A player at any level of skill can draw soothing music from a harp
It may seem daunting to imagine yourself playing a harp. But it really isn?t such an impossible task. To ease you into that possibility, let me share some perspectives with you. Learning to play the harp is like painting by numbers. You will get there by the end of this article.

When you think of a harp, the image in most people?s mind is the grand, gilded harp of the symphony orchestra. So it used to be. The popularity of Celtic music, and relaxing harp music, now widely available in recorded form, is replacing that image with ones much closer to the real ancestors of this beautiful instrument. Harps and lyres shown on coins, carvings, inscriptions and manuscripts are of the smaller, common, garden-variety of harp.

The folk harp is part of virtually every culture. David soothed the anguished soul of King Saul in the Bible. The Bards of ancient Europe played the Celtic harp. They plucked and sang their storysongs in the castles of kings and nobles, and played for their supper in the village inn. The harp was played in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Africa, Greece and Rome, too.

Legend reports that Apollo made the first harp/lyre from the dry carcass of a tortoise with a string of sinew still stretched across it. The guitar is named and descended from the Ancient Greek Kithara, a lyre. The lyre and the harp are brother and sister, the terms often used interchangeably. The difference between them is 90 degrees, the way the strings are placed relative to the sounding board.

Today, because harps are being mass produced abroad, more people have access to one (as with the guitar in the 1960?s). Locally manufactured handmade harps are also gaining in popularity, as more people take up playing the harp. Societies and festivals abound.

Small harps build musical confidence for children and beginners
The Kinder Lyre, often called the Kinder Harp, is our simplest, most basic harp. It is being played to and by countless children and adults alike?from before birth, through infancy and childhood?all the way through to the last breath.

There are no ?wrong? notes on the Kinder Lyre. All the notes of the scale harmonize, so when any two or more are played together, they always sound pleasing. It is tuned to a Pentatonic or 5-note scale (DEGABde), a scale used extensively in folk music from around the world. That scale has a very soothing and relaxing sound, a very ?Oriental? sound.

In Waldorf Education, a system founded by Rudolf Steiner, who explored and taught about the spiritual effects of this scale on the young child, the Kinder Lyre is introduced in the 1st grade. Often schools will buy the instruments as unfinished kits and complete them as a project. Many homeschooling families use the Kinder Lyre. Some make them from kits because they are so easy to learn and play. Many familiar folk songs are in this scale, like Old Lang?s Syne and Amazing Grace.

For adults who want a louder instrument than the Kinder Lyre and not yet ready for the larger folk harps (with their 8 note scale), there are mid-size models available as well, which is also a simple learning instrument (and relaxation agent) All pentatonic lyres encourage improvisation, so almost any plucking, stroking and strumming sounds pleasant. And combinations of all three are possible.

Lyres are a favorite with teachers, storytellers and older people who always wanted to play an instrument?but never could get around to it. Many people have told me they were drawn to the harp as a child, or they played piano as a child, but haven?t played an instrument since. Lyres are used in hospitals and schools around the country to help bring harmony into the lives of children and the elderly. This is really Harp Therapy at its most fundamental level, for both player and listener.

? copyright 2005, Raphael Weisman  http://www.harpsoflorien.com

_____________________________________________

Other resources:

How to make your own lyre: http://www.geocities.com/scalaska1/lyre1.html

harp kit: http://www.blessingscatalog.com/menu.cfm/CategoryID/28/ProductID/211/Music/Kinder_Lyre_Kit.cfm

harp kit: http://www.blueskymama.com/kinder_lyres.htm