Plucked
100-541: [REDACTED] Look up harper in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. For the musician, see harpist . Harper may refer to: Names [ edit ] Harper (name) , a surname and given name and place names, for example: Harper Islands, Nunavut. Places [ edit ] in Canada Harper Islands , Nunavut Harper, Prince Edward Island In
200-757: A harp player Harper (film) , a 1966 film starring Paul Newman and Lauren Bacall Harper (publisher) , an American publishing house, the imprint of global publisher HarperCollins Harper College , a community college in Palatine, Illinois, USA Short name for harper by Harper's Bazaar Harper ( Forgotten Realms ) , a member of a fictional semi-secret organization See also [ edit ] Harper County (disambiguation) Harper Road (disambiguation) Harper Township (disambiguation) Harpers (disambiguation) Harper's (disambiguation) Harpers Ferry (disambiguation) Harp (disambiguation) Happer (disambiguation) Topics referred to by
300-413: A "normal" plucking point, producing a canonical harpsichord sound; the other has a plucking point close to the bridge, producing a reedier "nasal" sound rich in upper harmonics. A single string at a certain tension and length only produces one note. To produce multiple notes, string instruments use one of two methods. One is to add enough strings to cover the required range of different notes (e.g., as with
400-540: A cave painting in the Trois Frères cave in France depicts what some believe is a musical bow , a hunting bow used as a single-stringed musical instrument. From the musical bow, families of stringed instruments developed; since each string played a single note, adding strings added new notes, creating bow harps , harps and lyres . In turn, this led to being able to play dyads and chords . Another innovation occurred when
500-431: A challenge to instrument builders, as compared with instruments that are only plucked (e.g., guitar), because on bowed instruments, the musician must be able to play one string at a time if they wish. As such, a bowed instrument must have a curved bridge that makes the "outer" strings lower in height than the "inner" strings. With such a curved bridge, the player can select one string at a time to play. On guitars and lutes ,
600-411: A clock or bell. Electric string instruments, such as the electric guitar , can also be played without touching the strings by using audio feedback . When an electric guitar is plugged into a loud, powerful guitar amplifier with a loudspeaker and a high level of distortion is intentionally used, the guitar produces sustained high-pitched sounds. By changing the proximity of the guitar to the speaker,
700-423: A double-harp) with a third set of strings between them tuned to the missing chromatic notes. The strings are spaced sufficiently for the harpist to reach past the outer row and pluck an inner string when a chromatic note is needed. Some harps, rather than using pedal or lever devices, achieve chromaticity by simply adding additional strings to cover the notes outside their diatonic home scale. The Welsh triple harp
800-495: A feast; a third female is shown sitting on a chair holding a harp in her hands. This find indicates that the instrument in Armenia had its Armenian name in 4th century BCE. Tahmizyan also writes about this horn beaker in his book. This find is evidence that Armenians knew and even enjoyed playing the harp in 4th century BCE. On the famous Armenian Cilician silver beaker a man is painted surrounded with his wife and animals. Formerly
900-507: A half a pear shape using three strings. Early versions of the violin and fiddle, by comparison, emerged in Europe through instruments such as the gittern , a four-stringed precursor to the guitar, and basic lutes . These instruments typically used catgut (animal intestine) and other materials, including silk, for their strings. String instrument design was refined during the Renaissance and into
1000-512: 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
1100-461: A handful of times by major composers such as Mozart and Beethoven), and its use by Cesar Franck in his Symphony in D ;minor (1888) was described as "revolutionary" despite the harp having seen some prior use in orchestral music. In the 20th century, the pedal harp found use outside of classical music, entering musical comedy films in 1929 with Arthur "Harpo" Marx , jazz with Casper Reardon in 1934,
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#17328377837471200-498: A heavier metal winding produces a lower pitch than a string of equal length without a metal winding. This can be seen on a 2016-era set of gut strings for double bass. The higher-pitched G string is often made of synthetic material, or sometimes animal intestine, with no metal wrapping. To enable the low E string to produce a much lower pitch with a string of the same length, it is wrapped with many wrappings of thin metal wire. This adds to its mass without making it too stiff. The frequency
1300-515: 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
