play a zither

I have just acquired an autoharp zither 12 chord but I can’t find the correct tuning anywhere, I would be grateful if you could help.
many thanks Greshna

Well, I’m almost done restringing the autoharp. One octive left. I haven’t touched it in a week as it’s been a tough week due to family circumstances. I’m hoping to finish the strings tomorrow and then I will look for DVD learning as I can’t find any lessons locally.

Sunday I received my autoharp (chorded Zither). Unfortunately it was damaged in transport. I’ve got a bit of a dispute because I purchased the item from ebay and the person I was dealing with was not good in getting back to me, so I put a dispute on pay pal because it was damaged when I received it. I am only claiming for the repairs to the item. As it is 30+ years old, I thought that I may not be able to find parts and if I do they would be expensive. Anyways, the seller completely flipped out on me… about 36 hours later I found out I could get the parts from other autoharp enthusiasts rather inexpensively. However, the seller accused me of fraud. What is interesting is she claims I wrote her many times claiming it was a gift and I didn’t want to pay duty which is a complete lie and that she had put fragile all over the box, all of which are not true. I am not too worried because I’ve took pictures of the box, the autoharp and everything… The good thing is that paypal is a sub-entity of ebay and they can trace all the emails. Anyways, I think I’d stay away from ebay if I were you.

Needless to say I’ve been speaking with this fabulous autoharp group and they are amazing people.

I’ve picked up a book from the library as well as some materials to refurbish the instrument. Thirty years of laying around doens’t exactly do wonders for a musical instrument.

But I did tune it and play one song. A string busted as I was tuning – but what can you expect after 30 years.

I am still waiting for my autoharp. I’m starting to wonder if I got ripped off from ebay. The package has not arrived yet but I am in Canada and it is coming from the states. So I figure two weeks? I won the auction on 08/08/07 so it has been 10 days. I think I will have to write the person and ask for the shipping number.

I’ve got a book at the library waiting for me. I’ll need to pick it up this week as I thought it would only take a week for delivery – other things from the states only take about a week with regular delivery, so I’m nervous about this purchase.

My mother came from the Black Forest in Germany and this was an instrument that they had in their house. Many years ago it was somehow destroyed and my mother was very disappointed.

My mom passed away July 17 2007 and I heard a zither play on the radio a few days later for the first time in my life (and I’m middle-aged) . It was such a beautiful sound – like a harp and a guitar playing tigether.

I’ve purchased a zither and now I will learn to play. How long it will take, I don’t know, but I was enchanted by the sound. I’ve heard zithers played in a different way which wasn’t too appealing, but I hope to play it just like I had heard on the radio.

I have wanted to do this since I heard Ruth Welcome play oh so many years ago.

It looks so simple but I’m sure it’s not. I’d love to try!