MPZ Collage

The Zookeeper

Todd Crowley Musical Petting Zookeeper

]]> http://www.diatoddnics.com/blog/todds-musical-petting-zoo-festival-appearances/feed/ 0 http://www.diatoddnics.com/blog/chord-chart-for-the-prizim-zither/ http://www.diatoddnics.com/blog/chord-chart-for-the-prizim-zither/#comments Sat, 03 Mar 2012 04:05:47 +0000 toddmpz http://www.diatoddnics.com/blog/?p=198 Continue reading →]]> This chart shows the set-up for the Prizim Zither in the keys of C/G/D/A/E/B…  The tuning schedule in the low end is EACDEFF#GG#ABC…this Prizim plays best in D/A/E and would make a good blues Zither.   Call or write, if you have any questions.

Mike Herrera wrote: <<Singing bowls produce sounds which Buddhists (and now some medical researchers in the USA) believe can invoke a deep state of relaxation (and hence meditation).>>

Okay, this may sound crazy and a real stretch by any imagination, but I wonder if it’s remotely possible that if certain sound waves induce a “deep state of…mediation,” that might account for the preponderance of flat keys in church music?

I mean if the music was composed for church with a particular flat key in mind, and by flat I mean a true Bb for example, as opposed to the EQ Bb=A#, if the composer knew either subliminally or consciously that “flat keys” tend to induce a more prayerful state by the very nature of their sound wave properties??

I have no empirical evidence to suggest this other than the fact established here of the need for hymnal ‘harps in the flat keys.  If this music was written for the pipe organ, the organist would have different notes to play the Bbs, Ebs, etc. than would be used to play the A#s, D#s, etc., which the piano later eliminated.

Just a thought…-TC

Tue, 13 Nov 2007

Subject:[CP] autoharp in Bb

patrick  wrote: <<Db!!!  Db!!!>>

Db, Patrick?  Db?   I’ll see your Db and raise you a Gb, which I have covered in my top shelf Gordon Baker GladMorning Gb-Db ‘harp.  On the bottom shelf in the next bookcase over, there’s the Mitch Pingel Timbreharp B-F#, which as anyone with a circle of fifths’ worth of wit knows is the ‘harp that is most confused about its sharp/flat identity: F# being the crossover key to Gb.

But now I’m wondering if I don’t need another bookcase for six more luthier ‘harps to cover F#-C#; C#-G#; G#-D#; D#-A#; A#-E#; E#-B#, if I can find a tuner or an ear to detect those microtonal differences between the sharps and flats to test my absurd theory that “flat frequencies” lead to a calmer, more prayerful state, while “sharp frequencies” tend to excite the spirit.

With all the new luthiers in the pipeline, I was trying to figure out how to fit them all in…but then over on the other side of the flat key ‘harp shelves, I’d need six more shelves for B#-F##; F##-C##; etc.

It boggles the mind I know, but a circle is after all endless…and if you have a touch of OCD, you’re never quite sure if you got the last of those germs with your 100th hand washing of the day.

“Hard, Aint it Hard, Ain’t it hard, Dear Lord.”

Wed, 14 Nov 2007

Subject:           [CP] a stretch?? (was Autoharpistry)

Lyman Taylor wrote: <<I think Kathie is on the right track here. In my opinion there are a couple of factors involved in the choosing of keys for hymns: i.e. the most universal singing keys and the ease of playing the keyboard>>

Not to discount Kathie’s and Bud’s expertise because Lord knows I haven’t sung too many hymns in His House, and they’re probably right on the mark explaining the preponderance of flat keys in the hymnals dating back a hundred years or two.  But what if we go back even further to Medieval Times or even earlier when church music was the only game in town before the modern chromatic scale coalesced into 12 notes?

Wasn’t there a time when the scale was really:

CC#DbDD#EbEFF#GbGG#AbAA#BbBC?

When there were microtonal differences in the frequencies between the flat notes and the sharp notes? When some church authority might have noted that the flat note frequencies tended to be more calming, meditative and prayerful and therefore better suited to a holy service?

Why say something is sharp (#) if it doesn’t have to do with poking or prodding or exciting?  And why say something is flat (b) if it doesn’t mean to calm or level off?  Ever drink a coca cola that’s gone flat??  Not quite as bubbly or tingly is it?

Still just pure speculation here, but I think some practices start way back in the dark recesses of time for very sound reasons to the people back then, then become entrenched as traditions until we lose touch with their true meaning in the first place.

Kind of wish Capt Pentatonic Dr. George Foss were still with us to help us understand some of these old mysteries.

Subject:           [CP] Mood altering flat chords

Ken wrote: <<I would like to share a little anecdote that supports the power of the flat to do this [goes on to tell how his 6 yr. son learned on his own to drop from the major 3^rd to a minor 3^rd to produce a “sadder” sound].>>

That’s beautiful story of how your son learned to play the piano, Ken.  It’s amazing what young children can intuit on their own when left to their own devices.  Reminds of Kathie telling us about John H’s early autoharp experiences.

There’s a great line from Dougie MacLean’s “Scything Song” that goes: “Wild are the ways we learn when first untethered out we fly.” I have always tried to incorporate “untethered” learning in my teaching practices.   And before you mentioned it I was thinking about the elementary music teaching tool of a major chord representing “happy,” the minor being “sad; and the 7th representing “surprise.”  I was wondering if moving from the major 3rd to the flatted 3rd, i.e. from major to minor, might support my very tenuous hypothesis that “flat” tends toward the somber or meditative, while “sharp” makes everything all bubbly and happy.

