happens.
Now on a slow tune that'll work.
So watch what happens, not even a fiddle tune, just You Are My Sunshine.
Watch what happens.
Slop, a lot of slop.
I feel out of control.
And this finger meanwhile is doing nothing.
It's just out to lunch.
So in order to avoid that, you set up the harp like I've shown you, middle row majors,
this row minors, back row sevenths, which fits the ergonomic position of your hand,
which divides the labor between each finger.
Each finger gets three chords and three chords only.
It never laps over.
And the fingers is if you could give feelings and thoughts to fingers.
I presume the feeling is a one of, oh, thank God I know what I'm responsible for.
This and this alone, if I do this, I will not get chewed out.
And I don't have to worry about covering that other stuff.
I can just cover my stuff.
So here it is in actual form with the fingers now doing what I have been showing you visually.
You will notice that when a minor is used, it'll be the finger that's related to that
row.
When a seventh is used, it'll be the fingers related to that row.
When another seventh is used, it'll be the fingers related to that row.
And now watch and notice that's what's going on.
And what you're trying to observe here and be real clear about for yourselves is that
indeed the finger that you're watching will only work in its row.
That's the lesson in this little piece.
So Stephen Foster's old classic, Hard Times Come Again No More.
Let's take a look at it out of the row.
So now, the big deal about setting your harps up this way so that you take advantage of
the way your shortened little finger that comes to you naturally doesn't have to turn
your hand into an awkward position.
The great benefit from this is when you go to playing other types of tunes that are faster
tunes that your fingers know what their responsibilities are and can clearly be responsible for only
them.
Then you won't get into this back and forth, higgledy-piggledy, I'm not sure where I'm
at, having to make wild shifts to get back to home base kind of stuff that only leads
to most times a lot of clutter and a lot of sloppy notes.
Folks I just showed you about how the bars get set up so that you have your hand in a
position that's ergonomically correct and helpful to you the way it was given to you.
Now I'm going to do you a fiddle tune up to speed.
A minute ago we showed you how that works with one finger controlling each row.
This finger controlling this row, this finger controlling this row, this finger controlling
this row, and of course this finger controlling only this one here in this harp.
But now we're going to have a one, four, five, and this minor.
And it looks like this.
There's the old tune, the St. Anne's.
Okay.
So I just wanted to show you how that works with regard to you have that once again that
same division of labor so that nobody's loafing on your left hand except the thumb which you
use as an absolute last resort in this style of playing.
Now I want to take a moment here folks and show you something that maybe is being taken
for granted.
I know for years and years I used to pick up my auto harps and I had no strap and I
held them in my arms like this.
I kind of tucked this arm underneath.
I kind of cradled this like this and I did this.
So I woke up one morning after playing for 20 years and I couldn't pick up a cup of
coffee with my left hand.
I had tendonitis so bad.
I go to the doctor.
Oh what do you do?
I play music.
What do you play?
I play the auto harp.
Well you think that might have anything to do with it.
Well I'm not sure.
Well why don't you go get your auto harp and play it for me.
Well it's at home.
Well go get it anyhow.
So I go home.
I get the harp.
I bring it back and I play for the doctor like this.
He watches for about a minute or two.
He says well that's really pretty.
He says but you can see don't you that you are given your arms mixed messages.
I said what do you mean?
He says well you are given the arms, the lift that barge, tote that bail on the one hand
and then at the same time you are asking a lot of those identical muscles to do that
light as a feather trick and real control.
He said why don't you put a strap on that lets your hands be free to just play the instrument
and not lift or hold it in position at all.
So that's where this came from.
The strap cut down with a nice tight loop here to put around your hole up here, around
your pin and down here a strap of course that has three holes so you can by putting it in
different holes further up the strap raise the level of the harp which then lets several
things happen.
Number one the strap takes care of no holding the harp, no lifting the harp.
You are not lifting that barge, toting that bail.
It sets your harp with the strap.
Now you have some control over that.
Now the sweet spot, the sweet spot is not evident here in the bottom end where the big
wide space is.
You are not going to hit here or hit here trying to get a stroke through but coming
through the sweet spot is right through the middle of the open end.
You don't want that, you don't want this.
You want right through the middle of the sweet spot.
So your sweet spot as it hangs on your body with the strap can be changed.
Up one, here comes the sweet spot.
The sweet spot can be changed for you individually by nothing more than putting it up one more
hole but it's crucial.
It's crucial that the sweet spot is natural that you drop your arm and let yourself kind
of relax here against the corner of the harp and that the sweet spot flows naturally for
you at whatever hole you want to put it on.