1400-484: A key part of orchestras – cellos, violas, and upright basses, for example, were now standard instruments for chamber ensembles and smaller orchestras. At the same time, the 19th-century guitar became more typically associated with six-string models, rather than traditional five-string versions. Major changes to string instruments in the 20th century primarily involved innovations in electronic instrument amplification and electronic music – electric violins were available by
1500-506: A key that plucks the string. Other musical instruments generate sound by striking the string. With bowed instruments, the player pulls a rosined horsehair bow across the strings, causing them to vibrate. With a hurdy-gurdy , the musician cranks a wheel whose rosined edge touches the strings. Bowed instruments include the string section instruments of the orchestra in Western classical music ( violin , viola , cello and double bass ) and
1600-527: A lute-like instrument came from Mesopotamia prior to 3000 BC. A cylinder seal from c. 3100 BC or earlier (now in the possession of the British Museum) shows what is thought to be a woman playing a stick lute. From the surviving images, theorists have categorized the Mesopotamian lutes, showing that they developed into a long variety and a short. The line of long lutes may have developed into
1700-432: A mixed electrical signal. Hollow body instruments can also be played acoustically, while solid body instruments must be amplified. The late-20th century Gravikord is a modern purpose-built electric double harp made of stainless steel based on the traditional West African kora . Harps vary globally in many ways. In terms of size, many smaller harps can be played on the lap, whereas larger harps are quite heavy and rest on
1800-575: 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 (Spanish/ Quechua : arpa ), also known as
1900-480: A new type of harp which had gut strings and semitone mechanisms like a reduced version of a single-action pedal harp; it was small and curved like the historical cláirseach or Irish harp, but its strings were of gut and the soundbox was much lighter. In the 1890s a similar new harp was also developed in Scotland as part of the popular revival of Gaelic culture . In the mid-20th century Jord Cochevelou developed
2000-435: A number of other instruments (e.g., viols and gambas used in early music from the Baroque music era and fiddles used in many types of folk music ). All of the bowed string instruments can also be plucked with the fingers, a technique called " pizzicato ". A wide variety of techniques are used to sound notes on the electric guitar , including plucking with the fingernails or a plectrum, strumming and even " tapping " on
2100-401: A performance. The frequency is inversely proportional to the length: A string twice as long produces a tone of half the frequency (one octave lower). Pitch can be adjusted by varying the tension of the string. A string with less tension (looser) results in a lower pitch, while a string with greater tension (tighter) results in a higher pitch. Pushing a pedal on a pedal steel guitar raises
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#17328377837472200-401: A performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some string instruments, like guitars , by plucking the strings with their fingers or a plectrum (pick) , and others by hitting the strings with a light wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow , like violins . In some keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord , the musician presses
2300-518: A researcher at Matenadaran, the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, Candidate in Arts. In her work pictures of the instrument can be found. In the first picture the man is playing the harp which is on his knees. In the second picture the harp is played by a man who has a crown on his head, from which we may conclude that the musician has royal status. His harp is bigger and leans on
2400-483: A variant of the modern Celtic harp which he referred to as the "Breton Celtic harp"; his son Alan Stivell was to become the most influential Breton harper, and a strong influence in the broader world of the Celtic harp. A multi-course harp is a harp with more than one row of strings, as opposed to the more common "single course" harp. On a double-harp, the two rows generally run parallel to each other, one on either side of
2500-632: A vessel in Nor Aresh and now preserved in the Erebuni Fortress , depicts a harp. Information about early medieval Armenian musical instruments has been found in Armenian translations of the Bible. In the past, the harp was played in the royal residences, in the royal recreation rooms. Sometimes not only the royal musicians, but the kings themselves played the instrument. Of course, in the past, harps did not have
2600-403: A violin scale is only about 13 inches (33 cm). On the shorter scale of the violin, the left hand may easily reach a range of slightly more than two octaves without shifting position , while on the bass' longer scale, a single octave or a ninth is reachable in lower positions. In bowed instruments, the bow is normally placed perpendicularly to the string, at a point halfway between the end of