Then my daughter Erin and I were listening to a recording of some early “horizontal” singing of “motets” sent to me by a dear friend who sings with an adult Madrigal group affiliated with the U. of Va.  [Enter Sandy stage Alpha Centauri]  This is all new to me, so bear with me a moment.  I thought the piece sounded lovely, but Erin said the soprano sounded “sharp.”  Her ear is much more finely attuned than mine, so I asked her what she meant.  Erin said, It’s a feeling of the hair standing on the back of her neck, like she’s being “poked” or “pricked.”

And I thought, “Aha, so sharp does mean ‘to excite’,” until Erin said it had nothing to do with the key signature, just with the way the soprano clashed by singing sharp against the bass and other lower voices.

Then I was thinking again of the movement of a major chord to its parallel minor, from E to Eb in the C to Cm, for example, as evidence again of “flat” tending toward the more somber.

But then I really got myself twisted around when I tried to think of the A-A#-Bb-B progression.   Appears like the microtonal difference between the A# and Bb would have to be an addition of some cents, not the subtraction you would get by moving from a major 3rd to a minor 3rd.

And so, my whole very tenuous hypothesis was left hanging by the very tiniest of threads.

Maybe I should just be playing the autoharp and trying to master its “basics” rather than spend my time thinking of all this stuff.  Except that this “stuff” is very holy to me, like a river running over a waterfall or a sunset over the Grand Canyon, music and sound being every bit as much of a natural resource and Gift from our Creator we should tend to the best we know how.

Subject: [CP] Kim to the Rescue

Our daughter-in-law Kim provided me with an important clue that may provide a reasonable explanation for the origin of flat keys in sacred Christian music.  Kim is a 3rd year divinity student at the Richmond Baptist Seminary studying to be a Baptist minister with an emphasis on sacred music. She is a lovely and thoroughly engaging relatively new relative.

Kim is skeptical of my DaVinci Code Conspiracy Theory of the lost Elysium Bb special frequency Zen Buddhist note to induce a more prayerful state.  Which is probably a good thing because as a minister she can’t be chasing down ghosts that probably never even existed in the first place.

Actually the whole flat key hymn thing was news to her, which I thought surprising since she’s been singing and playing piano in the Baptist Church as long as she can remember.  Perhaps, there are only some branches of the Protestant Church where you can actually empirically count the number of flat key hymns in the hymnal??

But Kim did say that at one time, after the Gregorians, Eb became The Most Sacred Key.  I asked, why is that, Kim?  And she said, it’s simple.  Eb is the key with 3 flats and a hymn with 3 flats in 3/4 time would have been the closest to thing the sacred Holy Trinity.  Aha!  Yes, this is making sense now.

I thought then if it’s not the note frequencies, but the number 3 that was so important, why not the key of A with 3 sharps?  And Kim said that Eb is a much friendlier key with the widest range for the most singers, which brings us back to what Kathie and Bud said in the first place.  (I knew I loved my Eb ‘harp for a special reason.)

So I think I’ve found the answer I’ve been seeking by asking the right questions of the most knowledgeable people I could find.  If for esoteric, theological reasons Eb became the home key of sacred songs, and not C as we might suppose, it stands to reason that later hymns grew out from the center, adding Ab and Bb, then Patrick’s “falling-off-the-edge” Db and F.  Once Martin Luther and the boys debunked the whole Holy Trinity idea and demoted the Holy Ghost, Protestant Hymn writers could step gingerly out from the Eb Holy Trinity Key and start writing hymns in the nearest other flat keys.

Mystery solved. Case closed.  At least for this amateur Carmen San Diego.

Except…except…still have to leave the lid slightly open.  All good mysteries should leave the lid slightly ajar, shouldn’t they?

I read last night in Erin’s textbook “A Practical Approach to 16th Century Counterpoint,” an old but new way (for me) of looking at music in note sets of three, which is right up my autoharp alley because I only seem to be able to hit 3 notes at a time, and my son Chris said I could become the first Counterpoint Autoharp Player in History (always looking for an in somehow)…but where was I?

Oh, yes, Erin’s textbook (I knew her tuition money was well-spent)..to quote Robert Gauldin:   “The adage that practice precedes theory is appropriate in this case.  The modal terminology of the Greeks was resurrected by medieval theorists to systematize the preexistent literature of chant.  Plainsong used as its fundamental tonal material the seven ‘white-note” pitch classes (C D E F G A B plus Bb!!)”  (exclamations mine) (6).

Turns out that Bb was pretty durn sacred after all and the medievals invented the 8 note two key autoharp scale long before C. Zimmermann and Co. added the Bb to his second generation autoharp prototype.

Reading further:  “As noted previously, Bb is the only accidental encountered in chant.  It was used to avoid a direct melodic tritone B and F (the so-called diabolus in musica…to correct an implied tritone in the melodic contour, or to ‘soften’ the upper neighbor in pitch class” (9).

In other words, those wild and crazy Gregorians and the medieval theorists, who later codified their practice, loved their perfect fifths.  That 7th tone in the scale B that leads to “diabolus” B-F interval, the reason for the Diatonic Six and not the Diatonic Seven, that diminished 1-5 that gives us that inexplicable anomaly of the BEF sus4, and all those other horrid sounds (sorry, Hal) associated with diminished anythings, had to be tamed or tempered, yes, indeedy, calmed from B to Bb to get the perfect 1-5 Bb-F interval.

Win, win, win for all concerned parties.  Kathie and Bud are right.  Kim is right.  And I am at least humbly partially right, but not for my very tenuous Bb Zen-sound-wave-frequency-put-the-entire-congregation-to-sleep hypothesis I first surmised.

Whew…what a roller coaster ride.

Sometimes you just gotta “send these messages down the wire and hope someone wise is listening down below.”

