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I wasn't aware quite how popular the harp was until I started taking mine out with me. For all the interested folk who came and made my harp's acquaintance at some event or other, there are probably many more who wish they'd asked to have a go on her - I always used to before I had mine - and so I include here all the things I usually tell them:
In my case this is my celtic harp, Saeren. Saeren is a 30 string clarsach, which I built from a kit. There are available some lovely lap harps with 17 or so strings (Saeren has one of these for a little sister, Linnet, who lives in New England). These are dainty and portable, but limiting in range. There are also much bigger harps, from the elegant Flemish to the great concert harp, and the welsh triple harp. More strings than anyone really wants to have to tune, I feel. But I'm fondest of the celtic variety.
The short answer: yes, several years. The long answer: yes, several years, because I didn't take a woodworking course first and I was trying to get the proper tools as I went along, and I was working from a really unhelpful set of instructions.
Those are semitone hooks, except that on Saeren, just now, they aren't set up. Watch someone like Savourna Stevenson or Maire Ni Cathersaigh play harp, and you'll see them constantly flipping little levers at the top of the harp. These tighten the string just enough to raise the pitch by half a tone - enabling the player to play in any key and still get the 'accidentals'.
A new harp does - if you make one from a kit, you will find that it can take many months, if not a year or more, to settle and find its voice. During that time, yes, tuning will take what seems like forever, and you may wish you had taken up the three stringed balalaika instead. Once your harp finds its voice, tuning becomes less tricky, and a seasoned harp can hold its tune quite well.
There are probably as many ways to tune a harp as there are harpists. I keep mine to major C, with the red strings being C, and the blacks F.
I am. My harp, however, is built for right handed playing, as I didn't know till I finished her and started playing, which way round I would want her to be!
Saeren has her shoulder on her right (as you hold the harp) enabling easy right handed play, with the left hand doing bass and chords and the right hand doing the higher strings, and the harp against the player's right shoulder. I play her against my left shoulder, however, with my left hand doing the higher strings, and that's why I nearly have tuning pegs in my eye when I play her. Try out a few harps and figure which way feels comfortable to you before you commit to an instrument.
The harp is a lot like a keyboard; all the notes are laid out in a row. If you've ever picked a tune out on a piano with one finger, you can play some harp. Even the simplest melodies with simple two finger chords or arpeggios beneath them can enchant on a harp. Once the harp is in tune, that is. I maintain that it's impossible to make a tuned harp sound anything but lovely.
I thoroughly recommend:
Ardival Harps, Orchard House, Castle Leod, Strathpeffer, Ross-shire, IV14 9AA
They supply Tim Hobrough models and their own designs, including northern lyres and pictish harps such as the 'Rosemarkie' and larger 'Dupplin'. The pictish harps are triangular in shape, without the familiar curves, but are very fine small harps and very playable instruments, portable, and with good tone. They supply both finished harps and ready-to-sand kits, allowing some personal input without requiring specialist skill. They also conduct harp weeks, beginners' courses, etc, to start you playing.
If I were at a festival or similar event, probably. I used to ask to have a go on other peoples' harps any time I encountered one, and I can't remember ever being told 'No'.Perhaps it's part of the harpists lore that encouraging listeners to become players is all part of the job? Let's face it, if you want to try out on guitar, you can probably have a go on one belonging to a friend. We all know someone with an unused guitar in the corner of the room. Harps are harder to come by.
In mediaeval times, a storyteller or bard
could ask as reward for
his services a ring from the Queen and a harp from the King.
In times of religious revival, harpists were
made to bury their harps
in peat bogs, as instruments of profance and forbidden music.
Unplayable harps: If you take the trouble to look at pictures of harps in cartoons and on book covers (fantasy paperbacks are good for this) you will see that harps are very often shown with the strings running from the neck to the bow, and not connecting to the soundbox at all. Somebody wasn't looking properly!
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