2700-482: Is a method of playing on instruments such as the veena , banjo , ukulele , guitar, harp, lute , mandolin , oud , and sitar , using either a finger, thumb, or quills (now plastic plectra) to pluck the strings. Instruments normally played by bowing (see below) may also be plucked, a technique referred to by the Italian term pizzicato . Bowing (Italian: arco ) is a method used in some string instruments, including
2800-419: Is a technologically advanced instrument, particularly distinguished by its use of pedals, foot-controlled levers which can alter the pitch of given strings, making it chromatic and thus able to play a wide body of classical repertoire. The pedal harp contains seven pedals that each affect the tuning of all strings of one pitch-class . The pedals, from left to right, are D, C, B on the left side and E, F, G, A on
2900-515: Is a type of lute. Some Samudragupta gold coins show of the mid-4th century CE show (presumably) the king Samudragupta himself playing the instrument. The ancient veena survives today in Burma, in the form of the saung harp still played there. The harp was popular in ancient China and neighboring regions, though harps are largely extinct in East Asia in the modern day. The Chinese konghou harp
3000-482: Is called Song of Vardavar : Evidence for the instrument’s Armenian origin is the horn beaker with a feasting scene, kept at the Erebuni Museum : The beaker was found buried inside a large container, in the district of Nor Aresh next to Erebuni Fortress in 1968 during construction work. The calf horn beaker has pictures of people depicted on it, including a harpist: It depicts a man and three women participating at
3100-815: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Harpist 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 made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or concerts. Its most common form is triangular in shape and made of wood. Some have multiple rows of strings and pedal attachments. Ancient depictions of harps were recorded in Mesopotamia (now Iraq ), Persia (now Iran ) and Egypt , and later in India and China . By medieval times harps had spread across Europe. Harps were found across
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3200-594: Is documented as early as the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BCE), and became extinct during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 CE ). A similar harp, the Gonghu was played in ancient Korea, documented as early as the Goguryeo period (37 BCE – 686 CE ). While the angle and bow harps held popularity elsewhere, European harps favored the "pillar", a third structural member to support
3300-402: Is impractical. Instruments with a fingerboard are then played by adjusting the length of the vibrating portion of the strings. The following observations all apply to a string that is infinitely flexible (a theoretical assumption, because in practical applications, strings are not infinitely flexible) strung between two fixed supports. Real strings have finite curvature at the bridge and nut, and
3400-457: Is inversely proportional to the square root of the linear density: Given two strings of equal length and tension, the string with higher mass per unit length produces the lower pitch. The length of the string from nut to bridge on bowed or plucked instruments ultimately determines the distance between different notes on the instrument. For example, a double bass with its low range needs a scale length of around 42 inches (110 cm), whilst
3500-409: Is mainly used on electric instruments because these have a pickup that amplifies only the local string vibration. It is possible on acoustic instruments as well, but less effective. For instance, a player might press on the seventh fret on a guitar and pluck it at the head side to make a tone resonate at the opposing side. On electric instruments, this technique generates multitone sounds reminiscent of
3600-523: Is one of the five main divisions of instruments in the Hornbostel–Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification . Hornbostel–Sachs divides chordophones into two main groups: instruments without a resonator as an integral part of the instrument (which have the classification number 31, also known as 'simple'); and instruments with such a resonator (which have the classification number 32, also known as 'composite'). Most western instruments fall into
3700-670: Is one of the oldest string instruments. Ancestors of the modern bowed string instruments are the rebab of the Islamic Empires, the Persian kamanche and the Byzantine lira . Other bowed instruments are the rebec , hardingfele , nyckelharpa , kokyū , erhu , igil , sarangi , morin khuur , and K'ni . The hurdy-gurdy is bowed by a wheel. Rarely, the guitar has been played with a bow (rather than plucked) for unique effects. The third common method of sound production in stringed instruments