And of course the main thing is you are not holding the harp up, you are not lifting the
harp, you are not holding it in position.
You are free to put your energy and your thoughts into how you are going to play the harp.
Now one last little trick thing I'll show you and that is this.
For my tastes I many times will use one final thing I've done with my strap and which you
can of course do is these little tiny holes.
I presume that the camera can tighten in here enough that I can show you these little tiny
holes and these tiny holes sometimes you are playing a fast passage on the harp and you
will find that the harp starts to wiggle around a little bit on you.
Maybe you don't like that.
In my case on a fast passage in some tunes I don't like it so I put extra holes, not
the one that lifts it up here, the big one, but these little tiny holes which I then put
over one of the pins which now instead of lifting up pulls back, pulls back in tight
against my shoulder.
So now this is the best strap position for me on this old minstrel tune, the golden slippers.
Second hole here for sweet spot height, pull back a little extra hole here to keep it tight
against my shoulder and I'm ready to play.
So folks, I just want to say to you that if you hold the harp in your arms and do it without
a strap you take away some things.
I realized as soon as I put the strap on after going to the doctor and attending anitis trip
I realized immediately as soon as I got the strap on and was free to have my hands free
and still the harp to be at the right height and in the right position for my sweet spot
to be obtained I became a better player than I was by maybe 20 percent the first day.
Now folks, what I'm showing you here in this section, I've switched harps now to my G single
key harp and what I've shown you here about finger picking and stuff is fine, well and
good but now I want to show you one of the other little things I've learned through the
years that enhances your ability to play melodies cleanly and that is this.
If you now presume that my fingers are the strings and this motion is a picking motion
and this motion, straight slap down, no coming across but straight down like that is what
we call patting the auto harp.
Now that will make you get your fingers in exactly the right instant to have the melody
be clear and if you can pat a melody, any melody you're working on, if you can pat
the melody clearly and recognizably to yourself and to your friends then when you go to pick
the melody, actually pick it, you're going to have a lot easier time.
So that looks like this.
Now, I would like to talk to you about how your finger picks go on your fingers.
Now first thing out of the program is you don't need all these finger picks on.
I first saw Mike Seeger with the New Law City Ramblers playing with three finger picks like
this.
Kilby Snow, my favorite all time old personal auto harp player played with three finger
picks like this.
I happened to be a street singer and was being asked all the time to play louder and didn't
want to get an amp so I added this finger pick first and figured out how to use it and
then I added this last one and figured out how to use it.
But what I'm going to show you now is beneficial to you no matter how many finger picks you
use and that is this.
You want the pick on the middle finger to have the tip come right up over the middle
of the finger and then you want flesh to show on either side on that middle finger pick.
On this index finger you want the tip to be off on this side and flesh showing on this
side.
On these two, the ring and the little finger, you have the tips off this way and flesh showing
on both the opposite sides here.
So you have middle to the middle, tip coming out of the middle, flesh showing on both sides.
On this pick you have tip over here, flesh showing here.
These two tips this way, flesh showing here.
Now what that will do is get you in the ballpark with regard to the middle tip being in the
right position for the fingers.
You'll have to adjust them to suit yourself but this general format will help you in terms
of getting the pick tip in the middle of the tip where the hole is right around there in
exactly the right position on the harp.
Now there's another extension and that extension or another bend I should say on the picks
and that bend is the extension you have.
If you have them way, way down, if you put them all the way down like this trying to
follow the natural curvature of the finger, you find out that you have to jab real hard
to get the fingers in there to get it.
If you put it way out like some of the banjo players do, oh boy, they'll fly off on you.
So you have to adopt a medium, a happy medium on your extension of the tip of the pick.
And the final thing about the picks, you have this extension, you have the middle to the
middle, the bend this way, these two bent this way and then you have a check.
And the check that tells you if your picks are in exactly the correct position is to
look for the shine.
If the shine is out here on the tip of the pick, not on the edge, you're in the right
spot.
One other thing about the finger picks.
When I first started playing there were only national finger picks which all the banjo
and guitar players used and that's what I used.
And then eventually Dunlop came out with gauged finger picks in both steel and brass.
And I encourage you to look into trying different thicknesses and different materials, brass
or steel, to see if you find one set of picks that particularly fits you.
I myself use the heaviest picks that Dunlop makes in steel, the 025, 25 thousandths picks.
And the presumption is I tried the light ones and I felt like they wouldn't hold shape and
that I had to hit too hard to get a good crisp tone.
So I settled on these very heavy ones and with which I can get a little bell-like tone
or I can get a very strong tone and anything in between.
