Harp
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be played in either a seated or standing position. Most commonly, harps are made of wood and are triangular in shape. Some have multiple rows of strings and pedal attachments.
Ancient depictions of harps were recorded in Mesopotamia, Persia and Egypt, and later in India and China. By medieval times, harps had spread across Europe. Harps are found across the Americas; in some regions, they are used in popular folk music traditions. Distinct designs also emerged from the African continent. Harps have symbolic political traditions and are often used in logos, including in Ireland.
Historically, strings were made of sinew. Other materials have included gut, plant fiber, braided hemp, cotton cord, silk, nylon, and wire.
In pedal harp scores, double flats and double sharps should be avoided whenever possible.
History
Harps have been known since antiquity in Asia, Africa, and Europe, dating back at least as early as 3000 BCE. The instrument had great popularity in Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, where it evolved into a wide range of variants with new technologies, and was disseminated to Europe's colonies, finding particular popularity in Latin America.Although some ancient members of the harp family died out in the Near East and South Asia, descendants of early harps are still played in Myanmar and parts of Africa; other variants defunct in Europe and Asia have been used by folk musicians in the modern era.
File:The Queen's gold lyre from the Royal Cemetery at Ur. C. 2500 BCE. Iraq Museum.jpg|left|thumb|The Queen's gold lyre from the Royal Cemetery at Ur, Iraq Museum, Baghdad
Origin
West Asia and Egypt
The earliest harps and lyres were found in Sumer, c. 2500 BCE, with several harps excavated from burial pits and royal tombs in Ur. The oldest depictions of harps without a forepillar can be seen in the wall paintings of ancient Egyptian tombs in the Nile Valley, which date from the mid 3rd millennium BCE. These murals show an arched harp, an instrument that closely resembles the hunter's bow, without the pillar that we find in modern harps.The Chang flourished in Persia in many forms from its introduction, about until the 17th century CE.
File:Bishapur zan, AO 26169.jpg|left|thumb|1A Sassanid era mosaic excavated at Bishapur
Around arched harps in the Iraq-Iran region were replaced by angular harps with vertical or horizontal sound boxes. The Kinnor was an ancient Israelite musical instrument in the yoke lutes family, the first one to be mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.
Its exact identification is unclear, but in the modern day it is generally translated as "harp" or "lyre", and associated with a type of lyre depicted in Israelite imagery, particularly the Bar Kokhba coins. It has been referred to as the "national instrument" of the Jewish people, and modern luthiers have created reproduction lyres of the kinnor based on this imagery.
By the start of the Common Era, "robust, vertical, angular harps", which had become predominant in the Hellenistic world, were cherished in the Sasanian court. In the last century of the Sasanian period, angular harps were redesigned to make them as light as possible ; while they became more elegant, they lost their structural rigidity. At the height of the Persian tradition of illustrated book production, such light harps were still frequently depicted, although their use as musical instruments was reaching its end.
Greece
Marble sculptures of seated figures playing harps are known from the Cycladic civilization dating fromSouth Asia
era paintings from Bhimbetka show harp playing. An arched harp made of wooden brackets and metal strings is depicted on an Indus seal. The works of the Tamil Sangam literature describe the harp and its variants, as early as Variants were described, ranging from 14 to 17 strings, and the instrument was used by wandering minstrels for accompaniment. Iconographic evidence of the yaal appears in temple statues dated as early as One of the Sangam works, the Kallaadam recounts how the first yaaḻ harp was inspired by an archer's bow, when he heard the musical sound of its twang.Another early South Asian harp was the ancient veena, not to be confused with the modern Indian veena which is a type of lute. Some Samudragupta gold coins show of the show the king Samudragupta himself playing the instrument. The ancient veena survives today in Burma, in the form of the saung harp still played there.
