Anyone Can Play a Harp with Confidence from the First Time They Try by Raphael Weisman

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Anyone Can Play a Harp with Confidence from the First Time They Try
by Raphael Weisman

A player at any level of skill can draw soothing music from a harp

It may seem daunting to imagine yourself playing a harp. But it really isn’t such an impossible task. To ease you into that possibility, let me share some perspectives with you. Learning to play the harp is like painting by numbers. You will get there by the end of this article.

When you think of a harp, the image in most people’s mind is the grand, gilded harp of the symphony orchestra. So it used to be. The popularity of Celtic music, and relaxing harp music, now widely available in recorded form, is replacing that image with ones much closer to the real ancestors of this beautiful instrument. Harps and lyres shown on coins, carvings, inscriptions and manuscripts are of the smaller, common, garden-variety of harp.

The folk harp is part of virtually every culture. David soothed the anguished soul of King Saul in the Bible. The Bards of ancient Europe played the Celtic harp. They plucked and sang their storysongs in the castles of kings and nobles, and played for their supper in the village inn. The harp was played in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Africa, Greece and Rome, too.

Legend reports that Apollo made the first harp/lyre from the dry carcass of a tortoise with a string of sinew still stretched across it. The guitar is named and descended from the Ancient Greek Kithara, a lyre. The lyre and the harp are brother and sister, the terms often used interchangeably. The difference between them is 90 degrees, the way the strings are placed relative to the sounding board.

Today, because harps are being mass produced abroad, more people have access to one (as with the guitar in the 1960’s). Locally manufactured handmade harps are also gaining in popularity, as more people take up playing the harp. Societies and festivals abound.

Small harps build musical confidence for children and beginners

The Kinder Lyre, often called the Kinder Harp, is our simplest, most basic harp. It is being played to and by countless children and adults alike - from before birth, through infancy and childhood - all the way through to the last breath.

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Author's Biography:

Posted on: March 15,2005

Email: raphael@harpsoflorien.com
Website: http://www.harpsoflorien.com