"Excuse me, but is that a harp?"
If you think people ask this question when someone is performing on a small harp, imagine if that harp has wire strings!
While it may come as a surprise to some, I relish this question. It usually comes from someone with no pre-conceptions of my instrument. He or she may have only a vague idea that my wee harp resembles the big harp in the modern orchestra.
Just in case you, too, have wondered what makes a wire-strung harp unique, I offer the following description.
To begin with, yes, it is a harp. To be a bit more precise, we can call it a "Gaelic harp", and "Clarsach" is very appropriate as well. This instrument existed in Ireland and Scotland from about the 10th century right up until the early 18th century. It was often used to accompany poetry or the singing of psalms, as well as being used to fulfill the responsibilities of the clan harper.
This Gaelic harp was strung with metal strings, producing the "bell like ring" for which this harp is most famous. Brass appears to have been the historic metal used. Some modern Gaelic harp players today believe that gold strings may also have been in use historically. Recent experiments have uncovered the usefulness of strings made of silver, which add a special resonance in the bass range of the harp. As silver was more readily available and less expensive in Scotland and Ireland days of old, it is perhaps more likely that silver was used to supplement the brass wires.
Today some wire strung harps are strung with phosphor bronze or steel, although brass strings are by far more common. Some people characterize the brass strings as being warm and round in sound. Bronze strings tend to be more brash and bright. Silver strings produce a very warm, resonant bass. While some players believe gold gives a far better bass sound than brass, experiments to date show that gold strings produce more "upper harmonics" than the other metals, and thus can sound thin as they resonate.
Much of the quality of a harp's sound depends upon its size and other structural characteristics of the individual harp, in addition to the string material used. For instance, some wire strung harps are made with soundboxes carved from a single piece of wood, hollowed out so as to produce a harp made without glue joints. This will produce a harp with a different sound than one that is glued up of flat boards to produce the soundbox.
The strings of most wire strung harps, and on all the historical harps, fall directly from the tuning pin. There is no separate bridge nor any bridge pins.
An important characteristic of the wire strung harp is that it is played with fingernails, producing a very clear and bright attack. Many of today's players maintain this tradition of playing with their fingernails. The strings are tightly spaced (about ¸ inch apart) and the string tension is quite high, much higher than it is for gut or nylon. Thus, to "pull" on the string as one does with a finger pad technique can result in broken strings and lots of buzzing, not to mention sore fingers.
The wire strings must be at a very high tension to produce a good sound. For this reason, the wire strung harp is under more stress than its gut or nylon counterpart. A function of this fact is that the length of wire necessary to produce a certain tone is less than the length of gut required to produce the same tone. As a consequence, wire strung harps tend to be both smaller and more sturdily built than their gut counterparts. The soundboard in particular may be as much as 1/2 inch, or 10mm, thick.
This need for smaller, sturdy construction, on top of the fact that the strings are more closely spaced, results in wire harps being smaller than an equivalent gut or nylon harp. So, while a 32 string gut/nylon harp is a floor harp, the corresponding wire strung harp will be significantly smaller, and may require a stool to bring it up to playing position.
Another contrast with the nylon/gut harps is the absence of levers on nearly every wire strung harp ever made. Not only would running a wire string through a lever risk breakage, but the wire strings are very in-elastic. What this means in practical terms is that the point at which the string is "in tune" is very small as compared to the more elastic nylon or gut strings. Any lever used would have to be incredibly precise.
A few wire harps have "blades" on them, in place of levers. These look like small paddles driven into the wood of the harmonic curve next to each string. When the paddle is turned to make contact with the string, the string is shortened to produce a higher tone. There is still the problem of precision, but the strings are less liable to breakage. No wire strung harps had sharpening devices until the late 18th or early 19th century. For an instrument that had already been around for nearly 1,000 years, and was due to go extinct within decades, this was a late and in many respects minor modernism.
The historical wire strung harps are diatonic instruments. Many harpers, both today and as long ago as the 18th century, use the modern harmonies and cadences of the major and minor scale within the compass of the individual harp's tuning, which is often G Major and its relative minor. Through the use of traditional modes or scales, many harpers are able to bring interest and varied tonalities to the music. By the time the wire harper adds up the useful inversions of pentatonic, hexatonic and modal scales he or she has fully 20 "keys" to choose from.
© Cynthia Cathcart 2001. First published in Harplight, Spring 2001.
