Have you ever played a zither?

Hi Jerrel and All. Great topic. As you get more information, you may want to contact an active Autoharp historian living in Denver Colorado. I will be leading the hymns on my autoharp at church today. One item to consider in the choice of any instrument is the extreme difficulty of lugging it over hills and across river fords. The stagecoach just couldn't handle a piano.(smile) I started the autoharp while working on an Indian reservation in New Mexico in the early 1970's because it was portable. I have a wonderful image of the autoharp used in The Salvation Army.

Can't wait to hear what you've discovered! Perhaps there's some historians from the period, or music historians with KZfaq channels that would be willing to collab on this topic.

Fun topic! My hunch is they were played (poorly) to accompany church meetings and the like, and folks just got weary of the sound and started making fun. Never underestimate the power of shame influence minds and erase history. But teasing temperance dogooders might have been only one factor. (Be interesting to see if Mark Twain ever piled on, etc). Another reason might be the billion or so strings they need and the comparatively thin sound they make (honestly not much more than a lap dulcimer, which requires only a few strings and a tin ear to play). As I’m sure it’s clear, I’m not a huge fan of the instrument, though I don’t lack sympathy. I play the banjo, so I know a bit about the jokes people make. Still, even I have standards. I remember encountering a band of autoharp players in the dark at the Swannanoa Gathering one year- basically I ran for my life. You might contact Ron Pen at the University of Kentucky. He’s a right decent autoharp player and a fount of traditional music wisdom.

Hi bud just a heads up from your british compatriet the reason the zither disappeared from the history books as it were, is mainly because it went through a metamophosis and became the autoharp so you see it never really disappeared it just got better, what those old zither players wouldnt give to play the auto harp

I'd guess zither use fell a good deal along ethnic lines. And fell out of use as those ethnicities were Americanized and adopted English more widely. The zither doesn't seem to have significant roots in Scots-Irish traditions in North America (outside the mountain dulcimer, which is a curious mystery in itself), but was stronger among non English speaking European immigrants from places like Germany/Austria. Things like zither clubs were likely more common in such ethnic enclaves, and their existence may be the kind of minutia overlooked by historians documenting such communities, often decades after the fact. Especially historians who may not be particularly knowledgeable about music. I'd also guess that zithers may have not had significant adoption among popular touring musical acts, such as minstrel shows, which drew strongly from Afro/Scots-Irish traditions. Zither orchestras would have had limited appeal and viability outside their ethnic enclaves. That's not to say zithers were never adopted. Just that they probably saw weaker adoption than other portable instruments such as violin, banjo and guitar. I'd be curious to find how often zither based acts were successful in the early vaudeville era, which sometimes exploited the novelty of unusual instruments and acts successfully.

I grew up inthe 70s and i remember my folks record with carl somebody..quite popular in the day. That spy movie used a zither

What kind of Zither is that?I don't know anything of Zithers in the US but Sweden we used to have chord zithers and they were mainly used for accompanying often religious music. It was an instrument used in free church settings and was invented in the 1890s.

Have you spoken to any Amish people? Also it's possible they were removed from history during prohibition years. I can imagine them being used in Bordellos, played by women. In The UK, I'm fairly sure that the heirarchy of the Victorian era had them. Rather romantically, I can imagine one being played in the quarters of concubines in eastern countries when they spent time together.