Moxcey's Musical Techniques

Mike Moxcey ©2005

Playing Melody on the Autoharp

The autoharp only has chords. It doesn't "really" have individual melody notes you can play.
If you want to play melody, you can but it requires

Pushing down a Chord bar that contains the requisite note
Plucking/Strumming the autoharp in the vicinity of the desired note

Generally, plucking in the vicinity of the note is the easiest part of this because all the strings have labels (that's so you can tune the correct string).

To get started (assuming you know the melody), just pluck the melody out carefully on the individual strings. I lay the harp down on my lap for this. It gets my ears attuned to the correct notes.

Then you can go after the melody either of two ways:

By Ear
1. Hold down the bar for the correct chord for that part of the song and pluck each of the different melody notes.
  The ones that sound out (that aren't dampened) are okay to use. The ones that are dampened, don't sound out except for a dull thuck, are the ones that will require a different chord.
2. To find the missing notes, press another chord bar down and see if you can pluck them.
  Which bars should you use? The best bet is to start with the other ones in other parts of the song.
  You can make a list of all the different chords in the song and go thru them seeing which one sounds best.

By Theory/Arranging
Finding the chords by theory requires its own section.

Getting Melody Notes from Chords

There are two ways to approach this.

You can make lists (or just know) which notes are in which chords.
Major and minor chords each have three notes of the scale: 1,3,5 (the 3 note is either
i) from the scale or ii)the 3rd or minor 3rd of the major scale depending on your point of view).
Seventh chords will have four notes to choose from, adding the flatted seventh of the scale.
This is useful information but still requires translating between the scale of the chord and the scale of the song you're trying to play.

I usually approach it from the melody, having the list of melody notes written down and then writing in the correct chord based on my thoughts about the "proper" harmony.

For each note of the scale, there are only certain chords that contain that note. Here is a table of those notes and chords, first from a generic, numbered perspective and then from the specific C scale--the easiest one to write in because there are no sharps or flats.

Note	Generic Chord
do	I, IV, VIm
re	V, V7, IIm
mi	I, VIm, IIIm
fa	IV, V7, IIm
so	I, V, V7, IIIm
la	IV, VIm, IIm
ti	V, V7, VIm

Note	Specific Chord
c	C, F, Am (C7)
d	G, G7, Dm (D,Bm,E7)
e	C, Am, Em (C7,E)
f	F, G7, Dm (F7)
g	C, G, G7, Em (Gm,Bbm)
a	F, Am, Dm (A)
b	G, G7, Em (B,Bm)

The first chord in the column is the usual choice for that chord.
The reason you would choose some other chord is

The real chord for the song at that point is some other chord that would let you sound the same note, such as the C-note which might show up when the song wants an F chord. You would want to sound it while pressing F, not C, because you're also playing lots of other notes when strumming and need them all to sound good.
You want a special sound, maybe playing G7 at the very end of the song instead of the G chord just to provide a bit more dissonance.
You want to match the background chord of the song at that point. For instance, if the chord were supposed to be F and you need to sound out a D note, you might go for the Dm (the relative minor to F). It may sound bad, but it also may sound better than the G or G7 at that point in the song.
The song is in a minor key or different mode (Dorian or Mixolydian) in which case you'd be more apt to play minor chords or chords that are reached going the other way around the circle of fifths.

In addition, to get chromatic notes (not on the do-re-mi scale), you'll need to use other chords.

Mary Had a Little Lamb

Let's start with this basic song.

First, pluck the individual notes slowly just to hear the melody:

e  d  c  d  e  e    e    d  d   d     e  g   g
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb

e  d  c  d  e  e    e   e    d     d    e   d   c
Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as snow.

Here are the chords you would strum when playing this song. There is one beat per strum (and more info elsewhere on this site about Reading Chord Charts

 C    /     /      /     G       /    C      /
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb

 C    /     /      /         G           /      C   /
Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as snow.