Now to learn what Counterpoint Singing/Autoharp Playing is all about.

Subject: [CP] the cosmic Bb (was Kim to the Rescue)

Neal Walters wrote: <<I don’t know if this relates to your thesis or not but I posted this back in 2004 and your message reminded me of it … B flat has a lot going for it!!  [from Neal's article] There is such a music, and it’s the note of B flat. Or so scientists told us a few months ago when they announced that the Perseus galaxy cluster, 250 million light years from our little planet, was emitting that note…The notes have a period of oscillation of 10 million years, which makes them “the lowest note in the universe.” These B flats may be the oldest and the longest notes in the universe… Since the black-hole B flat is 57 octaves lower than middle C, it cannot be heard, thus only questionably qualifying as a pitch.>>

Okay, Neal, now the hair is rising on the back of my neck…funny you posted this back in 2004, and I’m only now catching on.  I tend to oscillate only slightly faster than the “Cosmic Bb,” so I’ve always been a little slow on the uptake.

So if the Universe has been emitting this ultra-low Bb frequency from 250 million light years away since forever and a day, even though we can’t physically hear the actual note, might it not have been playing in our subconscious from the day we emerged from the slime or even before??  Therefore, whether we realize it or not Bb is the note we respond to at the most profound level.

And if it is the fundamental note of the entire Universe, that should bode well for clarinet players and Autoharp players willing to go where few autoharpin’ men or women have gone before.

Ladies and Gents, Get your Bb ‘harps right here…step right up…yessiree…and if you want to cover the Holy Trinity just to cover all your bases, I’ll make it an Eb-Bb for only a slightly extra charge.  I knew this discussion could result in an increased profit margin in my floundering autoharp “business.”

Hmmm…maybe we should skip the autoharp altogether and bottle a Bb pill to cure all our ills.

Please pass me another perfect fifth.

Eb/Bb SACRED Music  from Ron Bean

Todd: Thank you for your (as always) thorough dissertation–I mean it sincerely. I am amazed how educational CP is! No sarcasm (but some levity)intended: you should be a full professor at AUTOHARP UNIVERSITY. I propose we take over Appalachian State (they beat Michigan 1st game of season, dethroning them) What would be the mascot? The marching band would of course include autoharps and dulcimers, but what else? There would be a physics department devoted to string tension, sound vibration measurements. The biology department could consider audiology concerns, Oscar stem cells and maybe try cloning some harps. I suppose there should be an endowed chair on prevention of Aging in Elderly Autoharp Players. Theology department would be necessary to tweak the Divine Intervention provided by our luthiers.

Remember several weeks back you said something about “go forth and multiply” meaning there weren’t enough young autoharpers? Well cloning autoharps as well as autoharpers would also come under that focus wouldn’t it? Think of other department heads in such a proposed college; who would fit where?

And finally from Will Smith, autoharp player extraordinaire:

Kind of running on here but wanted to mention that 10 years ago at the funeral of  Roy Huskey, Jr, who was the top bluegrass bass player, someone spoke of him having synesthesia (am sending you a recent NYT story separately) where he perceived musical tones as colors.  When asked what was at the end of the spectrum, he replied  “Bb — which is of the deepest black”

Something to think about…

Traditional Blues and Country Folk

Todd’s Musical Petting Zoo

5 West Main St

North East PA 16428

 Friday March 30, 2012 7:00

Andy at Old Songs

Andy at California Autoharp Gathering

Todd’s Musical Petting Zoo
5 West Main St
North East PA 16428

Saturday March 3, 2012
1:00 to 2:30
Jam to Follow from 2:30 to 5:30

Larry’s comments: “I have been playing mountain dulcimer for twenty plus years, having built one as a wood working project…………and I fell in love with the fact that I could actually make music. At first , I taught myself by reading and attending workshops. This was a good start but I hit a glass ceiling. Now I hang with “old timey” musicians and even though I am the only dulcimer player (usually) present, I feel this is how one becomes a good dulcimer player. I am thankful for the wonderful musicians in NW Pa. As a result of this “old timey” influence, I feel I have a developed a rather rough style of playing…. not the “sweet music” sound most people associate with the dulcimer. I play with the group “Picks and Hammer” and also with the contra dance band Fidulac…(Fiddle, Dulcimer, Accordian).”

Note: The Appalachian dulcimer comes to us out of the mountain mists. The instrument evolved from an instrument called the scheitholt, which was brought to America by 18th and 19th Century German settlers. The scheitholt traveled down the wagon roads with these settlers, and entered the English and Scotch-Irish cultures along the way and on the mountain frontier… The Virginia style featured a “boat-shaped” design. Hourglass-shaped dulcimers, often with heart-shaped sound holes not usually found in Virginia-style dulcimers, developed in West Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky, after the Civil War.

Dulcimers spread west of the mountains to Ohio and Indiana before the Civil War, but the Appalachian Mountains remained the dulcimer’s principal home until the coming of the post-World-War-II Folk Revival. Young urban folk singers throughout the country discovered the instrument and happily adapted it for modern play. www.ralphleesmith.com

*Plenty of loaner dulcimers available for this workshop.  Just come!

see: www.halweeks.com and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTwLinZMHbQ

“The Prizim Zither has an astonishing range of musical possibilities that will open all kinds of musical portals to the intrepid voyager. Melodic galactic empires will open before your astonished ears.  The possibilities are infinite!”–Phil Lawrence, professional mandolinist/guitartist

“The Prizim Zither is the most exciting development I’ve seen in my 50 years of autoharping.  It’s expanded flexibility opens new vistas for the instrument.” –Ray Frank, professional guitarist, autoharpist.

