I own, oh, about seven autoharps. What can I say, it's an addiction.

Actually, it's not. Rather, I put my autoharps to the test. I don't know of any other autoharper out there who works their instruments as hard.

Don't get me wrong, thinking I'm bragging. It's not that. It's just that I work at Renaissance festivals. Faires are extremely demanding physically, mentally, and to my autoharps. The ones I play are usually hot and humid. This wrecks havoc on my autoharp strings.

In fact, several years ago I brooke 22 autoharp strings in one weekend!

Can you imagine?

I think that was the weekend when we were performing at the Texas Renaissance Festival. It was in the high-90s with about 70% humidity all weekend. I was sweating like a dog. My House of Dra Cossak shirt was drenched. It was late afternoon when I broke three strings, two in one song. This was annoying.

Then we were playing “The Mermaid Song” when a G-string broke. Maybe it was the horror of the joke to follow if I broke another G-string. Or maybe it was Andrew just trying to protect his life. My string snapped and fly straight towards him.

It was like something out of The Matrix. Playing his recorder, Andrew leaned back almost 90 degrees, the music still pumping. He was still playing.

Fortunately that show ended soon. Twenty-two autoharp strings in one sitting is no inexpensive deal. The strings cost like $3 each if you're lucky! We didn't even make sixty bucks in tips that weekend. Good thing we were fairly well paid.

That said, what kind of autoharps do I own?

I own a wide variety. I have a few autoharp reviews on my Autoharp Music Tips website. Just check out the site. It'll tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the autoharp… or if it not, it'll tell you were to go to get the info!