And I kind of liken it to having a real baseball bat in your hand, you know, Babe Ruth with
a real baseball bat instead of Babe Ruth with a toothpick at the plate.
So seek out your own level of comfort with regard to which pick choice you make.
But do be aware that you have lots of choices, not only in gauge but also in whether it's
brass or steel.
Now finally I would ask you to address looking at your thumb pick.
The tighter a thumb pick you can put on your finger and keep on there, the better you're
going to be.
You first put on a real tight thumb pick, you think, oh, my finger's going to turn
purple, it's going to fall off, my thumb, you know.
None of that's going to happen.
It's just that it's foreign feeling to you.
The tightest thumb pick you can keep on your thumb will be beneficial for this reason.
If you're playing along on the strings and your thumb pick is nice and tight, you get
a situation where your rhythm is nice and solid.
If you get a loose thumb pick, it doesn't stay coming out at this angle as you come
this way.
Instead, it turns.
It turns like that.
And consequently it'll fly off and even if it doesn't fly off, you're trying to then
turn your hand in an awkward manner.
So you want a nice tight thumb pick, as tight as you can keep it on to get your fingers
to be in position to play because your thumb pick needs to be at right angles, coming across
like so, and the knees need to be like I just showed you a moment ago.
And then with that patting exercise that I started with, showing you how to isolate the
exact place where your fingers are going to be.
Excellent practice, that patting exercise, to get you to have your fingers in the right
place at the right time.
And then once you've figured that out, then you're ready to do...
ду異形形
And I'll sing you a song.
Tempted and tried, we're off made to wonder,
Why it should be thus, all the day long,
While there are others living about us,
Never molested, though we know wrong.
Farther along we'll know all about it,
Farther along we'll understand why,
Cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine,
We'll understand it all by and by.
Now folks, that's an old gospel song,
Farther along, and I played you one verse of it,
The way I would play it if I was trying to play for you
If you were an audience.
Now, I want to tell you just briefly
How you might consider thinking about
When you sing and back yourself up with your autoharp.
Be aware that it's a whole different critter
When you're talking about singing a song
And backing it up with your autoharp
Than it is when you're playing an instrumental
Where you can kind of play all the instrumental stuff you know.
But what you'll want to avoid
When you are playing and singing a song,
If you're going to take the time and energy and commitment
To learn the lyrics to a song,
If it makes you feel happy or sad,
Whatever it makes you feel that gives you the impetus
To go ahead and learn the words,
Learn the chords in the right place and stuff,
For heaven's sake, don't clutter it up
With the 10,000 notes per minute syndrome,
Playing every hot lick you know
All the way through the lyric,
Obscuring the lyric, drowning out the lyric
With unnecessary notes,
Not being aware that you can play soft
At the front of the line so that they can hear
The front words so they can clearly understand
What the verse is going to be about,
Not being aware that you can play fills
Between the lyrics as opposed to all through them
And over top of them,
And also not being aware that you can,
Even with your intro, play way too much.
It's better to play a little bit to establish the melody,
Then to back off and play a little softer,
And finally, just before you sing,
Actually go into the little pat line,
Hopefully, so that people will go,
Oh, what's that? I recognize that melody.
It's kind of like the softness draws you in
And makes people want to listen.
So now I played it for you the way I would do it.
Now I'm going to try and play it for you.
It's really hard for me to do this,
But I'm going to try and play it for you
In that heartless 10,000 notes per minute type of way
That I'm encouraging you not to pursue
In your playing of the auto harp as a backup instrument
With any song you learn.
So I'm going to play it once like that,
And then I can't stand to play it that way,
So I'm going to do it only one verse,
And then I'm going to play you one more verse,
And hopefully you will see a radical difference
In that I'm staying behind the lyric,
In that I'm trying to pat into the front of the verse
So that you get a sense of expectancy
Instead of a sense of being overpowered.
And hopefully there will be a noticeable difference
About how I'm bringing the auto harp into the realm
Of what it's designed to be doing
When you're singing a melody being the backup.
So here's the 10,000 notes per minute verse,
And hopefully after that I can show you
A little more restrained thing that will be more in keeping
With what you might think of when you're trying to back yourself up
On a lyric song.
¶¶
¶ Farther along we'll go on a bounty ¶¶
¶ Farther along we'll understand why ¶¶
¶ Cheer up my brothers living the sunshine ¶¶
¶ We'll understand it all by and by ¶¶
¶¶
¶ Farther along we'll know all about it ¶¶
¶ Farther along we'll understand why ¶¶
¶ Cheer up my brothers living the sunshine ¶¶
¶ We'll understand it all by and by ¶¶
So be aware that it's every bit as important
To leave notes out as it is to put notes in.
