Heavenly Harp.
I had the privilege of listening to the heavenly sound of a harp playing at the Roma Street Parkands, in Brisbane prior to Christmas. It is not commonly played as a single instrument in my experience so when the sweet, clear notes hovered above the noise of the crowd in the background, I was transfixed.
I have applied digital effects to this image which created appealing, soft textures which matched the mood of the evening.
Not only did this girl play the harp with skill and precision, she matched it with pitch perfect harmony as her lyrical voice drew many people closer, to enjoy the performance.
Harps are made up of individual strings which run at an angle to its soundboard and the strings are plucked by the players fingers. These instruments have been around since antiquity, mainly in areas such as Asia and Europe and they date all the way back to 3500 BC.
They were very popular in Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance and this is where they evolved into a few different varieties by using new techniques. Harps soon became popular in Latin America. Some variations disappeared but descendants of early harps are still played in Myanmar and in parts of Africa.
Harps vary quite considerably around the world with some being played on a musicians lap with the larger harps needing to rest on the floor due their weight and size. Catgut, nylon and metal is used to to string harps and sometimes a variation of the three mentioned here, are used.
Harps are basically triangular in shape and are primarily made of wood. The top ends of the strings are secured on the neck or crossbar and each one has a tuning peg to adjust the pitch. The strings run down to the sounding board and the resonating body and there, they are secured with knots. Eyelets protect each string from undue wear and tear. The pitch is determined by the distance between the tuning peg and the soundboard and the tension and weight of the string. The body of the harp is hollow so when a taut string is plucked, the body resonates, which causes the sound to be projected.
This image received different textural digital effects to the first one and hopefully you will appreciate the variety provided.
With early designs, a string could only play a single note before having to be re-tuned, which meant that harps were limited to playing in one key at a time before having to be manually re-tuned to play in another key. New technologies have provided effective remedies for this problem, such as the use of pedals at the base of the harp which alters the pitch of a string when pressed by foot.
THANK YOU FOR VIEWING. HAVE A GREAT DAY.