Other Harps ­ All Harps Bright and Beautiful

We are all fortunate in that the world is rich with harps. Harps from China, Africa, South America, Europe, the British Isles and the United States join to create an entire landscape of harp music. The information below is a very cursory overview of some of the harps which are less well known in the United States.

Paraguayan Harp: South American harps are the Flamenco guitar of the harp world. Very lightly built, often quite large and with little sustain, these harps are perfectly suited to the lightening fast, percussive and animated style of Latin music.

African Harp: the oldest of all harps, thought to have originated in Egypt/Northern Africa, this harp is, in a very general way, "C" shaped with a large bowl covered by a soundboard at one end. African harps do not have a pillar and do have an absolutely unique sound.

Cross Harp: on this fully chromatic harp, one can play anything which can be played on a piano. Cross harps are the most widely flexible of all harps and a whole world of music which cannot be played on a pedal harp can easily be accommodated on a cross harp. The cross harp is experiencing a modern renaissance because it is so well suited to jazz and complex classical music. A cross harp consists of two courses which cross, like an interlaced "X". One course is tuned just like the standard traditional harp and the other is the sharps and flats. Our Cascade Creek Cross Harp, is an example of the instrument.

Welsh Triple Harp: the national instrument of Wales, the triple harp joins the cross harp as being the only two truly chromatic harps. As the name suggests, the triple harp has three essentially parallel courses of strings. The two outside courses are tuned just like the standard harp (like the white keys on a piano) and the center course contains the sharps and flats.

Double Harp: not surprisingly, the double harp is two courses of strings. Both are usually tuned identically and in modern times, both generally have a full set of sharping levers. Double harps have the same note available to them as do traditional harps but the technique of playing is quite different and the double harp opens up many playing options unavailable to traditional and pedal harps. Our Double Logan meadow Harp is an example of the instrument.

Bardic Harp: through the Renaissance and even into modern time, bardic harpers have been telling stories with their harps. The term "bardic" harp has come to be most commonly associated with small-bodied wire strung harps.

Gothic Harp: the primary addition to the harp made by the Irish was a large soundbox. Prior to that time, the soundbox of a harp was very small, not much larger than the pillar. These small boxed harps are now referred to as Gothic harps. Gothic harps also have a series of appendages called braes which add a sound like an Indian sitar to the harp.

David's Harp: whatever else David was, he was both a King and a musician. As a King, he was in a position to afford to own any and all types of instruments. During the time in which he lived (1010 ­ 970BC) and as a stringed instrument player, he can reasonably be assumed to have owned a harp, a lyre, a plucked psaltery (possibly called a qanun at the time) and a santir (the ancestor to the hammered dulcimer). The Egyptians of the period had large harps, approximately the size of modern 36­string lever harps though made very differently (and completely lacking a pillar). There is no surviving stone, papyrus or parchment likeness of David which shows him with a harp so no one really knows what he actually played. Generally, the myth has grown that he played something like a modern lap harp but it is worth knowing that the Egyptian harp was the primary harp of the day. Since no one can know, with certaintude, what King David actually played, this is probably one of those areas when a little poetic license is to be expected.

Lyre: just as the lute is not a guitar, the lyre is not a harp. A lyre is, essentially, "U" shaped and has a very limited soundbox if any. In some cases, a lyre has a thin wooden cross brace stabilizing the arms near the end and all the strings are of the same length. In comparison to the harp, the lyre has a very light, quiet voice. Additionally, because the lyre is not an especially mechanically stable design, it is difficult to get one to hold tuning. For exactly the same reasons that the guitar supplanted the lute, the harp supplanted the lyre and the lyre has faded into relative obscurity except as an instrument of historical interest.

Dulcimer: just as an aside, in our business we continue to be amazed at the number of people who will look at a stringed instrument ­ harp, plucked psaltery, bowed psaltery, hammered dulcimer ­ whatever, and call it a "dulcimer". William does recall reading somewhere that there was a time in Europe where stringed instruments were either violins, lutes or dulcimers ­ in other words, if it was not a lute or a violin, it was a dulcimer. We are, therefore, beginning to be of the opinion that if an instrument has strings and you do not have any idea what you are looking at, the accepted terminology must be "dulcimer"!

There are undoubtedly harps missed here and much more to say about each of those included. This introduction was designed to be just that. The joy of further exploration is your own!

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