Now by pressing the chord button down at the appropriate time, I can get almost all the notes:

 C    /     /      /    G      /     C      /
 e *  c  *  e  e   e    d  d   d     e  g   g
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb

 C    /     /      /         G          /       C   /
 e *  c  *  e  e   e   e     d     d    *   d   c
Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as snow.

We're missing 5 notes.

Two D notes on the first line when playing a C chord,
those same two on the next line and
an E at the end when playing a G chord.

Fortunately, each of the missing notes can be found by playing the other chord of the song.

So now, here's how you'd play the melody to the song. The top line shows the chord bar to press, and the bottom shows the note to play. You can't actually pluck an individual string when strumming up to speed, but you do need to know the general area and the correct sound you should be hearing which is why you play the single notes to begin with.

 C G  C  G  C      /    G      /     C      /
 e d  c  d  e  e   e    d  d   d     e  g   g
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb

 C G  C  G  C      /         G          C   G   C   /
 e d  c  d  e  e   e   e     d     d    e   d   c
Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as snow.

Here is a more advanced song, using all three regular chords and covering more of the C scale. I do children's songs because you've heard the melody. If you want to practice reading music, here is the sheet music for

Old MacDonald.

Here is Old MacDonald in the key of C the way I present it as basic chord charts.


C / F C | / G C / | / / F C | / G C / |

C / / / | / / / / | / / F C | C G C / |


C       /      F     C   /   G   C
Old MacDonald had a farm E I E I O 

     C       /       F     C   /   G   C
And on that farm he had a pig. E I E I O 

          C        /            /        /
With an oink oink here and an oink oink there

 /       /      /       /    /               / 
here an oink, there an oink, everywhere an oink oink

C       /      F     C   /   G   C
Old MacDonald had a farm E I E I O

Try just playing the chords thru until the timing sounds pretty good.
Next strum in just certain places and see if you can pick out the melody notes.
This song's first line starts on the main note, C, drops down, then goes up past the C and walks back down to it.

Find the home note of C and see if you can figure out the melody just by ear.

Here is the melody written out in notes for you. If you're not sure whether to go up or down to reach the mote, first try it and trust your ear. If you still aren't happy, look at the sheet music. Even if you can't read it, you can tell which notes are higher than the ones before and after (and the notes come right above each word).

C       /      F     C   /   G   C
c   c   c g    a  a  g   e e d d c
Old MacDonald had a farm E I E I O 

    C        /       F     C   /   G   C
 g  c    c   c   g   a  a  g   e e d d c
And on that farm he had a pig. E I E I O 

          C        /            /        /
 g    g   c   c    c    g  g    c   c    c
With an oink oink here and an oink oink there

 /       /      /       /    /               / 
 c   c   c      c   c   c    c  c   c   c    c   c
here an oink, there an oink, everywhere an oink oink

C       /      F     C   /   G   C
c   c   c g    a  a  g   e e d d c
Old MacDonald had a farm E I E I O

You're done! All the notes can be found simply by using the correct chord for that part of the song.

Let's try one more common song. This one will cover the entire C scale from g to g.

Here are the chords in C to

She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain

C / / / | / / / / | / / / / | G / / / |

C / / / | F / / / | G / / / | C / / / |

           C       /        /         /        /     /  /
She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes. Ha,ha

  /        /       /        /        /        G      /  /
She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes. Ha,ha

  /        C        /        /         /        F       /         /
She'll be coming round the mountain, she'll be coming round the mountain,

  /        G      /         /         /       C      /   /  (/)
she'll be coming round the mountain when she comes. Ha, ha

First of all, notice that this song has a coule extra pickup notes before you start counting off the chord beats. Practice playing the chords to this song and singing it (at least singing the words in your head) to get the timing right with just a basic pluck-strum of some sort.

Here are the notes.
The 1st line starts with a low g, goes up to c then back down and back up.
The 2nd line goes up from c to the high g and then back down.
The 3rd line starts at the high G and walks down to the a then jumps up to the d and starts back down.
The 4th line keeps walking down to the low g then jumps up to d, then jumps down to a and walks up to the ending (c).

