Lever harps are often tuned to the key C or E-flat.

One who plays the smaller Irish or folk harps is often referred to as a " harper " rather than the more formal " harpist " title, which is used for players of concert or pedal harps.

The majority of Tenney's mature works ( post-1964 ) are instrumental pieces, often for unconventional instrumental combinations ( e. g. Glissade for viola, cello, double bass and tape delay system ( 1982 ), Bridge for two pianos eight hands in a microtonal tuning system ( 1982 – 84 ), Changes for six harps tuned a sixth of a tone apart, 1985 ) or for variable instrumentation ( Critical Band, 1988, In a Large Open Space, 1994 ).

The original 1911 version of Petrushka is scored for 4 flutes ( 3rd and 4th doubling piccolo ), 4 oboes ( 4th doubling English horn ), 3 clarinets in B flat, bass clarinet in B flat ( doubling clarinet 4 ), 3 bassoons, contrabassoon ( doubling bassoon 4 ), 4 horns in F, 2 trumpets in B flat ( often doubling piccolo trumpet ), 2 cornets in B flat and A, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, 2 snare drums ( one offstage ), tambourine ( tambour de Basque ), tenor drum ( tambourin ) ( offstage ), triangle, tamtam, glockenspiel, xylophone, piano, celesta, 2 harps and strings.

The wood is often used by luthiers for harps and other instruments, such as bass guitars, because of its mellow and well-rounded sound.

All harps have a neck, resonator and strings.

Some, known as frame harps, also have a pillar ; those without the pillar are referred to as open harps.

In those harps which have pedals, this side is a hollow column and encloses the rods which control the pedal mechanisms.

Lever harps, however, do not have pedals or rods, and the pillar's only purpose in these instruments is to hold up the neck against the great strain of the strings.

Paraguayan harps and harp music have gained a worldwide reputation, with international influences alongside folk traditions.

Paraguayan harps have a wide and deep soundbox which tapers to the top.

They do not have forepillars and are either bow harps or angle harps.

Most European-derived harps have a single row of strings with strings for each note of the C Major scale ( over several octaves ).

The fifth finger may also have been used on earlier, more lightly strung modern harps: Madame de Genlis, for example, in her Méthode, published in Paris in the early nineteenth century, promotes the use of all five fingers, while Roslyn Rensch suggests that Mlle de Guînes, the harpist for whom Mozart wrote his Concerto for Flute and Harp, might occasionally have used all five fingers when playing the harp.

Debussy can be said to have put the harp on the map in his many works that use one or more harps.

Folk harps with levers installed have a lever close to the top of each string ; when it is engaged, it shortens the string so its pitch is raised a semitone, resulting in a sharped note if the string was a natural, or a natural note if the string was a flat.

Many smaller folk harps are tuned in C or F, and may have no levers, or levers on the F and C strings only, allowing a narrower range of keys.

There are several stone carvings of triangular harps from the 10th century, many of which have simple triangular shapes, generally with straight pillars, straight string arms or necks, and soundboxes.

As performers have become interested in the instrument, harp makers (" luthiers ") such as Jay Witcher, David Kortier, Ardival Harps, Joël Herrou and others have begun building wire-strung harps.

The laser harp is not a stringed instrument at all, but is a harp-shaped electronic instrument that has laser beams where harps have strings.

Some contemporary players of these modern electric harps, especially solid body and minimalist design instruments, have been able to add the advantage of movement on stage into their musical performance.

For example, small Scottish and Irish harps can be held on the lap, while some ancient Sumerian lyres appear to have been as tall as a seated man ( see Kinsky ; also Sachs, History ..., under " References ").

Regarding the number of strings, the standard 88-key piano has many more strings than even the largest harp, and harps have many more strings than lyres.

A typical millstone will have six, eight or ten harps.

Since the Breton folk music revival, Scottish bagpipes and Irish harps have been added to the Breton repertoire, though Brittany retains its own unbroken piping traditions as well as mainstay instruments such as the bombard.

Finally, many harps are built without either pedals or levers.

One of the attendant problems with lever harps is the potential loss of quality when the levers are used.

In addition, Lyon & Healy makes smaller versions of the harp, which are known as folk harps ( based on traditional Irish instruments ) or lever harps ( which use levers to change the pitch of the string rather than pedals ).

Many modern Western harps include levers, either directly moved by fingers ( on Celtic harps ) or controlled by foot pedals ( on orchestral harps ), to raise the pitch of individual strings by a fixed amount.

# Double basses, cellos and harps ( when more than one used, e. g. Ring ) are split into groups and placed on either side of the pit

The music played to accompany the dance was written to be danced to and its played either by mariachi bands or by bands playing only string instruments such as various types of guitars, harps and violin.

The most popular models are either single-sided or double-sided Echo harps, but the single-sided ones can be combined into quadruple or sextuple ' corncob ' setups, with a different key on each row.

Principal instrument types are two-or three-stringed lutes, the necks either fretted or fretless ; fiddles made of horsehair ; flutes, mostly open at both ends and either end-blown or side-blown ; and jaw harps, mostly metal.

True electric harps have a solid body versus a hollow body electro-acoustic harp, which can be played either acoustically or electronically.

On smaller harps, like the folk harp, the core string material will typically be the same for all strings on a given harp.

Lever harps use a shortening lever ( usually shaped like a capital letter L ) on the neck next to each individual string which is to be activated ( i. e., turned ) manually to shorten the string and raise the tone a half step.

These harps can only play in a single key during any given performance, though any string on a harp can be tuned to a corresponding sharp or flat before a performance and then be returned to its regular tension ( key ) afterwards with little effort.

The Welsh triple harp and early Irish and Scottish harps, however, are traditionally placed on the left shoulder.

The first four fingers of each hand are used to pluck the strings ; the little fingers are too short and cannot reach the correct position without distorting the position of the other fingers, although on some folk harps with light tension, closely spaced strings, they may occasionally be used.

The greatest influence on use of the harp has always been the availability of fine harps and skilled players, and the great increase of them in the U. S. of the 20th century resulted in its spread into popular music.

Recently Florence Welch has begun to incorporate harps into her songs, notably on " Rabbit Heart ( Raise It Up )".

The most common size has 34 strings: Two octaves below middle C and two and a half above ( ending on A ), although folk or lever harps can usually be found with anywhere from 19 to 40 strings.

With these light strong instruments and modern wireless amplification these musicians can easily play standing up, move, and even incorporate dance on stage while playing their electric harps.

The harp was adopted as a symbol of the Kingdom of Ireland on the coinage from 1542, and in the Royal Standard of King James ( VI of Scotland / I of England ) in 1603 and continued to feature on all English and United Kingdom Royal Standards ever since, though the styles of the harps depicted differed in some respects.

* Your harpist-Information on harps full with diagram and parts labeled.

* The Celtic Harp Page-information on Celtic and other types of harps

" Another emphasis on the musicality of the poem came in August 1834, with Henry Nelson Coleridge analysis in the Quarterly Review: " In some of the smaller pieces, as the conclusion of the ' Kubla Khan ', for example, not only the lines by themselves are musical, but the whole passage sounds all at once as an outburst or crash of harps in the still air of autumn.

By the 1970s, L & H decided to concentrate solely on the creation and sale of harps.

Much of the score was performed on Elliott's bassoon, and also included the sounds of harps, clarinet, glockenspiel and bells.