Winter Festival of Acoustic Music 2013

This weekend was a BLAST.  I attended, for only the second time, a small but absolutely fantastic gathering in Irving, TX called the Winter Festival of Acoustic Music.  This year, Chuck and Karen Daniels and Charles Whitmer were the workshop leaders in autoharp. 2011 The first year I attended I took workshops with Charles Whitmer.  Mr. Whitmer opened my eyes to amazing variations in strums.  I learned exercises to take home and practice and I didn’t even have my own autoharp yet!  Also, I was fitted with nice brass picks by Chuck Daniels (brass on the fingers and plastic for … Continue reading

New Additions to my Autoharp Collection

Well, as I said in my last autoharp related blog post, I am delighted with the OS GD diatonic autoharp. It delighted me so much that when I spotted a lovely walnut and cedar GDA autoharp in a slightly scaled down design I was instantly smitten with Autoharp Acquisition Syndrome or AAS (tongue in cheek joke among people who enjoy autoharps so much they end up with several, usually one chromatic and several diatonics). This lovely instrument became mine after some budget negotiations with my beloved hubby. So now I have a lovely sounding walnut and cedar autoharp that is … Continue reading

Autoharp Updates

1.  Well, I cannot say I have made much progress in learning to play my autoharp since I’ve been side-tracked by other parts of my life. However, when a good used Oscar Schmidt Autoharp with Chuck Daniel’s bars and fine tuners added became available for around the price of a new one I jumped into owning a GD diatonic autoharp. As I see it, I’ll get a taste of what all the fuss is about diatonic autoharps at a comparatively low price and have a good loaner for introducing new people to my favorite folk instrument. It is a good … Continue reading

Music Theory and the Autoharp

Music theory never interested me when I was growing up.  Now that I am older and seeking to move from Quicksilver to Gold in my life, I find myself seeking more knowledge of music theory to help me learn to play my autoharp. Jumping into music, I discovered a whole world of music theory and my total ignorance of such a vast area of knowledge.  I knew that my autoharp, a chromatic instrument, could play in pretty much any key and I have 21 chords I can make with this instrument but I did not know much about what a … Continue reading