The Müller's Accordzither Erato and my ambitious plans with it

Hi there!

Welcome to my blog! This blog will describe the journey of a total beginner into the world of autoharp restoration.

So first of all, a bit about me and how I got here. When I was little, I wanted to be a piano tuner. When I found out that that was not a very good idea since I am not a very practical person, I decided that playing the piano was enough. And then I wanted to play the violin, so I got a violin. Then I wanted to play the autoharp, so I got an autoharp. This says two things about me, I think. First of all, I love learning new things. Second, the weirder and more complicated a musical instrument, the more I will want to be able to play it. You can imagine my utter delight when I found an antique autoharp which had been stored in an attic for three generations and when the owner actually let me take it home.

The 'harp in its case

She told me she inherited it from her parents, whom had inherited it from her grandparents. She had never heard any of them play it, and while I was gawking at the gorgeous (and very dusty) autoharp, she said 'I have never even seen anyone really look at it, I think.' At that moment, I decided this autoharp deserved the loving touch it had missed for so long (I know, so cheesy).

The crack in the back

So let me tell you a little bit about the autoharp and the state that it's in. Its full name is "Müller's Accordzither Erato": Müller being the manufacturer, Accordzither being a term for autoharp and Erato being the name of the model. It was manufactured around 1900. I am planning on writing an entire blog post about Müller and the history of this particular model, so I will get into that later on.

The 'harp came with a black wooden case, which it had been stored in the last three generations, so it is definitely old and it also needs some repairs. I would like to believe it is the original case from 1900, but there is no way I can prove that. At the moment, I am planning on restoring the case as well, so that I can actually carry the 'harp to places.

The chord box which almost comes apart

There are a lot of things that need repairing. The screws in the chord box are rusty and have gotten loose, it definitely needs new strings and new felt, the tuning pins are stuck and the most worrying thing is the crack at the back of the sound box. Furthermore, I have no idea what I will find when I open up the chord box, it's entirely possible that there are rusty or missing springs or broken chord bars.. I have literally no idea. Very exciting. And terrifying.

The rusty tuning pins

Since I have never done such a thing before, I started by researching autoharp restoration on the internet. Fortunately, I am not the only one who gets really excited from old and broken autoharps, so I found some experts in the field who described how they restored similar models on their blogs. I contacted a few and to my delight, I actually received excited and very informative responses from them. With all this information in mind, I have come up with a basic action plan. Because I do not know exactly what I will find and how it's going to go, I will update the plans as I go, but I wanted to break up the project into little projects in order to keep myself motivated:

 - Project 1: Removing the chord box, the strings and maybe the tuning pins. Cleaning the entire thing.
- Project 2: Repairing the crack in the back
- Project 3: Tuning pins: either replacing them or cleaning them up and reinstalling them
- Project 4: Replacing the strings
- Project 5: The chord box project (which is still a mystery, but this will at least include replacing the screws and identifying the chords where the helpful little charts are missing)
- Project 6: New felt
- Project 7: Installing the repaired chord box
- ...?

The case

- Project X (can be done at any moment, I expect it will happen when I get stuck or bored with restoring the 'harp itself): Repainting the case and adding a handle.

Since I have a job ánd play in a band ánd edit a magazine I would like to make a little disclaimer: I have no idea how long this entire project will take and I have no idea how much I will update this blog. You can subscribe below, so that you will receive an e-mail when I make a new post.

And the last thing I want to say before I finish this (way too long.. that will probably be happening a lot) blog post: if you have tips or questions or comments or if you have interesting information about the Müller factory or this particular model, please do not hesitate to contact me because I love talking with fellow enthusiasts!

Much love,
Lian