East Asia
The harp was popular in ancient China and neighboring regions. The Chinese konghou harp is documented as early as the Spring and Autumn period A similar harp, the Gonghu was played in ancient Korea, documented as early as the Goguryeo periodDevelopment
Europe
While the angle and bow harps held popularity elsewhere, European harps favored the "pillar", a third structural member to support the far ends of the arch and soundbox. A harp with a triangular three-part frame is depicted on 8th-century Pictish stones in Scotland and in manuscripts from early 9th-century France. The curve of the harp's neck is a result of the proportional shortening of the basic triangular form to keep the strings equidistant; if the strings were proportionately distant they would be farther apart.As European harps evolved to play more complex music, a key consideration was some way to facilitate the quick changing of a string's pitch to be able to play more chromatic notes. By the Baroque period in Italy and Spain, more strings were added to allow for chromatic notes in more complex harps. In Germany in the second half of the 17th century, diatonic single-row harps were fitted with manually turned hooks that fretted individual strings to raise their pitch by a half step. In the 18th century, a link mechanism was developed connecting these hooks with pedals, leading to the invention of the single-action pedal harp.
The first primitive form of pedal harps was developed in the Tyrol region of Austria. Jacob Hochbrucker was the next to design an improved pedal mechanism around 1720, followed in succession by Krumpholtz, Naderman, and the Erard company, who came up with the double mechanism, in which a second row of hooks was installed along the neck, capable of raising the pitch of a string by either one or two half steps. While one course of European harps led to greater complexity, resulting largely in the modern pedal harp, other harping traditions maintained simpler diatonic instruments which survived and evolved into modern traditions.
Americas
In the Americas, harps are widely but sparsely distributed, except in certain regions where the harp traditions are very strong. Such areas include Mexico, the Andean region, Venezuela, and Paraguay. They are derived from the Baroque harps that were brought from Spain during the colonial period. Detailed features vary from place to place.The Paraguayan harp is that country's national instrument, and has gained a worldwide reputation, with international influences alongside folk traditions. They have around 36 strings, are played with fingernails, and with a narrowing spacing and lower tension than modern Western harps, and have a wide and deep soundbox that tapers to the top.
The harp is also found in Argentina, though in Uruguay it was largely displaced in religious music by the organ by the end of the 18th century. The harp is historically found in Brazil, but mostly in the south of the country.
The Andean harp, also known as the Peruvian harp, or indigenous harp, is widespread among peoples living in the highlands of the Andes: Quechua and Aymara, mainly in Peru, and also in Bolivia and Ecuador. It is relatively large, with a significantly increased volume of the resonator box, which gives basses a special richness. It usually accompanies love dances and songs, such as huayno. One of the most famous performers on the Andean harp was Juan Cayambe
The arpa jarocha is typically played while standing. In southern Mexico, there is a very different indigenous style of harp music.
The harp arrived in Venezuela with Spanish colonists. There are two distinct traditions: the arpa llanera and the arpa central. By the 2020s, three types of harps are typically found:
- the traditional llanera harp, made of Cedar wood and has 32 strings, originally of the gut, but in modern times are of nylon. It is used to accompany both dancers and singers playing joropo music, a traditional form of Venezuelan music, also known as llanera music.
- the arpa central is strung with wire in the higher register.
- the Venezuelan electric harp
Africa
A number of harp-like instruments in Africa are not easily classified with European categories. Instruments like the West African kora and Mauritanian ardin are sometimes labeled as "spike harp", "bridge harp", or harp lute since their construction includes a bridge which holds the strings laterally, vice vertically entering the soundboard.
Armenia
In Armenia, stringed instruments such as the lyre have been use since ancient times; the lyre was documented in artwork on a silver goblet from Karashamb, Armenia in the 22nd-21st centuries B.C. The horizontal harp potentially dates back between 700 BC and the 5th-4th centuries BC.. The theory is that the instrument spread between the two locations, helped by such tribes as the Scythians.Common usages included weddings and funerals. The "horn beaker with a feast scene", found inside a vessel in Nor Aresh and now preserved in the Erebuni Fortress, depicts a lyre. Information about early medieval Armenian musical instruments has been found in Armenian translations of the Bible. In the past, the stringed instruments such as lyres and harps were played in the royal residences, in the royal recreation rooms. Sometimes not only the royal musicians, but the kings themselves were depicted in artwork playing the instrument.