The German musical instrument manufacturer, Theodor Meinhold (1846–1913), played a significant role in the popularization of the autoharp in Europe. One of his contributions was a form of sheet music that is positioned underneath the strings (adapting a scheme presented in a US patent issued shortly before his own German patent). It graphically maps the movement of the right hand from string to string when playing a melody and numerically indicates the chord bars to be held down by the left hand for accompaniment.
Meinhold obtained German Imperial Patent No. 63702 for it in October 1891, illustrating the device schematically to permit its use with “zithers of the most differing constructions.” It includes a mechanism “for sounding accompaniment chords [through which] the playing of certain melodies is extraordinarily eased.” This accompaniment device is seen under the word “Bass” in the following illustration and was co-opted from another US patent that presented a simplified alternative to the chord bars on an autoharp. (I’ll discuss the two earlier documents in a separate post.)
