It Doesn't Play Itself, You Know

As you fair readers may know, I am the proud owner of an autoharp. Yes, I'm a musical sort, and play several woodwind instruments, some better than others. (If you've ever heard me play the oboe, well, I'm sorry.) But I've never been able to play strings. And I've always wanted to play strings. Strings are cool. You can take strings along to a clambake, and play by the bonfire late into the evening. You show me an oboe player who goes to a clambake, and I'll show you a person weeping as they watch their oboe allowing the bonfire to burn a few minutes longer.

And it's not so much that I've never been able to play strings, really. I've never attempted it so much. I've tried on several occasions to get my dad to teach me guitar, but my midget boxer's hands refuse to wrap all the way around the neck. I was grappling with that defect of my actual person, and thinking, "I don't know one of these here strings from the other," realizing very quickly the guitar was way too complicated for me, and so I gave up. And this baffles me, because I know people far from Rhodes Scholars who can play the guitar, even if it's only four chord strumming, but hey, that's more than what I can do, so good on them.

I've toyed with the idea of trying violin, or, if you're me, fiddle, from time to time. But I quickly learned three things about that. 1) The fiddle has no frets on its neck, and how am I expected to learn where my fingers go if there are no frets? 2) The fiddle uses a bow, which somehow seems very tricky to me, and is also just one more thing for me to lose. 3) When the fiddle is played by someone who doesn't know how to play it properly, it sounds like a cow is being sawed in half. Believe it or not, even after #3 there, I still like the idea of trying to learn to play the fiddle. I just don't like the idea of being arrested for disturbing the peace.

So I got a wild hair one day (well, I have wild hair every day, but that's another story) and bought an autoharp. I love the autoharp, it's a real mountain-type instrument. I love its little plinky sound. And what I love the most is that everyone told me it was such an easy instrument to play. Makes sense. It's called an autoharp, for cryin' out loud - to me that implies one of two things: it plays itself, or one teaches oneself to play it. Right?

And I bought the autoharp. When I brought it home and took it out of the box, I just sat for about 20 minutes and marveled at its beauty. That was about 4 years ago. I haven't done much else.

Jude the Corruptor, who plays the autoharp, as he's a music teacher and that's pretty much a prerequisite, kind of giggled when I asked him to teach me. He said they were easy to play, too, but added, "But they're a bitch to keep in tune." He didn't jump around dancing hallelujah and volunteering to teach me, so I didn't pursue it. Instead, I marveled at its beauty for about six months, strummed it a few times, put it in its case, leaned it against my bookcase, and now it's 3 ½ years later.

But lately, my beautiful autoharp has been calling to me. And what it's been saying is, "Come on, Bet, give me another chance. I'm easy! I'm pretty! I don't use a bow! Expand your musical horizons!" And so with the amazon.com gift certificate given to me by Mike the Blogless, Mike, Man of Mystery and Movies, for my birthday, I cashed that fella in and bought an autoharp instructional DVD.

I'm being taught, well, via DVD, by John Sebastian. We all know John Sebastian, and to know John Sebastian is to love him. I grew up with the Lovin' Spoonful, "Do You Believe In Magic" and all the others, and John stood right there on the stage in the 60s, the age of psychedelia, in his tie-dye and fringe, playing the autoharp. If that's not the measure of a man I don't know what is. Also, John plays the autoharp the way God intended, holding it against the chest. I knew that for me, it was playing the autoharp holding it just like Mother Maybelle Carter or not at all. None of that lap-playing, like Mrs Richardson, my elementary school music teacher. So I knew I wanted John to teach me to play the autoharp.

A couple of Fridays ago I waited till late in the night, got out my autoharp and DVD, and decided to let the good times roll. John came on the screen, playing away like I knew I would one day, and greeted me and got right into the learning process. The first thing he covered was tuning, and I became aware of a couple of things very quickly. Like, Jude the Corruptor was right, and when my autoharp was calling to me from its case, one of the things I never recall hearing was, "I'm one tough cookie to tune!"

John, thankfully, goes 21st century with his tuning, and got out a mechanical tuner, which I have, and so that certainly made things easier. Which is good, because had I used the old-school tuning fork method, I'd still be tuning my instrument and not writing this blog. See, my autoharp has 36 strings. Each string is wrapped around a knob, which is then turned with a vice-like thingie to tighten or loosen the strings. My autoharp, being dormant for so long, had gone incredibly flat. And I began to tune it. John said start with the highest note, the C, and I did just that. Took my flat pick and hit the string. *ping!* Flat. Tighten. *ping!* Flat. Tighten. On the second round of tightening, I promptly broke my high C string.

Now, if John covers "restringing your autoharp," it's not till the later chapters. I said, "Well, shit," as I do, and then quickly decided that one tiny string on the far end of my autoharp couldn't be that important, and I soldiered on. Tightening strings, playing them in conjunction with all the ones tuned before to make sure they sounded right. On about the seventh string, I dropped my flat pick into the hole of my autoharp. I turned it this way and that, shaking vigorously, hoping I wasn't de-tuning what I'd just tuned.