Try playing just the melody, then see which notes you can get using the proper chord.

           C       /        /         /        /     /  /
  g    a   c  c    c    c   a   g     e   g    c     e  c 
She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes. Ha,ha

  /        /       /        /        /        G      /  /
  c     d  e  e    e    e   g   e    d    c   d      f  d    
She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes. Ha,ha

  /        C        /        /          /        F       /         /
  g    f   e  e     e   e    d  c       c     c  a  a    a    a    d  c
She'll be coming round the mountain,  she'll be coming round the mountain,

  /        G      /         /         /       C      /   /  (/)
  b     a  g  g   g     g   d   c     a   b   c      e   c
she'll be coming round the mountain when she comes. Ha, ha

Here are all the notes we can get with the proper chord. I've put stars above the ones we can't get so you can see which note we need to find.

       *   C                *                            
  g    a   c  c    c    c   a   g     e   g    c     e  c 
She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes. Ha,ha

        *                            *        G      *   
  c     d  e  e    e    e   g   e    d    c   d      f  d    
She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes. Ha,ha

       *   C                 *                   F                 *
  g    f   e  e     e   e    d  c       c     c  a  a    a    a    d  c
She'll be coming round the mountain,  she'll be coming round the mountain,

  *        G                    *     *       C      /   /  (/)
  b     a  g  g   g     g   d   c     a   b   c      e   c
she'll be coming round the mountain when she comes. Ha, ha

There are only 11 notes missing (out of 55).

The two notes in the first line are "a" which can only be done with the F chord (if we're trying to stick with the chords used in the song) so it looks like this now:

  C    F   C                F   C                        
  g    a   c  c    c    c   a   g     e   g    c     e  c 
She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes. Ha,ha

In the 2nd line, the two "d" notes need to come from the G chord.
At the end, the "f" note seems like you ought to use an F, but it makes more sense to use the G7 chord.

In the I, IV, V method of playing basic songs, you can substitute the V7 for the V chord. So anytime you shold be playing a G (in the key of C) and need to get an "f" note, use the G7. Here's the 2nd line.

  C     G  C                         G    C   G7         
  c     d  e  e    e    e   g   e    d    c   d      f  d    
She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes. Ha,ha

In the 3rd line, we start with the same old G7 chord and that gives us the first two notes, covering the missing "f". The two "d" notes are again achieved by pressing a G chord. Here s the line:

  G7       C                 G  C                F                 F  C
  g    f   e  e     e   e    d  c       c     c  a  a    a    a    d  c
She'll be coming round the mountain,  she'll be coming round the mountain,

The last line is kind of tricky because we need to get lots of different notes. It's only three originally, but when you strum a new chord for a single note, then you need to jump back to the old one for the next notes so it can suddenly end up being a lot of chord changes.

Here are the chords you need to press for the final line:

  G     F  G                    C     F   G   C      /   /  (/)
  b     a  g  g   g     g   d   c     a   b   c      e   c
she'll be coming round the mountain when she comes. Ha, ha

That last little bit is a nice "run" up to the final note.

Basic Scale

Following on the end of that last song, here is the basic C scale going up played using chords:

C G C F C F G C
c d e f g a b c

If you memorize this and practice picking in the correct areas of the autoharp, you'll be able to play the basic melody to any song no matter what the chord structure is. Combining it with the true chords will show you where you should use other chords to achieve the same note.

Arranging a Song

You don't have to play only the melody all the way thru the song.
You also don't have to just do a verse of only chords and then just do a verse of melody (although those are perfectly good options). You can mix them up between lines or even between phrases.

In fact, for playing a song for people, you'll want to go thru it several times. If you're singing, just do chords and don't worry about it much (unlss playng the actual notes helps you). If you're doing all instrumental, then play the melody first so folks know what song you're doing, then mix things up, and end with a fairly strong melody arrangement at the end.

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