3800-416: Is one such instrument, and two other instruments employing this technique are the cross-strung harp and the inline chromatic harp . The cross-strung harp has one row of diatonic strings, and a separate row of chromatic notes, angled in an "X" shape so that the row which can be played by the right hand at the top may be played by the left hand at the bottom, and vice versa. This variant was first attested as
3900-409: Is the harp, which was played not just at ceremonies. The instrument was performed by solo performers as well as with the accompaniment of other instruments. The Armenian translation of the Bible gives a lot of information about early medieval Armenian musical instruments. The translators of the Bible use the name harp among other quite popular musical instruments. In Armenian a verb has been formed from
4000-406: Is to strike the string. The piano and hammered dulcimer use this method of sound production. Even though the piano strikes the strings, the use of felt hammers means that the sound that is produced can nevertheless be mellow and rounded, in contrast to the sharp attack produced when a very hard hammer strikes the strings. Violin family string instrument players are occasionally instructed to strike
4100-506: The Baroque period (1600–1750) of musical history. Violins and guitars became more consistent in design and were roughly similar to acoustic guitars of the 2000s. The violins of the Renaissance featured intricate woodwork and stringing, while more elaborate bass instruments such as the bandora were produced alongside quill-plucked citterns , and Spanish body guitars. In the 19th century, string instruments were made more widely available through mass production, with wood string instruments
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4200-721: The arpa de dos órdenes ("two-row harp") in Spain and Portugal, in the 17th century. The inline chromatic harp is generally a single-course harp with all 12 notes of the chromatic scale appearing in a single row. Single course inline chromatic harps have been produced at least since 1902, when Karl Weigel of Hanover patented a model of inline chromatic harp. Amplified (electro-acoustic) hollow body and solid body electric lever harps are produced by many harp makers, including Lyon & Healy , Salvi , and Camac . They generally use individual piezo-electric sensors for each string, often in combination with small internal microphones to produce
4300-455: The piano , which has sets of 88 strings to enable the performer to play 88 different notes). The other is to provide a way to stop the strings along their length to shorten the part that vibrates, which is the method used in guitar and violin family instruments to produce different notes from the same string. The piano and harp represent the first method, where each note on the instrument has its own string or course of multiple strings tuned to
4400-428: The saxophone and trumpet . The development of guitar amplifiers, which contained a power amplifier and a loudspeaker in a wooden cabinet , let jazz guitarists play solos and be heard over a big band. The development of the electric guitar provided guitarists with an instrument that was built to connect to guitar amplifiers. Electric guitars have magnetic pickups , volume control knobs and an output jack. In
4500-464: The tamburs and pandura . The line of short lutes was further developed to the east of Mesopotamia, in Bactria , Gandhara , and Northwest India, and shown in sculpture from the 2nd century BC through the 4th or 5th centuries AD. During the medieval era , instrument development varied in different regions of the world. Middle Eastern rebecs represented breakthroughs in terms of shape and strings, with
4600-688: The violin , viola , cello , and the double bass (of the violin family ), and the old viol family. The bow consists of a stick with a "ribbon" of parallel horse tail hairs stretched between its ends. The hair is coated with rosin so it can grip the string; moving the hair across a string causes a stick-slip phenomenon , making the string vibrate , and prompting the instrument to emit sound. Darker grades of rosin grip well in cool, dry climates, but may be too sticky in warmer, more humid weather. Violin and viola players generally use harder, lighter-colored rosin than players of lower-pitched instruments, who tend to favor darker, softer rosin. The ravanahatha
4700-486: The 1920s and were an important part of emerging jazz music trends in the United States. The acoustic guitar was widely used in blues and jazz , but as an acoustic instrument, it was not loud enough to be a solo instrument, so these genres mostly used it as an accompaniment rhythm section instrument. In big bands of the 1920s, the acoustic guitar played backing chords, but it was not loud enough to play solos like
4800-465: The 1960s and 1970s, such as fuzz pedals , flangers , and phasers , enabling performers to create unique new sounds during the psychedelic rock era. Breakthroughs in electric guitar and bass technologies and playing styles enabled major breakthroughs in pop and rock music in the 1960s and 1970s. The distinctive sound of the amplified electric guitar was the centerpiece of new genres of music such as blues rock and jazz-rock fusion . The sonic power of
