57 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
57 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
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HARP
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The harp is a chordophone (stringed musical instrument) consisting of a
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set of parallel strings stretched between a resonator and a neck that are
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joined together at one end.
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The plane of the strings is perpendicular to the resonator; by contrast,
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the strings of the other major categories of chordophones (lutes, lyres, and
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zithers), run parallel to the resonator. Harps of antiquity and primitive
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cultures are generally pillarless; on the other hand, the frame harp, which
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has been favored by European musicians, has a pillar that braces the open end
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of the angle formed by the resonator and neck. This arrangement allows for a
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greater string tension and, consequently, a higher pitch relative to size.
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The modern orchestral harp stands approximately 170 cm high (5.5 ft) and
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has the largest range in the orchestra: more than 5 1/2 octaves (the lowest
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note is C flat below the bass staff). Its structure consists of a tapering,
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hollow body covered with a thin soundboard (the resonator), a doubly curved
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neck that carries the tuning pins, and a straight, hollow pillar. At the base
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of the harp are seven pedals, one for each degree of the diatonic scale.
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rotating pronged discs placed under the strings on the neck, enable the
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player to raise the pitch of all of the strings for each degree of the scale
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either a semitone (pedal at half hitch activating discs in the first row) or
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a whole tone (pedal fully depressed activating discs in the second row); the
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instrument is thus totally chromatic (a sequence of notes proceeding by
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semitones). The harp is strung in gut or nylon in the upper and middle
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registers. The bass strings are of overspun wire.
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Pillarless arched harps (in which the neck is merely a curved extension of
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the resonator) and angular harps (in which the neck is a separate part
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attached at one end to the resonator) were prevalent in ancient Egypt and
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Mesopotamia. Although known to the Greeks, the harp was eclipsed in classical
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times by instruments of the LYRE family. The frame harp is believed to have
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come into Europe from a northern, possibly Ugro-Finnic, source and appears
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to have been developed early, particularly by the Irish. The short medieval
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harp with outcurving pillar so widely represented in iconography from the 8th
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century on was supplanted from about the mid-15th century by the much
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narrower Gothic harp with a nearly straight pillar, indicating increased
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string tension. Attempts to provide chromatic tones were made from the 16th
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strings. In the late 17th century the hook harp emerged; when metal hooks
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that were set into the neck near the tuning pins were turned, they pressed
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against the strings and raised the pitch by a semitone. Development of
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various pedal mechanisms during the 18th century resulted ultimately in the
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patent granted to Sebastien Erard in 1810 for the modern double action pedal
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system. Although the harp had fallen into disuse, except as a novelty
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instrument, long before the development of the orchestra of the classical
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period, the chromatic flexibility offered by the pedal harp along with an
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increasing thirst for orchestral color made the harp increasingly appealing
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to composers in the 19th century. As a result, the harp became a regular
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member of the orchestra of Berlioz, Wagner, and Tchaikovsky. NICHOLAS RENOUF
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Bibliography: Rensch, Roslyn, The Harp (1969); Rimmer, Joan, The Irish
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Harp (1969).
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