The Harp

The harp is a stringed instrument which has its strings positioned perpendicular to the soundboard. The soundboard is the largest part of a string instrument's body. It produces sound by vibrating and transmits the vibrations of the strings to the air. Sounding boards are usually made of wood, and most instruments have two sounding boards, an upper and a lower one.
All harps have a neck, resonator and strings. Harp strings can be made of nylon (sometimes copper-wound), gut (more commonly used than nylon), or wire. The harp frame is made of wood.

Types of harps
The pedal harp, or concert harp, is large and modern, designed for classical music and played in solo, and in symphony orchestras. It has six and a half octaves (46 or 47 strings), weighs about 36 kg, and is approximately 1.8 m high. The tension of the strings on the sound board is roughly equal to 10 kilonewtons; kilonewtons are a force of sound. The lowest strings are made of copper or steel, the middle strings of gut, and the highest of nylon.
How they are played

The pedal harp uses the action of pedals to change the pitches of the strings. There are seven pedals, one for each note, and each pedal is attached to a rod or cable within the harp, which then connects within the neck. When a pedal is moved with the foot, small discs at the top of the harp rotate. The discs are pinned with two pegs that pinch the string as they turn, shortening the vibrating length of the string. The pedal has three positions. In the top position no pegs are in contact with the string and all notes are flat note. In the middle position the top wheel pinches the string, playing in a natural note. In the bottom position another wheel is turned, shortening the string again to create a sharp note. This is called the double-action pedal system.

The Electric harp

The electric harp is a concert harp, with microphone pickups at the base of each string and an amplifier. The electric harp is a little heavier than an acoustic harp, but looks the same.


Celtic harps and folk harps

The folk harp or Celtic harp is small to medium-sized and usually designed for traditional music; it can be played solo or with small groups. It is prominent in Irish, Scottish and other Celtic cultures within traditional or folk music and as a social and political symbol. Often the folk harp is played by beginners who wish to move on to the pedal harp at a later stage, or by musicians who simply prefer the smaller size or different sounds.

Double Harp
A double harp consists of two rows of diatonic (a seven-note musical scale) strings one on either side of the neck. These strings may run parallel to each other so the bottom ends of the strings are very close together. Either way, the strings that are next to each other are tuned to the same note. Double harps often have levers either on every string or on the most commonly sharped strings, for example C and F. Having two sets of strings allows the players left and right hands to play the same range of notes without having both hands try to play the same string at the same time.

Triple Harp
A triple harp features three rows of parallel strings, two outer rows of diatonic (a seven-note musical scale) strings, and a center row of chromatic ( a scale that has all 12 pitches) strings. To play a sharp, the player reaches in between the strings in either outer row and plucks the center row string. Like the double harp, the two outer rows of strings are tuned the same, but the triple harp has no levers. This harp originated in Italy in the 16th century as a low headed instrument, and towards the end of 1600’s it arrived in Wales where it developed a high head and larger size. It became a part of Welsh tradition and became known as the Welsh harp. The traditional design has all of the strings strung from the left side of the neck, but modern neck designs have the two outer rows of strings strung from opposite sides of the neck to greatly reduce the tendency for the neck to roll over to the left.


Cross-strung harp
The cross-strung harp consists of one row of diatonically tuned strings (strings tuned to a seven note musical scale) and another row of chromatic (a scale that has all 12 pitches) notes. These strings cross approximately in the middle of the string without touching. Traditionally the diatonic row runs from the right side of the neck to the left side of the sound board. The chromatic row runs from the left of the neck to the right of the sound board. The diatonic row has the normal string for a harp, but the chromatic row may be black. The chromatic row is not a full set of strings. It is missing the strings between the Es and Fs in the diatonic row and between the Bs and Cs in the diatonic row.

Harp History
The harp is the oldest known stringed instrument. The word "harpa" or "harp" comes from an Old German word meaning "to pluck". By the 13th century the name was being used specifically to the harp. The oldest references to the harp are from 4000 BC in Egypt and 3000 BC in Mesopotamia (region now occupied by modern Iraq, eastern Syria, and southeastern Turkey).
No one really knows where the harp originated and we will never know what harp music sounded like in the pre-historical time. One of the earliest musical instrument discoveries showed a harp-like instrument on rock paintings dating back to 15,000 BC in France. Many believe that the earliest harps came from the sound of the hunter's bow.
In Egypt, some of the earliest paintings of bow harps are from the Pharaoh's tombs about 5,000 years ago. These hieroglyphs (ancient Egyptian writing methods) show that there were many harps in ancient Egypt. The harps measured up to 2 metres in height with 19 strings and were played seated or standing up.
The lever harp came about in the second half of the 17th century to enable key changes while playing. The player manually turned a hook or lever against an individual string to raise the string's pitch by a semitone. In the 1700s, a link was developed to connect these hooks with pedals, leading to the invention of the single-action pedal harp. Later on, a second row of hooks was installed along the neck to allow for the double-action pedal harp, capable of raising the pitch of a string by either one or two semitones. With this final improvement, the modern concert harp was invented.