My flat pick is to this day in the hole of my autoharp.

I turned to my trusty thumb pick for the rest of the tuning. Somewhere around string 14, my thumb pick popped off my thumb and went sailing, in a perfect arc, into my potted plant. It took me about 10 minutes to find it. But find it I did, the fact that it's as brightly tie-dyed as John Sebastain's old t-shirts helped, and after a mind-numbing 1 hour and 40 minutes, I was tuned up and ready to start playing the autoharp. It was about 3 am at this point.

John's first lesson was using the thumb, which was how I'd always attempted it to that point anyway, on a simple three-chord song. "Mary, Don't You Weep." G, C, D7. And you know what? I was playing! I was playing an actual song! In fact, I was rockin' the house on "Mary, Don't You Weep." I could have gone on tour doing "Mary, Don't You Weep."

Then John showed me how I could change keys and use 3 different chords, like F, Bb, and C7, and I rocked the house on "Mary, Don't You Weep" in that key, too. I went to bed at about 4 am Saturday one happy autoharp player. Mother Bet.

As we all know, last week was the week from hell, for all of us, and certainly for me. No playing till the next Friday, that would be this past Friday, when I had some wine to celebrate the end of that hellish week and ended up sitting in front of the TV with John Sebastian again. After another complete tuning of the autoharp, well, complete tuning minus the aforementioned broken C string. Somewhere Jude the Corruptor is saying, "I told you so."

Lesson #2 from John was heading to the three-fingered style. We used our fingers, together, walked them up and down the board of strings, and he told me how I could use my index and middle fingers to strum "Three Blind Mice." Which I wouldn't necessarily recommend for a clambake, but I was game, and so I began. I did fine at the "Three Blind Mice, See How They Run" part, but the middle section, whose words I don't remember, went so fast and used so many chords I quickly decided I'd never sing that stupid song anyway, and so I took a rest until the next lesson.

Which was good, because the next lesson was a barn-burner. It was using your thumb, index, and middle fingers to play "Wemoweh," or as some of you may know it, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." Same three-chord pattern as "Mary, Don't You Weep," so I was OK there, but the finger pattern gave me fits. Seems easy enough, thumb, index, middle, index, thumb, index, middle, index.... But coordinating that with chord changes was akin to juggling. I don't juggle, and on Friday, I wasn't doing this so well, either. I could get it, but it wasn't smooth. I set my sights on practicing my "Wemoweh" every night this week before going to the next lesson. I missed it on the weekend, but "Wemoweh'ed" my way through about an hour of time last night. And about a half-hour tonight.

Somewhere on Friday night/Saturday morning, I happened upon the two-finger style of playing. Thumb and middle finger. I've seen people use this in old-time pickup bands, and this is so incredibly easy I see myself doing it for the rest of my playing days. However long that may be. You wanna talk about autoharp playing that'll bring a tear to your eye? Let's talk me playing the two-finger style on "Mary, Don't You Weep."

Anyway, that's where it stands as I write. Two Friday lessons, two styles learned. There was a slight point the first night where John got adventurous and tried to teach me a four-chord number, he said doo-wop was great for those, and so he used "In The Still of the Night," but I totally bombed at that, the A-minor was way far away from the other chords, and so I decided that for now I'd be three chords and a cloud of dust, and that I could always go back to four later on.

But see, here's the thing. I'm not a natural string player. The Nephew, a talented fellow indeed and a drummer by trade, picked up the guitar and within six months was playing like he'd had lessons for years. I could listen to him play for hours. And here I sit, in the Comfy Chair, strumming my three chords and making my fair share of dubious sounds.

But I'm having a blast! I play the clarinet fairly well, and get so frustrated when things don't come out the way I want them to. I scream, I cry, I beat my head, and my leg, and start unnecessary arguments, even when I'm alone in the house. I can barely do a three-chord strum without looking down at my autoharp, and it's all good. If I bomb out, I laugh, and try again. I'm also either going to get really strong in my left hand (the chord button hand), or come down with a rather debilitating case of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

And if you need a rousing chorus of "Mary, Don't You Weep" at your next clambake, invite me over. Just give me advance notice, so I can tune, get my high C restrung, and try one more time to get my flat pick out of the hole.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners! And boy, look at the entries that poured in. You all wanted to tell me how Alec Baldwin's daughter replied to his little tirade.
- Honorable Mentions go to Flipsycab, with her, "Told old tyrant that Billy’s films glow," and Kellie (with an ie), with her, " Too Overreactive To Be Father. Gawd!"
- Runner-Up goes to Michelle, with her, "Took out tomahawk, bludgeoned father generously."
- And this week's winner goes to, for the second week in a row, the DeepFatFriar, with his, "Try online texting, butter fingers. Gawd!"
- Thanks to all who played! It did my heart good to see so many entries this week. You've all done very well!