4900-408: The 1960s, larger, more powerful guitar amplifiers were developed, called "stacks". These powerful amplifiers enabled guitarists to perform in rock bands that played in large venues such as stadiums and outdoor music festivals (e.g., Woodstock Music Festival ). Along with the development of guitar amplifiers, a large range of electronic effects units , many in small stompbox pedals, were introduced in
5000-877: The Americas where it was a popular folk tradition in some areas. 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 (animal tendons). Other materials have included gut (animal intestines), plant fiber, braided hemp, cotton cord, silk, nylon, and wire. In pedal harp scores, double flats and double sharps should be avoided whenever possible. 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
5100-566: The Andean harp was Juan Cayambe ( Pimampiro Canton , Imbabura Province , Ecuador ) The arpa jarocha is typically played while standing. In southern Mexico (Chiapas), 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 ('harp of the Llanos ’, or plains) and the arpa central ('of
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#17328377837475200-545: The Beatles 1967 single " She's Leaving Home ", and several works by Björk which featured harpist Zeena Parkins . In the early 1980s, Swiss harpist Andreas Vollenweider exposed the concert harp to large new audiences with his popular new age/jazz albums and concert performances. In the modern era, there is a family of mid-size harps, generally with nylon strings, and optionally with partial or full levers but without pedals. They range from two to six octaves, and are plucked with
5300-614: 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 ("light, vertical, angular harps"); while they became more elegant, they lost their structural rigidity. At the height of the Persian tradition of illustrated book production (1300–1600 CE), such light harps were still frequently depicted, although their use as musical instruments
5400-654: The Middle Ages and 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
5500-603: 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
5600-893: The United States Harper, former name of Costa Mesa, California in Orange County Harper, Illinois Harper, Iowa Harper, Kansas Harper, Kentucky Harper, Missouri Harper, Logan County, Ohio Harper, Ross County, Ohio Harper, Oregon Harper, Texas Harper, Utah Harper, Washington Harper, Wyoming Elsewhere Harper, Liberia Harper River in Canterbury, New Zealand Harper Adams University , Shropshire, United Kingdom. Court cases [ edit ] Harper v . Virginia Board of Elections , 383 U.S. 663 (1966), overruling Breedlove v . Suttles , 302 U.S. 277 (1937) Other uses [ edit ] Harper,
5700-463: 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. In Armenia , the harp has been used since the fourth century BCE. Common usages included weddings and funerals. The "horn beaker with a feast acene", found inside
5800-406: The action and strings of the piano were taken out of its box, it could still be played. This is not true of the violin , because the string passes over a bridge located on the resonator box, so removing the resonator would mean the strings had no tension. Curt Sachs also broke chordophones into four basic subcategories, "zithers, lutes, lyres and harps." Dating to around c. 13,000 BC ,
5900-459: The air inside it. The vibration of the body of the instrument and the enclosed hollow or chamber make the vibration of the string more audible to the performer and audience. The body of most string instruments is hollow, in order to have better sound projection. Some, however—such as electric guitar and other instruments that rely on electronic amplification—may have a solid wood body. In musicology , string instruments are known as chordophones. It
6000-473: The bare fingers or a plectrum, bowed or (in the Aeolian harp, for instance) sounded by wind. The confusing plenitude of stringed instruments can be reduced to four fundamental type: zithers, lutes, lyres, and harps. In most string instruments, the vibrations are transmitted to the body of the instrument, which often incorporates some sort of hollow or enclosed area. The body of the instrument also vibrates, along with
6100-437: The bow harp was straightened out and a bridge used to lift the strings off the stick-neck , creating the lute. This picture of musical bow to harp bow is theory and has been contested. In 1965 Franz Jahnel wrote his criticism stating that the early ancestors of plucked instruments are not currently known. He felt that the harp bow was a long cry from the sophistication of the civilizations of western Asia in 4000 BC that took
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#17328377837476200-487: The bridge can be flat, because the strings are played by plucking them with the fingers, fingernails or a pick; by moving the fingers or pick to different positions, the player can play different strings. On bowed instruments, the need to play strings individually with the bow also limits the number of strings to about six or seven; with more strings, it would be impossible to select individual strings to bow. (Bowed strings can also play two bowed notes on two different strings at