Autoharp: the Next Generation

By Hal Weeks

Much as a prism bends white light into colorful rainbows, the Prizim Zither bends simple musical chords into more colorful ones. The sparkling melodies and harmonies of the Prizim are a delight to hear. The Prizim is the next step in the evolution of a truly ancient instrument. It was developed in 2006 by Todd Crowley with help from Will Smith and Hal Weeks.

The Prizim is the latest member of the ancient Zither family; an instrument which dates back further than recorded history. The Prizim’s closest relative is the autoharp; indeed, the Prizim is an evolved autoharp; or, as one of the design collaborators called it, “an autoharp on steroids.”

The autoharp uses a simple mechanism whereby the player depresses a single button attached to a bar to create one of up to 21 simple chords (major, minor and dominant 7ths).  The Prizim player must depress two buttons to create those same chords. Single bars on the Prizim create scales. When 2 of these bars are combined, chords then become possible for the player…including Majors, Minors, Major 7ths, Minor 7ths, add9, sus4, minor 6’s, major 6’s, and 9th chords.  Autoharp does not have most of these. Because the Prizim is chromatically tuned it can play in 6 keys.

The technique of playing two bars at once is not a new innovation; it was used by several autoharp players in the past 20 or 30 years. The Prizim is different than these “tandem bar” predecessors in several ways. First, it retains the same arrangements of the fingering positions throughout it’s 6 keys; the player merely moves everything over by one button and the music moves up or down the circle of 5ths, making left hand technique almost as easy as playing on a standard autoharp. The button layout is also congruent with a very commonly used autoharp button layout, so an autoharp player can adapt to playing Prizim in very little time. Two bars may be depressed with one finger in many cases. The second way the Prizim is different than other tandem bar harps is that it has diatonic major scales on 6 of it’s bars; so it can perform diatonic “open chording”,an advanced technique heard previously only on diatonic autoharps. Diatonics only play in one or two keys, however; Prizim will do it in all 6 keys!

Why the Name?  Why the spelling?
For 5 years, the instrument was called the “Diachromic Autoharp” (Diatonic/Chromatic). It has now been dubbed the “Prizim Zither”(or Prizim for short). There are several reasons for no longer choosing to refer to it as an autoharp.  First, as the “auto” part is somewhat diminished (it is, at best, semi-automatic). Second, the autoharp never was a harp, it’s always been a zither. The “Z” in Prizim is for Zither. Third, the creators felt it needed a more evocative name, representing what it does: it’s player “bends” the straight chords into “color” chords much as a prism would bend light into colorful rainbows.  Fourth, an answer to “what’s in an name”?  For years, serious players of the autoharp have wrestled with the reputation associated with the instrument.  With a new name, the Prizim evokes curiosity and praise from musicians who have never heard of an autoharp.  Then there are those who have heard of autoharp, but who have marginalized them in their minds as an instrument not worthy of serious attention, because of it’s limitations.  The Prizim is causing them to think again.

Design by Todd Crowley

Consultants:  Will Smith and Hal Weeks

The Diary of a Diatonista

As a lifelong diatonic player, I’ve never really been attracted to the chromatic autoharp. The chromatic’s less than lush sound because of the lack of doubled strings is hard to get used to after playing diatonic for so long. The scratchiness of picks on muted strings can be irritating. Finally, the repetition of the same chord selections transposed across the different keys makes the chromatic autoharp more and not less, as some would suppose, limiting for the kind of folk music I enjoy.  Consequently, I’ve acquired a collection of diatonic autoharps in all 12 keys and all 12 two key combinations.

As I’ve expanded from my original single key G six chord Bryan Bowers’ autoharp, I’ve experimented with just about every possible chord in a seven or eight note scale.  I’ve become well versed in suspended 4ths, modals, minor 7ths, add9s, 6-9s and so forth.  I can’t imagine playing now without at least some of these rich textural additions to the standard I-IV-V chord progression.

For all of my diatonic experience, I’ve always admired the amazing range and versatility of chromatic players.  In the Washington D. C. area, there was Alan Mager, founder of the Capital ‘Harpers, who played show-stopping tunes in contest after contest, maximizing every chord on a chromatic ‘harp with deft key changes and surprising accidentals in arrangements of simple folk songs or complex popular music. His playing always left me in wonder.  Then there was Drew Smith in his Great All-American Autoharp Emporium holding late night jams in his booth at Mountain Laurel, happily changing from one genre of music to another or one key to another in the bat of an eye without ever stopping to change autoharps.  I was always more of an appreciative listener than active participant.  More recently my fortuitous friendship with Hal Weeks in Arizona has led me to a much fuller appreciation and understanding of the chromatic autoharp.

So, I think I’ve always known I would one day explore the chromatic, but I knew I didn’t want just the standard 21 chord set-up of majors in one row, relative minors in another and 7ths in the third.  I wanted to bring to the chromatic some of the pleasing sound and unique chords of the diatonic autoharp.

Ultra-Autoharp

If you take a one or two key diatonic autoharp and add 21 chord bars, your imagination works overtime trying to fill all the spaces.  You explore sus4ths, partial 7ths, m7ths, M7ths, 6ths, add9s, 6-9s, and more.  If you take a chromatic ‘harp and want to maximize the number of keys, you’re pretty much stuck with the repetition of major, minor and dominant 7th chords so you can easily transpose from one key to the next.  To play in five or more major keys, you need at least seven majors, five to seven relative minors and seven or more dominant 7ths.  More advanced chromatic players might leave out a key and add the three diminished 7th chords, but few chromatic players are willing to sacrifice keys for more of the color chords diatonic players often discover when they have more chord bar “real estate” to fill.