If you put the ones that really matter in,
You'll be doing yourself and the song you're singing a big favor.
¶¶
So now folks, I would like to take a moment
To talk to you about tuning and tell you that there are
So many different tunings for single key diatonic harps,
For cross tempered, equal temperament harps,
Multiple key harps.
I would like to encourage you to look into some different publications
That will give you a lot of in-depth information about different tunings,
Different chord bar setups, other auto harp players in your area,
Auto harp clubs and such like that.
And I would like to start by naming Eileen Royce
With the Auto Harp Clearing House.
And then of course Mary Lou Orthy and Ivan Stiles
With the Auto Harp Quarterly.
A publication no longer with us but a great help in the auto harp world for years,
Becky Blackley's Auto Harpaholic.
And those three are dialed in specifically for auto harp players.
We are also fortunate that Pete Kuykendall with Bluegrass Unlimited
Has articles in his magazine from time to time
About auto harp players and their stories.
So I would encourage you to look into those publications
For different types of tunings, different types of chord bar arrangements,
And information about auto harps in general.
And as a thank you to the folks I just mentioned
And their fine publications, I would like to sing
A verse of this old shaker hymn,
"'Tis a gift to be simple, "'Tis a gift to be free."
And it's a little way for me to say thank you to all of you folks
For all the good information that you have brought
To all of us in the auto harp world through all these years.
¶¶
Now, folks, what I'm trying to show you here is
That it's real advantageous to sit in the practice room,
Wherever you're going to play, and have a mirror.
Not so you can sit there and print and look pretty,
But so you can watch to make sure that in your efforts
You get the melody clean and accurate,
That you are not putting that zeal
With which you're approaching the project into tension.
If you have your eyes shut and don't watch occasionally
To make sure that everything is loose and calm,
You can hike up your shoulder like this,
You can do the old eagle arm up like that,
You can do weird combinations of both of them,
And all you have to do to solve the whole problem
Is look in the mirror, and you can see that it's weird,
You can see that it's weird, and you can calm down
And let your arm drop down nice and natural and get relaxed,
And then you're ready to really go ahead and play,
And then you can shut your eyes and work on the tune,
But you need to open them once in a while and peek
And make sure you're not creating tension.
It's evidenced in itself in the shoulder raise or the eagle arm.
And then you're ready to go.
So use that mirror once in a while.
It won't hurt you a bit.
It'll help you to keep yourself nice and loose and relaxed,
And that's where you'll get your best playing from.
Now, folks, in one of the early pieces here,
I did you the battle hymn in the first part,
And I'm going to play it for you.
Now, folks, in one of the early pieces here,
I did you the battle hymn in the republic,
And I showed you how you got the rhythm with the thumb,
The melody with the middle finger,
A low line with the index,
A high one with the ring finger,
And another high one with the little finger.
Now, that's the basic,
But what I'm going to show you now is how you can train your right hand
To get a nice balance of ability out of each one of the fingers.
The way to do this is to play the melody in its simplest form
By repeating with each one of the fingers one at a time.
So that, in this case, the old tune, the old gospel tune,
I'll fly away.
First I'll play it with the regular melody finger, the middle.
And then you want to train your index finger to do the same job
So that if you want to, you can put three high harmonies on it.
And then you've got to learn your middle finger out of the program
And learn your index finger into the program.
So here's the index finger doing the same melody.
And then the ring finger comes on,
And you learn the ring finger melody,
Then you've got two low harmonies you can put in.
After you get the ring finger melody, here it is.
Now you work on your little finger.
And then if you do the little finger, you can have three low ones.
Now you take that philosophy,
And you can now learn to play the melody with any one of the fingers.
Then you can work on the three finger roll.
And put in first these two.
And then the high two.
And of course the road is open now.
If you can do it with any of those multiples of two finger picking on top
With the rhythm underneath as always.
And you can start working on your four finger rolls.
For instance, these three.
Or the high ones.
Top three fingers.
Hard to play and talk at the same time, folks.
Here's the top three.
Well now you see that finger pick fly off there.
That's what happens sometimes.
You don't check to make sure your picks are tight enough.
Now let's see if we can dive back in here and get.
And finally all of them if you want.
The purpose of this exercise of training your fingers to play the melody.
Any given melody with each one of the fingers individually or in twos.
Or in threes.
Is that you get a balance in your hand, folks.
You get a sense I can play the melody in any finger.
I can play it up high and have low ones.
I can play it down low and have high harmonies.
I can do anything I want to do if I've trained my hand to play the melody with any given finger.