6300-421: The bridge, because of its motion, is not exactly nodes of vibration. Hence the following statements about proportionality are approximations. Pitch can be adjusted by varying the length of the string. A longer string results in a lower pitch, while a shorter string results in a higher pitch. A concert harp has pedals that cause a hard object to make contact with a string to shorten its vibrating length during
6400-501: The central area'). By the 2020s, three types of harps are typically found: A number of types of harps are found in Africa, predominantly not of the three-sided frame-harp type found in Europe. A number of these, referred to generically as African harps , are bow or angle harps, which lack forepillars joining the neck to the body. A number of harp-like instruments in Africa are not easily classified with European categories. Instruments like
6500-441: The difference is perhaps more subtle. In keyboard instruments, the contact point along the string (whether this be hammer, tangent, or plectrum) is a choice made by the instrument designer. Builders use a combination of experience and acoustic theory to establish the right set of contact points. In harpsichords, often there are two sets of strings of equal length. These "choirs" usually differ in their plucking points. One choir has
6600-472: 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. In the Americas, harps are widely but sparsely distributed, except in certain regions where
6700-468: The dynamic and timbre (tone colour) range of orchestras, bands, and solo performances. String instruments can be divided into three groups: It is also possible to divide the instruments into categories focused on how the instrument is played. All string instruments produce sound from one or more vibrating strings , transferred to the air by the body of the instrument (or by a pickup in electronically amplified instruments). They are usually categorised by
6800-542: 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 (e.g. the Utrecht Psalter ) 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,
6900-498: The fingerboard and the bridge. However, different bow placements can be selected to change timbre . Application of the bow close to the bridge (known as sul ponticello ) produces an intense, sometimes harsh sound, which acoustically emphasizes the upper harmonics . Bowing above the fingerboard ( sul tasto ) produces a purer tone with less overtone strength, emphasizing the fundamental , also known as flautando , since it sounds less reedy and more flute-like. Bowed instruments pose
7000-554: The fingerboard and using feedback from a loud, distorted guitar amplifier to produce a sustained sound. Some string instruments are mainly plucked, such as the harp and the electric bass . Other examples include the sitar , rebab , banjo , mandolin , ukulele , and bouzouki . In the Hornbostel–Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification , used in organology , string instruments are called chordophones. According to Sachs , Chordophones are instruments with strings. The strings may be struck with sticks, plucked with
7100-433: The fingers, largely using the same techniques used for playing orchestral harps. Though these harps evoke ties to historical European harps, their specifics are modern, and they are frequently referred to broadly as " Celtic harps " due to their region of revival and popular association, or more generically as " folk harps " due to their use in non-classical music, or as " lever harps " to contrast their modifying mechanism with
7200-502: The floor. Different harps may use strings of catgut , nylon , metal , or some combination. All harps have a neck , resonator , and strings , frame harps or triangular harps have a pillar at their long end to support the strings, while open harps , such as arch harps and bow harps , do not. Stringed musical instrument In musical instrument classification , string instruments , or chordophones , are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when
7300-494: The floor. Not only did Armenians play the instrument but also they created songs about it. Kh. Avetisyan and V. Harutyunyan wrote a song called My Sweet Harp which was quite popular. This analysis and researches with the historical and archaeological evidence leads to the conclusion that the harp existed and was widely used in Armenians’ everyday lives, including royal families. The instrument’s popularity has grown during
7400-401: The guitar, bass, violin, etc.) can be played using a magnetic field. An E-Bow is a small hand-held battery-powered device that magnetically excites the strings of an electric string instrument to provide a sustained, singing tone reminiscent of a held bowed violin note. Third bridge is a plucking method where the player frets a string and strikes the side opposite the bridge. The technique