So, how does the chromatic player stretch 21 chord bars to include all the standard chords and more?  And how does the chromatic player unlock the diatonic playing potential in the 12 note chromatic scale?  I say the diatonic potential because I’ve heard Harvey Reid play wonderful, flowing diatonic music on his old 21 chord O. S. Appalachian chromatic.  Harvey uses lockbars to play in C or F and enhances his diatonic sound with electronics.  He proves that even without doubled strings, you can play beautiful diatonic music on a chromatic autoharp, and then release the lockbars to play beautiful chromatic music.  The best of both worlds!

The answer to the questions of how to include more than the standard 21 chords and how to play diatonically on a chromatic autoharp is to make more judicious use of the 21 bars.  This means having the willingness to play buttons in tandem to produce more chords than are possible on a standard 21chord arrangement.

The idea of using more than one chord button at a time is not new.  Lyman “Bud” Taylor for years has been a tireless promoter of his ingenious Jazz Autoharp, which manages to create more than thirty chords out of 21 bars for a jazzier sounding autoharp.  The late Marty Schuman and Mark Fackeldey developed “ultratonic’ autoharps in the 1980s using chord bar combinations to get more imaginative sounding chords on diatonic autoharps.  They dreamed up the idea of “floating pentatonics” on diatonics to get more pleasing harmonies when playing the open chording style developed by Ron Wall.  Among today’s most noted players, Lucille Reilly and Will Smith are using ultratonic variations on diatonic autoharps and Karla Armstrong has pushed the chromatic envelope opened by Bud Taylor with her “Ultrachromatic Autoharp.”  I’m sure many others as well have employed various button combination systems to maximize the autoharp’s potential.  The Autoharp Quarterly and other publications have kept us well informed of these developments over the years.

The Floating Diatonic Chromatic Autoharp—Phase I

The following questions and concerns entered my thoughts as I tried to look at the 21 chord chromatic autoharp in a new way, coming from the perspective of a diatonic player.

A) How could I preserve the multiple key versatility of the chromatic with all of the standard 21 chords one would expect?  With the help of Hal Weeks, I realized that the seeming redundancy of the majors, minors and dom7ths necessary to play in multiple keys might also be seen as a series of interrelated and interlocked chords needed to play much of the popular music of the 20th century:  Blues, Jazz, Show tunes, Rock ‘n Roll, etc.  I’d always thought of chord families in terms of the diatonic scale.  In the D scale you can play the six D chords—D, G, A (7), Bm, Em, F#m—and a few others, but an F chord and its relative minor Dm belonged to another “family” and didn’t belong to the key of D.  Then Hal showed me in a rollicking blues number how he brings in up to 18 different chromatic chords in a song that starts and ends in the key of D.  Though F and Dm might seem quite a distance from the D chords in the circle of fifths, they’re more like cousins than total strangers to the D family of chords.  When Hal plays a blues or jazz tune, he holds a family reunion bringing all those chromatic chords into one great party tent.  When I play a single key ‘harp, it’s like just the immediate family sitting down to supper.

So, my primary concern was to preserve the distinctive 21 chords of the chromatic autoharp.

B) If I planned not to alter the basic make-up of 7 major, 7 minor, and 7 dom7th chords of the chromatic autoharp, how would I be able to incorporate the sus4ths, pentatonic, add9, minor7th and other chords I’ve come to love about the diatonic autoharp?  Obviously, to get more than 21 chords with just 21 bars, it would require a combination chord bar set-up, similar to Bud Taylor’s Jazz ‘Autoharp and Marty Schuman’s and Mark Fackeldey’s Ultratonic Autoharps.

C) Would it be possible to play a chromatic autoharp diatonically using the open chording technique so essential to the diatonic sound without lockbars occupying chord bar space?  From Harvey Reid’s playing, I knew a chromatic can be played like a single key diatonic.  I just wondered if it could be done without lockbars.  I should say here that I’m not a great open note melody picker, but I do enjoy the sound of playing open strings on a diatonic and then pushing a chord bar to hear the chord emerging from all those ringing tones.  In fact, it may be the single most pleasant aspect of my playing, something I would not want to sacrifice on a chromatic autoharp.

D) Finally, with all those extra chromatic notes what other chords could I explore that are not possible on a one or two key autoharp?  I started to look at the many different jazz chords and wonder about their make-up: m6ths, 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, etc.  In my research on-line I made this discovery, which I posted on cyberpluckers:

I found this out in a Jazz primer:  to get a 9th, 11th or 13th chord, you need the flatted 7th. You can omit the 3rd, 5th, even the root, but you can’t leave out the flatted 7.  If you add the 11th you can omit the 9th; the 13th, you can omit the 11th & 9th, or leave them in. but you have to have the flatted 7th.

        And in Jazz, it doesn’t particularly matter what order the notes are in; Classical, yes, but Jazz, no.  In standard guitar tuning (EADGBE), guess what the “open chord” is?  Answer: A 11-3 (AEGBD)

        On a chromatic autoharp you could add the 3rd and 13th for an A 13 chord (AC#EGBDF#).  Contained therein, you’ll find the following chords: A, A7, A6, A9, A11, Aadd9, F#m, F#m7, D, D6, Dmaj7, Bm, Bm7, G, G6, Gmaj7, Em, Em7 and probably a few more I’m not seeing.  In that one bar are enough chords (18) to keep you jazz happy for quite a while.

This early exploration into jazz chord theory would later shape the design I ultimately decided on for the Floating Diatonics Chromatic Autoharp.  I just didn’t realize it at the time.