So I suggest to you that you pursue any melody you're learning with each one of the fingers.
First in the simplest form of course.
Just with your rhythm and your melody coming out of your left hand and a thumb stroke forward.
And then gradually like I've been showing you here throughout this homespun tape.
A way to build on it little by little.
Always being aware that speed is probably illusory.
Go slow so you understand what you're doing.
And also be real clear that the melody lives in the left hand.
And nothing more than a thumb stroke forward will give you the melody.
If you're playing the correct chords with the left hand.
And then beyond that all this.
This is the icing for the cake.
But this is the cake.
This is the gravy for the potatoes.
But this is the potatoes.
Practice it in all the different ways you can possibly think of.
And stretch yourself out.
Make yourself think of new ways to challenge your right hand.
To do something that's hard for it to do.
Be aware these are the dominant ones.
Here's the one that wants to collect unemployment.
And here's your pal.
With a good tight thumb pick will give you a good strong rhythm.
And the melody underneath with the left hand giving the right chords at the right instant.
Aficionado daording
Now folks, I just played the old tune, the gold watch and chain.
And I did that because I always like to start my practice sessions with a tune that I know
that's real easy for me, that I'm familiar with, and kind of just after I've gotten in
tune start playing something I'm real familiar with and just that I like and have a nice
emotional feel for.
I like to start my practices with that kind of a thing.
And then I like to wind up with, you know, something once again that I really know well
and like to play.
In the middle I'll work.
I'll work hard on something that I'm trying to learn.
But at the beginning and the end I like to play something that I'm real familiar with
so I have a nice positive feeling coming in and a nice positive feeling going out of the
practice.
Now I would like to just briefly say to you that you need to be aware that your auto harp
is like a little baby in little blankets, you know, that you got to take care of it.
You got to think of your harp as like a little baby.
And that means that in the hot weather you don't take the harp out and slam it into the
back seat of a car in a black case and let the sun beat down on it.
Instead you start your car up, get the AC going, and then you don't put it right in
front of the AC up in the front seat.
You put it in the back seat, kind of off to the side behind the passenger seat but out
of the way of the sun so it's cool and doesn't have heat beating down on it.
It's the same trick in the winter.
You don't come out to the car with your harp that you've tuned all up and gotten ready
to go to play with your friends.
Instead you come out and start the car.
Let it warm up.
Turn the heater on high.
Let it get nice and hot and toasty in there.
Then when you know the car's warm, come on out.
Bring your harp, put it right away in the back seat, kind of in the middle now so the heater
can come through the seats and come back and hit on that harp case and keep it at an even
temperature.
The same thing applies with your harp in your home.
Don't put it up in the hot attic.
Don't put it down in the damp basement.
Do put your harp in the temperate room, the most temperate room in the house that holds
the temperature the best and hopefully the same room you like to practice in and the
room that has a mirror or put one in there so you can watch out for those things about
tension I talked to you about.
Also take time for yourself folks to give yourself the gift of playing your harp for
yourself, for your own joy and your own fulfillment and in order to do that, unplug that phone.
Put the answering machine on.
Turn the ringer off.
Go in a room away from the phone.
Take a time when you can practice when your loved ones aren't going to be around and
they're going to tease you no matter how positive the tease is when you're starting out and
learning to play things that are hard for you to do.
It's many times the well intentioned tease is still hurtful.
So pick a time for yourself that you can get away back in the back room without the phone,
with the mirror, without the loved ones teasing you in a temperate environment and play your
harp and try some of these things I've been showing you here on the Home Spun tape.
And hopefully you're going to find that the little tips I've been giving you, a little
chunk of this, a little chunk of that are going to be things that if you come back through
this tape from time to time you'll see that a lot of these things will be real helpful
to you.
And I'm going to finish up here now just like I said this has kind of been like a real wonderful
special practice session for me because I got to share with you a few of the things
that I could think of to share with you that I've learned over the past 30 years and I'm
just real, real pleased that I'm getting to do this and that you are getting the benefit
of what I have learned along the way.
And I'll finish up like I said I like to start with one I really like and know well.
I did the old gold watch and chain.
And here to finish up and send you out the door towards your temperate warm practice
room with no phone and a mirror and no loved ones teasing you is a little taste of the
old gospel tune Ezekiel Saw the Wheel way in the middle of the air.
Ezekiel Saw the Wheel way in the middle of the air.
The middle wheel run by day.
Big wheel run by the grass.
I got a wheel and a wheel way in the middle of the air.
Let me tell you what a hippocrystal do way in the middle of the air.
Talk about me and talk about you way in the middle of the air.
The middle wheel run by day.