Llamaharp

How to play

1. Hold a chord bar. Use Layout below the chord bars to switch between three real autoharp setups: Standard, Americana, and Jo Ann Smith.
2. Drag a finger or mouse across the strings to strum. Strum faster to play louder, or tap a single string to pluck it.
3. On a phone, hold a bar with one finger and strum with another, or turn on Chord hold so a bar stays down after you let go. Tap it again to lift it.
4. With no bar held, every string rings, just like a real autoharp.
5. On a computer keyboard, the number row, Q row, and A row play the top, middle, and bottom rows of chord bars. Z through / plucks the strings from low to high, Space sweeps them all upward, and Shift+Space sweeps down. Use Show keys to see which key plays each bar.

About the autoharp

An autoharp is a zither with about three dozen strings and a set of chord bars lying across them. Each bar has felt pads underneath. Pressing a bar mutes every string that isn't part of that chord, so one strum across all the strings plays the chord cleanly. Players often rearrange the bars, and Llamaharp includes three well-known 21-chord setups.

• Standard is the classic Oscar Schmidt factory layout, with majors on top, 7ths in the middle, and a mix of chords on the bottom. It suits the flat keys of band and brass music, from E♭ to A.
• Americana is based on autoharpist Bryan Bowers's setup, which Oscar Schmidt adopted for its Americana model. It moves the majors to the middle row, drops A♭, B♭7, and Cm, and adds E, Bm, and F♯m for folk and bluegrass keys.
• Jo Ann Smith is her Unified layout. It keeps the standard top two rows and puts a clean row of minor chords on the bottom, including Bm, F♯m, and C♯m, so the fingering works the same way in every key.

Pick whichever matches your songs, or the autoharp you play. Not sure? See which layout to use.

History of the autoharp →