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I got the G-D diatonic autoharp completely restrung over the last few days. With 36 steel strings, having to remove each old string and then having to slide each one under the chord bars, that takes a while. This time was worse than usual.

The old strings were very old. I decided to restring the whole thing because the harp just didn't sound good, no matter how in tune the strings were. Harsh is probably the best word for what I was hearing. The strings were all, to a greater or lesser degree, corroded, fragile, and/or stubbornly set in their ways. I had to use my small pliers and a good bit of force to get some of the strings out of the string anchor; and some of the strings broke in a way that left just enough in the pegs that getting ahold of the bits to get them out was challenging. Of course, those bits had to be removed before a new string could be fed through the hole and the peg tightened.

So it took a while!

But now all the strings are new and shiny, and each one sounds a lot better than the one it replaced. If played one at a time, which, of course, is not how you play an autoharp. 36 steel strings put a lot of tension on the frame, which, once the strings have settled in means the weather doesn't pull an autoharp out of tune nearly as much as a guitar. Not having tuning pegs designed for fingers also helps, since no light bump will detune a string. Usually you can let autoharp strings remain for quite a while, unless they break, and all instrument strings break from time to time. I have gotten pretty good at replacing one string at a time and manually stretching it so it settles down pretty quickly.

But all new strings? All stretching and settling in at the same time? It's going to be a while before I get the thing enough in tune to play a whole song without wincing. And then I bet I'll have to retune it after each song for a bit, since the strings will stretch differently in response to being played at first.

So I'm once again remembering my sister's adage: Slow progress is still progress.

Still, I am happy to have gotten this far. Maybe tomorrow I'll replace the strings on the guitar I play most often. Those strings don't sound as good as they used to either. And it won't take anywhere near so long to retune and get the strings settled in!


Update: This evening's retuning wasn't as bad as I expected. Maybe I did a better job of stretcing them as I put them in than I thought! Fingers crossed!