         So my task was not too daunting.  Devise a combination chord bar set-up that would preserve the basic integrity of the chromatic autoharp, include chords I’d learned in my diatonic playing, figure out a way to play open diatonic scales, and work in some jazzier chromatic chords.  I knew Bud Taylor had figured out how to get 33 chords with 21 bars.  I wanted to expand into the 40s or at least two chords for every bar.

The Floating Diatonic Chromatic Autoharp—Phase II

The principle of combination chords using tandem chord bars is an interesting puzzle because it runs counter-intuitive to the way autoharp chords are made.  The usual way to make a chord is to figure out the notes and then open those notes by cutting the felt over the right strings.  A C chord requires the notes C-E-G, so you open those notes by notching the felt on your chord bar and leaving the rest of the felt to dampen the remaining strings.  With a combination chord, you have to find two chords that share some of the same notes that can be played together to make a third chord.  A simple way to demonstrate this principle on a standard autoharp is to press a major chord together with its parallel minor, a D chord and a Dm chord, for example. With both bars down, the middle note of each chord is damped, leaving you with the root and fifth of both chords (D-A), usually called the D modal or D5 because it’s now neither major nor minor.  So, combination chords involve the subtraction rather than the addition of notes.

For two chords to work together to form a usable third chord, you need to pair two chords with enough common notes to make the new chord, but with enough opposing notes to make the original chords different enough to be worth having.   A D7 (D-F#-A-C) combined with a D (D-F#-A) chord will produce a D chord, but you haven’t gained anything because you already had the D chord to begin with.  A D7 (D-F#-A-C) with a Dmaj7 (D-F#-A-C#) would be a good candidate because the C and C# notes would cancel each other out and you’d be left with a simple D chord.

Another consideration is the placement of tandem chords in close proximity to make sense both musically and ergonomically.  The simplicity of a single button to make a chord is one of the reasons we play the autoharp.  Contorting our fingers to press down 2 or 3 buttons simultaneously with every chord change and we might as well be playing an accordion.  However, pressing two buttons either right next to each other or right on top of each other does not require too much of an adjustment.  The example of using the D major and D minor chord to make a D modal shows how difficult a reach it might be if our combination chords aren’t closely related in the circle of fifths.  Two combination chord buttons side by side are good; two buttons several rows apart would defeat the purpose.

So, in this design I have tried to find chords that can be split into other chords when played in combinations.  When you split a chord into two different chords by playing it in combination with one or another chord close by, you need larger chords with more notes that can be canceled out.  Marty Schuman and Mark Fackeldey understood that a single diatonic seven-note scale could be broken into three different pentatonic scales.  The C scale, for example, has the notes C-D-E-F-G-A-B.  The basic chords are the I–CEG, the IV–FAC, and the V-GBD.  By extending each of these simple major triads they can be turned into pentatonics or five note chords.  The C chord becomes CDEGA; the F, FGACD; and the G, GABDE. These pentatonics contain the notes for a number of other simpler chords.  The C pentatonic alone contains the notes to make the following chords: C, Am, Am7, C6, Cadd9, Csus2 Gsus4, Dsus4, Asus4, Gsus2, Dsus2, and maybe a few more I’m not seeing.  A pentatonic chord or scale, therefore, is a good candidate to be a “mother chord” to make all sorts of other chords.  All it takes to derive these chords from the 5 note pentatonic is to strategically surround the pentatonic with other chords that shares some of the same notes or to use delete bars that cancel out notes.  A 4 note chord like G7 (GBDF) can be played with the G pentatonic and yield the basic G chord or triad (GBD), eliminating the need for a separate G chord bar.

Here I’d like to make a distinction between a chord and a scale.  A pentatonic is a chord in itself usually written as a 6-9, meaning it adds the 6th and the 9th (2nd) note to a basic 1-3-5 major triad.  Thus a C chord C-E-G becomes a C6-9 chord, C-D-E-G-A when turned into the pentatonic.  But a pentatonic is also a scale (one of the oldest) when these five (“pent”) notes are repeated.  For our purposes a large chord like a pentatonic may also be called a scale.  This distinction will be important later when I explain floating diatonics.

Marty Schuman and Mark Fackeldey placed the three pentatonics derived from a diatonic scale on a one key autoharp and called them floating pentatonics.  By this time both were playing the open chording diatonic playing style developed by Ron Wall.  As I understand it, Marty’s and Mark’s open style was different because they might play a C chord against the background of a C pentatonic pressed down at the same time.  Since the D is in the C pentatonic, you lift off the C chord, but keep the pentatonic bar down to get the D.  This works until you needed the F or 4th note in the scale, whereupon you “float” to the F and F pentatonic bars to continue the scale.  The F bar and F pentatonic would then give the F-G-A part of the scale, and then you float to the G and G pentatonic back to C to finish the B-C end of the scale.  So, you always have a kind of moveable lock bar pressed down, while playing tunes with constantly shifting or floating pentatonics in the background.  The risk of playing open notes is accidentally hitting an unwanted note, one of the reasons multiple key diatonic players use lockbars and chromatic players seldom take the risk.  The advantage of always holding a pentatonic bar down while open noting is the greater chance of plucking the right note, and if you do miss, you miss gracefully because all the notes in the pentatonic sound good together.  The pentatonic bar removes what little dissonance there is in a diatonic scale.  So, a floating pentatonic bar acts like a lockbar when it is held down as you play through the diatonic scale.