7500-419: The guitarist can produce sounds that cannot be produced with standard plucking and picking techniques. This technique was popularized by Jimi Hendrix and others in the 1960s. It was widely used in psychedelic rock and heavy metal music . There are three ways to change the pitch of a vibrating string . String instruments are tuned by varying a string's tension because adjusting length or mass per unit length
7600-553: The harp traditions are very strong. Such important centeres 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
7700-448: The harp was played in royal castles. Sometimes not only musicians but also kings played the instrument. Of course, in the past harps did not have the sound range they have today but it is a fact that Armenians had the harp. Pictures of the harp can be found in People and Everyday Life ( Yerevan (1978) harvtxt error: no target: CITEREFYerevan1978 ( help ) ) scientific work of Astghik Gevorgyan,
7800-579: 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 4000 BCE, until the 17th century CE . Around 1900 BCE, arched harps in the Iraq-Iran region were replaced by angular harps with vertical or horizontal sound boxes. By the start of the Common Era, "robust, vertical, angular harps", which had become predominant in
7900-522: The instrument used by wandering minstrels for accompaniment. Iconographic evidence of the yaal appears in temple statues dated as early as 600 BCE. 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
8000-502: The larger pedal harp. The modern Celtic harp began to appear in the early 19th century in Ireland, shortly after all the last generation of harpers had all died-out, breaking the continuity of musical training between the earlier native Gaelic harping tradition and the revival of Celtic harp playing as part of the later Celtic revival . John Egan , a pedal harp maker in Dublin, developed
8100-478: The loudly amplified, highly distorted electric guitar was the key element of the early heavy metal music , with the distorted guitar being used in lead guitar roles, and with power chords as a rhythm guitar . The ongoing use of electronic amplification and effects units in string instruments, ranging from traditional instruments like the violin to the new electric guitar, added variety to contemporary classical music performances, and enabled experimentation in
8200-491: The modern era, particularly Myanmar 's saung -gauk , which is considered the national instrument in that country. Though the ancient Chinese konghou has not been directly resurrected, the name has been revived and applied to a modern newly invented instrument based on the Western classical harp, but with the strings doubled back to form two notes per string, allowing advanced techniques such as note-bending. The concert harp
8300-552: The modern era. The earliest harps and lyres were found in Sumer , 3500 BCE, and several harps were 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 as early as 3000 BCE. These murals show an arched harp , an instrument that closely resembles
8400-518: The name of the instrument: տաւղել which means to play the harp. The word has two meanings the second of which is stringed musical instrument which has the form of a triangular frame and this corresponds to the description of the musical instrument in Genesis 4:21 where it states Other uses of the word can be found in one of the songs of Grigor Narekatsi, a 10th century Armenian monk, medieval writer, and founder of Armenian Renaissance literature. The song
8500-520: The neck, and are usually both diatonic (sometimes with levers) with identical notes. The triple harp originated in Italy in the 16th century, and arrived in Wales in the late 17th century where it established itself in the local tradition as the Welsh harp ( telyn deires , "three-row harp"). The triple harp's string set consists of two identical outer rows of standard diatonicly tuned strings (same as
8600-402: The pitch of certain strings by increasing tension on them (stretching) through a mechanical linkage; release of the pedal returns the pitch to the original. Knee levers on the instrument can lower a pitch by releasing (and restoring) tension in the same way. A homemade washtub bass made out of a length of rope, a broomstick and a washtub can produce different pitches by increasing the tension on
8700-451: The player presses keys on to trigger a mechanism that sounds the strings, instead of directly manipulating the strings. These include the piano , the clavichord , and the harpsichord. With these keyboard instruments , strings are occasionally plucked or bowed by hand. Modern composers such as Henry Cowell wrote music that requires that the player reach inside the piano and pluck the strings directly, "bow" them with bow hair wrapped around
8800-482: The primitive technology and created "technically and artistically well-made harps, lyres, citharas, and lutes." Archaeological digs have identified some of the earliest stringed instruments in Ancient Mesopotamian sites, like the lyres of Ur , which include artifacts over three thousand years old. The development of lyre instruments required the technology to create a tuning mechanism to tighten and loosen
