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Harp History

Fascination for the Harp - Throughout history the harp has been used in public and religious ceremonies.  The Celts felt it so important, that their harpists were spared any other responsibilities so that they would not hurt their hands. The harp is the oldest known stringed instrument.  The word "harpa" or "harp" comes from Anglo-Saxon, Old German, and Old Norse words meaning "to pluck".  By the 13th century the term was being applied specifically to the triangular harp as opposed to the lyre harp.  The earliest Gaelic term for a wire-strung instrument was "cruit" was applied specifically to the harp by 1200.  A later word used in Scotland and Ireland for the "Celtic" harp was clarsach or cláirseach.  Scottish records of the 15th and 16th centuries show that both the terms "harp" and "clarsach" were in use at the same time, and seem to indicate that there was a distinction between the gut-strung European-style harps and wire-strung Gaelic clarsachs. Today, we know the Gaelic harps as the Irish, Celtic, Folk, Scottish Clarsach or the modern lever harp.  Most folk harps are strung with a combination of nylon, metal, gut and/or synthetic gut (carbon fibre) strings.  Brass wire strung harps continue in the Gaelic tradition and in New Jersey harps New Jersey Harpists use today.

The Harp's Origins

No one really knows where the harp originated, and we will never know what harp music sounded like in the pre-historical era.  One of the earliest musical instrument discoveries showed a harp type of instrument on rock paintings dating back to 15,000 BC in France.  Many believe that the earliest harps came from the sound of the hunter's bow

In Egypt, some of the earliest images of bow harps are from the Pharaoh's tombs dating some 5,000 years ago.  These hieroglyphs show that there were many harps in ancient Egypt.  The Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses III (1198-1166 BC) had many bow harps painted in his tomb.  In the New Kingdom, harps measured up to 2 metres (6.5 feet) in height with 19 strings and were played seated or standing up.

Harps were very popular in ancient Assyria and Mesopotamia.  One of the earliest illustrations of a harp was on a vase found in a Babylonian temple.  These harps were angled harps with 12 to 15 strings and similar to the bowed instruments played in Egypt about the same time.  The angle harp represents the next step in history towards the modern harp.  The angle harp differs from what we call the harp today in that it lacked the front-piece, column or pillar. It was played "upside down" from its present playing orientation, with the tuning pegs on the bottom.

The Triangular Harp

It is not known where or how the fore-pillar or upright column that created a triangular-framed harp body came into use.  The earliest drawings of triangular-frame harps appear in the Utrecht Psalter in the early 9th century.  It was the appearance of the harp column possibly during the early Christian era that marked the advent of the modern harp.  It solved two problems.  It allowed the harp maker to increase string tension without distorting the instrument which also made the harp easier to tune as changing the tension of one string no longer affected the tension of all the other strings.  Harps could then be built with more strings with higher tensions, better volume and tone, like the New Jersey harps New Jersey harpists play at weddings today.