Some years back, George Foss (Captain Pentatonic) wrote a piece in the Autoharpoholic magazine called Going Pentatonic. He had retuned one (or more) of his Autoharps to a pentatonic scale and was successful at promoting this type of 'harp. After reading this I used a yard sale 'harp to make a pentatonic Autoharp and used it for a while before giving it to my brother. This was played as an Autoharp, with the chord bars, refelted of course, still on the instrument. I must agree with others who have said that once you remove the chord bars, an Autoharp is no longer an Autoharp, but becomes a zither.