The autoharp takes wing

The preceding post traced the development of the colorfully named pig’s head psaltery from the 13th century through its mechanization near the end of the 19th century by the addition of damper bars. I promised to retell the same tale in a follow-up post — this one — focused entirely on its wing-shaped cousin. Beginning with a quick reminding look at a pig’s head psaltery, here is a typical representation in a sculpture on the 15th-century portal of the Saint Pierre Cathedral in Saintes, France.

This design appears to have been split down the middle in a comparable statuette on a late-14th-century gravesite monument in La Chaise-Dieu, France. The photo was taken at an angle from below and does not show the proportionality of the instrument’s sides as a frontal view would.

If the straight side at its top is envisioned as being longer than the side toward the player’s left arm, this becomes an archetypal wing-shaped psaltery. Multi-string courses and correctly positioned hands are clearly depicted, with a plectrum properly held in the right one (the left is too worn to tell). This suggests that the sculptor was paying attention to the instrument’s structure and use. It is also possible that it was an intermediate form on the conceptual path to the marked wing shape in the next image.

The preceding sculpted players are standing upright. A portrayal of King David in a mid-16th-century painting by Girolamo da Santa Croce shows him in a seated playing position. Psalteries large enough to need this type of support are variously seen flat on the player’s lap or an adjacent surface, or as here, with the back held upright against the player’s torso.

The structural details of the instrument in this image, and the extent to which it may be stylized, provide fuel for a good deal of interpretative discussion. I’ll leave that with passing mention for now, and simply use this painting as a springboard over a few centuries to a drawing of another wing-shaped instrument. This also includes mechanical detail serving a purpose that is not immediately apparent.

In this case, the image is accompanied by explanatory text in a familiar German patent issued to Karl August Gütter in May 1884. The device is an aggregate of damping bars, functionally equivalent to the one designed by Charles Zimmermann no later than 1881, and shown affixed to a pig’s head instrument in the preceding post. However, the two designs differ significantly in mechanical regard.

Both mechanize a far older playing technique that is pervasive in the Baltic States and adjacent areas of Russia. This uses the fingers of one hand to mute strings that don’t belong to a chord being strummed by a pick held in the other. It is commonly intermingled with a separate technique where the fingers of both hands participate equally in the production of melody and chords.

This method of chord blocking was introduced in an earlier post that includes video snippets demonstrating it on a wide range of Baltic and Russian psalteries. As is intrinsic to the wing-shaped design, only one hand can move with undiminished facility across the entire stringbed. Here is a demonstration on a Russian instrument (gusli) of a design that emerged at about the time its bar-based cousins were being devised.

The instrument is held with its long side on the player’s lap rather than facing upward as in the 16th-century painting. The outline of the wing mirrors the preceding drawing and painted psaltery. If the orientation in those two images is termed “right-handed,” the one in the video (and 14th-century sculpture) is “left-handed.” When the back of the instrument is held against the player’s body, either the long or short side may be closer to the floor; commonly parallel to it but also seen at intermediate angles.

The 1884 German patent drawings show sharp pointed “zither feet.” Their purpose is to effect a firm acoustic coupling with a purpose-designed table that amplifies the instrument’s sound. They would cause injury if held against a normally clothed player’s body. The projection of the chord levers from the sides of the 1884 instrument further constrains how it can be held, and its strings can only be plucked across the full stringbed on one side of the bar housing.

The profile and chord-bar design that were to become standard for the autoharp are first seen in the “complete specification” that Gütter submitted on 30 June 1885 for a UK patent that had been pending since 4 September 1884 (with a “provisional specification” describing the design he patented in Germany). The drawings show rounded feet without sharp points, and non-protruding bars, making it possible for the instrument to be held alternatively on the player’s lap or a tabletop. Both placements appear in numerous drawings and photographs. The autoharp is also seen with one edge raised from the lap onto the player’s midriff, as in the preceding video and the following photographs from 1914 and 1917.

Becky Blackley provides a treasure trove of relevant source material in The Autoharp Book, from 1983. (It includes a reproduction from an 1893 publication that is this post’s banner image.) One of the photographs in it shows the instrument long side up, suspended on a strap around the neck of a standing player who she says is probably a missionary.

That surmise is verified by photographs not in her book, which all seem to be linked to the Salvation Army. The following one is typical and shows the instrument in use, even if posed. The seated harmonium player indicates that the autoharp player would also have the option of being seated if that were in any way preferred.

Another photo shows a fully ambulatory situation. There is a pivotal difference in the position of the autoharp player’s left arm, which crosses the instrument’s diagonal side from below rather than the long side from above. This makes it possible to cradle an autoharp while standing, without using a strap.

Blackley shows an early photograph of an instrument held in the same manner by a player sitting with folded legs on a floor. She includes several drawings from the 1896 Zimmermann catalog that illustrate other playing positions. One shows it with the long side held away from the player. This allows left-handed players to pluck the strings with their dominant hand, as will be demonstrated in a following video.

Another shows the point of departure for what has since become the prevalent playing position in the US.

Sara Carter (née Dougherty) was born in 1898 and learned the autoharp as a child. It seems reasonable that she had observed playing positions like those seen in the preceding photos before settling on the style she carried into the Carter Family. She began performing in a duo with her husband, A. P. Carter, in 1915. The group was joined by Maybelle Carter (born 1909, née Addington) in 1927, thereby forming the monumental trio. Judging by their appearance in dated photographs from the early 1930s, the following one was taken at the outset of their activity.

Later photos show Sara Carter holding the instrument flat on her lap or on a tabletop, but she certainly appears to be using a neck strap here. She is seen doing so again in a later performance, standing upright with a variant of the autoharp called a “Guitaro.” It is referred to simply as an autoharp in an introductory exchange between her and a television show host before a slightly earlier performance where she holds and plays it in the same manner.

The playing position in the drawing of the Modern Romeo was brought into the limelight by Maybelle Carter in the mid-20th century. She was born in 1909 and also began with the autoharp when a child. As her cousin Sara Carter (they married brothers), she would likely have encountered the full range of playing positions shown above before adopting the one that was to prove so influential.

This included a change to plucking the strings between the bars and the tuning pins. The current lore has her doing so to better utilize a single microphone shared with other performers. There is no reason to doubt this but it came at the cost of curtailed access to the upper few strings. (Artisan luthiers subsequently remedied this by placing the bar housing farther from the tuning pins.)

Kilby Snow was four years older than Maybelle Carter, and both were dominant forces in the development of the southern American style of melodic autoharp playing. He explains why he retained the initial plucking position, in a discussion with Jimmy Driftwood at the Newport Folk Festival in 1966.

This is a snippet of the soundtrack to a film made by Alan Lomax in the performers’ residence. The same session continues with full video showing Kilby Snow next to his son Jim Snow. Mike Hudak, who set up the senior Snow’s instrument and his own, identically, is to their right. They demonstrate a number of playing positions, and all pluck the strings according to Kilby Snow’s explanation.

Maybelle Carter’s daughter, June Carter Cash, is most often seen playing the autoharp held in her lap and plucking the strings on the short side, as her aunt did and is seen in the preceding video.

However, she was equally adept in the style her mother made famous.