Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
John Egan was an Irish musical instrument maker active during the years 1804 to 1838, [1] who is considered by many as the father of the modern Irish harp. According to Simon Chadwick, honorary secretary of the Historical Harp Society of Ireland, "The ancient Irish harp tradition, which goes back to medieval times, was dying out around 1800 ...
It is an early Irish harp or wire-strung cláirseach. It is dated to the 14th or 15th century and, along with the Queen Mary Harp and the Lamont Harp, is the oldest [1] of three surviving medieval harps from the region. [2] The harp was used as a model for the coat of arms of Ireland and for the trade-mark of Guinness stout.
After the medieval harp, the Gothic harp became the popular style of harp in the Renaissance. These harps grew to be larger with more strings. Brays were added for resonance on lower bass strings. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, harp makers in Europe added levers and other mechanisms to increase chromatic capability of the ...
Cycladic culture harp player, 2800–2700 B.C. Harps probably evolved from the most ancient type of stringed instrument, the musical bow.In its simplest version, the sound body of the bowed harp and its neck, which grows out as an extension, form a continuous bow similar to an up-bowed bow, with the strings connecting the ends of the bow.
In 1982, Gerhard Kubik (1982) took a harp classification system devised by Klauss Wachsmann typology to show possible ways that the bow harp spread in Africa. From Egypt, the harp may have spread south up the Nile through the empire of Cush (c.600 BC - c.350 AD) and in a precursor of the "spoon in the cup" type during the course of the 1st ...
The cross-strung harp or chromatic double harp is a multi-course harp that has two rows of strings which intersect without touching. While accidentals are played on the pedal harp via the pedals and on the lever harp with levers, the cross-strung harp features two rows so that each of the twelve semitones of the chromatic scale has its own string.
See: Telyn harps The harp is the national instrument of Wales, with an unbroken line of harpers reaching back to at least the 11th century.Little is known of the origins of these early instruments, although small details such as poems are recorded, decrying the use of the new-fangled gut strings, as opposed to the traditional strings of plaited horse hair.
The Celtic harp also had a reinforced curved pillar and a substantial neck, flanked with thick brass cheek bands. The strings are plucked with long fingernails. [40] This type of harp is also unique amongst single row triangular harps in that the first two strings tuned in the middle of the gamut were set to the same pitch. [41]