8900-404: The right. Pedals were first introduced in 1697 by Jakob Hochbrucker of Bavaria. In 1811 these were upgraded to the "double action" pedal system patented by Sébastien Erard. The addition of pedals broadened the harp's abilities, allowing its gradual entry into the classical orchestra, largely beginning in the 19th century. The harp played little or no role in early classical music (being used only
9000-427: The rope (producing a higher pitch) or reducing the tension (producing a lower pitch). The frequency is proportional to the square root of the tension: The pitch of a string can also be varied by changing the linear density (mass per unit length) of the string. In practical applications, such as with double bass strings or bass piano strings, extra weight is added to strings by winding them with metal. A string with
9100-448: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Harper . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harper&oldid=1246635139 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Place name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
9200-531: The same time, a technique called a double stop .) Indeed, on the orchestral string section instruments, four strings are the norm, with the exception of five strings used on some double basses . In contrast, with stringed keyboard instruments, 88 courses are used on a piano , and even though these strings are arranged on a flat bridge, the mechanism can play any of the notes individually. Similar timbral distinctions are also possible with plucked string instruments by selecting an appropriate plucking point, although
9300-399: The second group, but the piano and harpsichord fall into the first. Hornbostel and Sachs' criterion for determining which sub-group an instrument falls into is that if the resonator can be removed without destroying the instrument, then it is classified as 31. The idea that the piano's casing, which acts as a resonator, could be removed without destroying the instrument, may seem odd, but if
9400-429: The sound capabilities that they have today, but the evidence that Armenians had a harp is well established. Armenians have had the instrument of harp since ancient times. This proves that Armenians loved the harp and used it in their everyday life, at weddings and burials. According to YSC professor, scholar of Middle Ages, doctor of Arts N. Tahmizyan, many musical instruments kept their pre-Christian form; among them
9500-533: The string tension. Lyres with wooden bodies and strings used for plucking or playing with a bow represent key instruments that point towards later harps and violin-type instruments; moreover, Indian instruments from 500 BC have been discovered with anything from 7 to 21 strings. In Vietnam, a 2,000 year old, singularly stringed instrument made of deer antler was also discovered. Musicologists have put forth examples of that 4th-century BC technology, looking at engraved images that have survived. The earliest image showing
9600-449: The string with the stick of the bow, a technique called col legno . This yields a percussive sound along with the pitch of the note. A well-known use of col legno for orchestral strings is Gustav Holst 's "Mars" movement from The Planets suite. The aeolian harp employs a very unusual method of sound production: the strings are excited by the movement of the air. Some instruments that have strings have an attached keyboard that
9700-419: The strings, or play them by rolling the bell of a brass instrument such as a trombone on the array of strings. However, these are relatively rarely used special techniques. Other keyed string instruments, small enough for a strolling musician to play, include the plucked autoharp , the bowed nyckelharpa , and the hurdy-gurdy, which is played by cranking a rosined wheel. Steel-stringed instruments (such as
9800-404: The technique used to make the strings vibrate (or by the primary technique, in the case of instruments where more than one may apply). The three most common techniques are plucking, bowing, and striking. An important difference between bowing and plucking is that in the former the phenomenon is periodic so that the overtones are kept in a strictly harmonic relationship to the fundamental. Plucking
9900-562: The years and the harp has become an instrument that represents the emotional inner world of the Armenians. In India, the B in-Baia harp survives about the Padhar people of Madhya Pradesh . The Kafir harp has been part of Nuristani musical tradition for many years. The harp largely became extinct in East Asia by the 17th century; around the year 1000, harps like the vajra began to replace prior harps. A few examples survived to
10000-576: Was reaching its end. Marble sculptures of seated figures playing harps are known from the Cycladic civilization dating from 2800-2700 BCE. Mesolithic 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 200 BCE. Variants were described ranging from 14 to 17 strings, and
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