As I started to look at the chromatic autoharp, I started reading about more complex jazz chords as I have described.  Once I understood that the standard guitar tuning (EADGBE) was actually an open A11-3 chord, I was curious what all the notes would be in an A13 chord.  Keep in mind that once you get beyond the octave (8th) scale degree, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths are notes in the next higher octave that are the same as notes in the lower octave.  So, a 9th is also the 2nd; the 11th, the 4th; and the 13th, the 5th.  The A13 chord would then be spelled: AC#EGBDF#.  With all the extra notes an A13 is a good candidate to use as “mother” chord, on the principle that a large chord, like a pentatonic, can be used to make small chords as in the example above.  Then in what I can only describe as an epiphany, it dawned on me that an A13 chord is also the D scale: DEF#GABC#D, and the idea for using floating diatonics on a chromatic autoharp was born, but only thanks to the pioneering use of floating pentatonics on a diatonic autoharp by Marty Schuman and Mark Fackeldey.

The Floating Diatonic Chromatic Autoharp—Phase III

The diagrams in the appendix, generated for me by Will Smith, show the final Floating Diatonic Chromatic Autoharp layout, as it evolved through sheer trial and error and constant consultation with Will Smith and Hal Weeks.  Will has been a well-respected autoharp studio musician in Nashville for close to 25 years, mainly as a diatonic player.  He also plays jazz guitar and has recently begun using a 10 note scale Ron Wall Mountain ‘Harp in his own ultratonic set-up to play some of the jazz standards he does so well on guitar.  Hal is a university educated music theory and composition major, who has played autoharp for more than 20 years.  In recent years he has given up diatonic playing to concentrate on developing a blues-oriented chromatic autoharp.  His new d’Aigle ‘harp has 40 strings with extra bass notes and is set-up to play Hal’s signature blues sound, either plugged or unplugged.  So, I had the invaluable help of both a diatonic and a chromatic specialist as I worked out this interesting musical puzzle.  Hal has nicknamed the FDC Autoharp, “the monster.”

Many players use the Bowers’ set-up with a row of major chords in the middle, a row of parallel 7th chords on the treble side, and a row of relative minors on the bass side, all falling logically in the circle of fifths.  My own preferred set-up keeps the minors on the treble side where I learned them in a two-row chord bar set.  As it turns out the fixed pattern on the Oscar Schmidt 21 chord cover with 7 tiers descending toward the bass side necessitated keeping the minor chords on the treble side.  The chords that generate the majors ended up fitting better on the bass side.  This arrangement might be unsettling for a player committed to the Bowers’ set-up, but the resulting yield of around 50 chords and the ability to play open diatonic scales might be worth changing “sides.”  An alternative would be to use a Chromaharp 21 bar set or a luthier-crafted set of open bars and reorient the tiers to descend toward the treble side.  Then this arrangement could be reversed to keep the major generating chords on the treble side.

To understand how the layout works, it’s necessary to re-conceptualize the 21 bar set-up.  We tend to look at the standard layout in linear fashion with 3 rows and 7 tiers.  Keeping these rows separate and distinct as majors, minors and sevenths is a neat and tidy arrangement easily learned and memorized.  But it also forms a barrier to the music still lurking in all those strings below.  To break down this barrier, it’s necessary to look at the pattern of 21 chords spatially instead.  Seeing the arrangement spatially transfigures rows and tiers into a series of Chord Clusters or overlapping webs with large Core Scales in the middle surrounded by Satellite Chords, each of which can be played in tandem with the Core to create still more chords.   For simplicity’s sake, I wanted to keep this a two-button system with all the tandem chords within easy reach.  I also determined that each chord bar should be a useful chord or scale in itself.

Before proceeding it’s now time to define the new terms required to play this Floating Diatonic Chromatic set-up, starting with the words diatonic and chromatic themselves.  Diatonic refers to the seven note (do-re-mi) major scale, most often associated with folk melodies.  Chromatic is the name give to the 12 note Western scale with all the half and whole steps that accounts for most modern music and classical music dating back several centuries.  The Floating Diatonic Chromatic Autoharp is a five key diatonic autoharp and a chromatic autoharp in one.  The terms diatonic and chromatic should by now be familiar to most autoharp players.  The definitions to follow create a new nomenclature to understand how the Floating Diatonics Chromatic Autoharp works.

Definitions

1) A Satellite has 5-6 notes and can be played as a chord or a scale by itself. It can be also split into 2 smaller chords by playing it in tandem with a Core Scale.

2) A Core Scale has six notes that can be played as a partial diatonic scale minus the second note (-2) or in tandem with a Satellite Chord.  A Core Scale also may serve as a Floating Diatonic.

3) A Floating Diatonic is to the chromatic autoharp what a Floating Pentatonic is to a diatonic autoharp.  Each of the center row buttons from Eb to A now has six of the seven notes of the diatonic scale, rather than just the chord triads.  The one missing note is “re” or the 2nd scale degree.  With one of these Floating Diatonic bars kept down, it is possible to use any of the surrounding bars and “pump felt” to play open diatonic music in seven different isolated diatonic scales.  The Floating Diatonic becomes in essence a lockbar, blocking out unwanted chromatic dissonance without having to be locked.   Instead of having to swap quick-change lockbars in and out of a chromatic ‘harp as John Hollandsworth does or restrict your diatonic playing on the chromatic to just two keys as Harvey Reid does, the seven Floating Diatonic bars allow you to play in any of the seven diatonic keys with open notes and without dissonance.  If you can learn to play two bars at one time.

3) A Chord Cluster has seven buttons: a Core Scale in the middle and six Satellites, except on the ends, which lose two Satellites.  All of the buttons in a Chord Cluster can combine with the Core Scale to make a new chord. Satellites in a Chord Cluster can also combine with each other to make new chords or partial chord intervals.

4) A Core Scale acts as a Satellite as you move down the circle of fifths from one Cluster to the next.  Chord Clusters overlap.

The chart on the next page shows a Chord Cluster as it would appear looking at a 21 chord O. S. cover with the treble side chords to the right and bass side to the left.  For this pared down version we’ve used C as the Core Scale. Spatially, the Cluster looks like an asymmetrical six-point star or web when all the dots are connected, but each Satellite is still an easy one-button reach from the Core.  The chart spells out each part of the Cluster, so the reader can see the resulting chords when any two buttons are played in tandem.

Floating Diatonics Chromatic Autoharp C Cluster

Bass: 135b79

Middle: 134567

Treble: 1b356b7

                Bass                                                  Middle                                  Treble

As the diagram shows, each Satellite is linked with the Core Scale to make a new chord.  In the C Cluster the tandem chords include: F, Fadd2, C, C5 (modal), Cadd2, Am, Am7, Em, Em7, FM7, CM7 and the e-g minor 3rd interval.   If we then include the Satellites and Cores, in this cluster alone we have 20 chords and scales using no more than two adjacent buttons.   Before we get carried away imagining seven of these Clusters yielding 7×20 or 140 chords and scales, we have to remember that Clusters overlap and the end Clusters lose two Satellites as we run out of room.

Still with the Floating Diatonic Chromatic Autoharp the player has at his or her fingertips, using no more than two adjacent buttons, the following chords:

Majors: Eb, Bb, F, C, G, D, A

Relative Minors: Gm, Dm, Am, Em, Bm, F#m

Minor7ths: Cm7, Gm7, Dm7, Am7, Em7, Bm7, F#m7

Major7ths: BbM7, FM7, CM7, GM7, DM7, AM7

Add2s:  Eb add2, Bb add2, F add2, C add2, G add2, D add2

Modal 5s: Bb5, F5, C5, G5, D5, A5

Dominant7th/9s: Eb7/9, Bb7/9, F7/9, C7/9, G7/9, D7/9, A7/9

Minor6b7ths:  Cm6b7, Gm6b7, Dm6b7, Am6b7, Em6b7, Bm6b7, F#m6b7

Diatonic Scales (minus the 2nd):  Eb, Bb, F, C, G, D, A

Now instead of just 21 chords, the player has the freedom to choose from an array of 59 chords and diatonic scales.  And as Will Smith has pointed out, once players start using this system, they may find still other chords and scale runs using combinations not restricted to the clusters.

Why The Floating Diatonics Chromatic Autoharp?

         One of the reasons Hal Weeks and I became fast friends even though our tastes in music may differ is that he once remarked on Cyberpluckers, “I play the autoharp because it is a flawed and compromised instrument, just as we are all flawed and compromised as human beings.”  I knew right then that when he and I would finally meet we’d have much in common and much to share with each other.  Hal shared with me his love of the blues and the chromatic autoharp, and I shared with him my love of folk songs and diatonic autoharps.  We also shared our passion for the instrument we both love and our inquisitive natures wondering how to make this “flawed” instrument better, but without seeking perfection.

One of the reasons many musicians may not take the autoharp seriously is that it has always imposed severe limitations on what the musician may want to do, what I have called elsewhere in this article The Tyranny of the Chord Bars.  An advanced guitar or piano player often creates musical nuances by playing the with basic major, minor and dom7th chords, inserting or deleting notes to alter the chord slightly or playing scale runs in and out of different keys. We may call this musicianship in the broadest sense of the word.  Autoharp players are no less musicians than players of other instruments, so we have always looked for ways to get more music out of our instrument.  Some may play diatonics to sweeten the sound and add different chords.  Some may alter the bass tuning schedule and have two or more chromatics set-up to enhance certain keys.  Some may use a combination button ultratonic or ultrachromatic set-up to increase the number of available chords.  Some have used the Newton Keyboard and learned to play the autoharp like a harpsichord, making use of all the strings in every possible combination.

What I have tried to conceptualize is an autoharp chord bar set-up that brings the best of both diatonic and chromatic autoharps together in a single instrument.  An autoharp that will allow the user to play beautiful open note diatonic melodies using floating lockbars.  An autoharp that will allow the player to travel freely around the circle of fifths, exploring jazz, blues and just about any other music under the sun.  An autoharp that will allow the true musicianship of the player to shine through, dropping a 2nd into a major chord or adding a 7th to a minor chord, nuances other musicians take for granted and expect from their instruments.

The 59-chord Floating Diatonics Chromatic Autoharp is not yet the perfect autoharp, nor will there probably ever be one.  Like all of us, it still has its inherent flaws.  It asks of the player to use two buttons at a time, rather than one.  It asks of the player to suspend their disbelief and accept that a 9th chord can be used successfully in place of a dom7th chord wherever a dom7th chord might be played.  It asks of the player to explore the new realm of possibilities opened up by having minor6flatted7th chords, a jazz chord that is part minor, part diminished and part Dorian in mode.  Autoharp players have always used their ingenuity to find smoke & mirror chords, imaginative substitutions, when a chord isn’t available to them.  The add2 chords in this design, for example, can substitute for a major, a sus4, and a partial pentatonic.

Given what players have already accomplished with a 21 chord chromatic or a collection of diatonic instruments, imagine what they may now do with 59 chords and diatonic scales on one autoharp?

Breathtaking.

*Many thanks to Will Smith and Hal Weeks for their immediate assistance in matters. musical, computer-related and personal.  And many thanks to all the tinkerers and thinkers who have gone before and who are still among us.  Who makes us stretch our imaginations and find the music locked within the “wee box” and within ourselves.  And especially to Bryan Bowers, who first gave me an autoharp and Mark Fackeldey, who first made me realize what a truly wonderful instrument it is.