The cross-strung harp or chromatic double harp is a multi-course harp that has two rows of strings which intersect without touching. While accidentals are played on the pedal harp via the pedals and on the lever harp with levers, the cross-strung harp features two rows so that each of the twelve semitones of the chromatic scale has its own string.
The first cross-strung harp is believed to have been created in the late 16th century in Spain and was known as the arpa de dos órdenes. Its identity as an instrument was established as soon as the early 17th century and it was used in both liturgical and secular music. Bartolomé Jovernardi has described a cross-strung harp as well as other instruments in his work Tratado de la música (1634) and invented a chromatic variety of this instrument. [1] Its popularity reached its peak in the late 17th century, and declined thereafter into the early 18th century. The reasons for its decline are complex, including the cultural displacement of Spanish music and musical instruments at court (such as the arpa de dos órdenes and the vihuela ) in favor of Italian and French music and instruments (violin, harpsichord, lute, etc.).
The Pleyel & Wolff Company in Paris produced a cross-strung model based on pedal harp proportions in the late 19th century, to try to accommodate increasing chromaticism in orchestral music (a problem for orchestral harpists, because of the single-action pedal system still in use on orchestral harps). Designed by Gustave Lyon and known as the harpe chromatique, it had two sets of strings, one tuned to C major and the other tuned to F-sharp/G-flat pentatonic like a piano, enabling the harpist to play any note from either side of the neck. The two sets of strings crossed near the vertical midpoint of the strings, unlike those of the arpa de dos órdenes, which crossed close to the neck. This allowed both of the player's hands to reach both sets of strings at the point of greatest resonance.
Perhaps the most famous classical composition written for the harpe chromatique is Claude Debussy's Danses (I. Danse sacrée; II. Danse profane) for harp and strings, commissioned by Pleyel and published in 1904.
There was a chromatic harp developed in the late 19th century that found only a small number of proponents, and was mainly taught in Belgium. [2]
Towards the end of the 19th century, the English-born American harp builder Henry Greenway built several copies of his peculiar cross-strung chromatic harp model featuring X-shaped pillar and two necks. One of them is displayed at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City and another at the National Music Museum, Vermillion, South Dakota.
Contemporary cross-strung harps are being built with gut, nylon, or wire strings in a variety of sizes ranging from two to five or more octaves. Unlike the Spanish or French cross-strung harps, these are designed on a Celtic or folk model with smaller soundboxes, lighter string tension, and smaller size.
The largest resurgence or reinterpretation of the cross-strung harp began in California in 1987, when luthier and folk harp enthusiast Roland "Robbie" Robinson was presented with a cross-strung harp needing repairs. This harp is believed to have been made by Welsh luthier John Thomas as a student instrument for the harpe chromatique program at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles. Robinson published a description and drawing of this instrument in the Folk Harp Journal. [3] Emil Geering (now deceased), a retired machinist in British Columbia, began building cross-strung harps based on Robinson's rough plans. Ben Brown, a musician from Michigan, obtained one of Geering's harps and subsequently persuaded American luthiers Dan Speer and Pat O'Laughlin (retired) to build models of cross-strung harps. Harper Tasche, a Washington State musician, developed a five-octave model of cross-strung harp with Blessley Instruments in Vancouver, Washington, and subsequently recorded the world's first CD dedicated to the cross-strung harp in 1998.
The most common type of contemporary cross-strung harp is strung with nylon and built with a "7x5" string configuration: each octave contains the seven notes of a diatonic scale on one set of strings and the five "accidentals" per octave on the other. The layout is similar to that of a keyboard: each major scale has its own fingering pattern, and basic chords fall into pattern shapes or groupings. The advantage of this layout is that it provides a familiar concept (diatonic and accidentals) to the harpist and is easier to learn, owing to the presence of the diatonic "home row" of strings.
A less common string configuration is the "6x6" in which each set of strings is tuned to a whole-tone scale (rather than diatonic and 'accidental' tuning). The advantage of this layout is that only two sets of fingering patterns are required for major scales, one set when the root of the key is on the left strung strings and the other for the root on the right strung strings (though there is no advantage in fingering for chords, as the 5x7 and 6x6 configurations use the same number and types of pattern shapes to produce major, minor, augmented, and diminished triads). Another advantage is that a 6x6 harp can include a broader range than a 7x5 of similar size, since there are only six strings per octave in each row.
Unusual custom versions of the cross strung harp have been created by harp builders. Among these are a five-octave cross-strung harp fitted with steel strings (called the "lute harp") made by Gustav Lyon in 1899; the large X-shaped harps with two necks and two pillars, typified by the "Greenway" harp built in New York in 1889 (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments); the many innovations and variations in design by Gustav Lyon on the 'harpe chromatique' (including built-in tuning reeds, shutters on the soundbox operated by pedals, steel framing, etc.) from 1894 to 1930; pedal-activated damping rods for the lowest strings, and a "7x5x7" crossing double harp, by Philippe SRL Clément, late 1980s; a cross-strung harp with phosphor bronze wire strings by Argent Fox Musical Instruments in Indiana; and a hybrid 6x6 cross-strung which includes a sharpening lever on each string, built in 1992 by Glenn Hill of Mountain Glen Harps in Oregon.
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A plectrum or individual finger picks may be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier.
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, including standing or sitting and in orchestras or concerts. Its most common form is triangular in shape and made of wood. Some have multiple rows of strings and pedal attachments.
The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica include diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the mouth to direct air into or out of one holes along a mouthpiece. Behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. The most common is the diatonic Richter-tuned with ten air passages and twenty reeds, often called the blues harp. A harmonica reed is a flat, elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, which is secured at one end over a slot that serves as an airway. When the free end is made to vibrate by the player's air, it alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce sound.
The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a violin. Melodies are played on a keyboard that presses tangents—small wedges, typically made of wood—against one or more of the strings to change their pitch. Like most other acoustic stringed instruments, it has a sound board and hollow cavity to make the vibration of the strings audible.
Zither is a class of stringed instruments. Historically, the name has been applied to any instrument of the psaltery family, or to an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat body. This article describes the latter variety.
An autoharp or chord zither is a string instrument belonging to the zither family. It uses a series of bars individually configured to mute all strings other than those needed for the intended chord. The term autoharp was once a trademark of the Oscar Schmidt company, but has become a generic designation for all such instruments, regardless of manufacturer.
The cittern or cithren is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is descended from the Medieval citole. Its flat-back design was simpler and cheaper to construct than the lute. It was also easier to play, smaller, less delicate and more portable. Played by people of all social classes, the cittern was a premier instrument of casual music-making much as is the guitar today.
The Appalachian dulcimer is a fretted string instrument of the zither family, typically with three or four strings, originally played in the Appalachian region of the United States. The body extends the length of the fingerboard, and its fretting is generally diatonic.
The saung, is an arched harp used in traditional Burmese music. The saung is regarded as a national musical instrument of Burma. The saung is unique in that it is a very ancient harp tradition and is said to be the only surviving harp in Asia.
The Gravikord is a 24 string electric double bridge-harp invented by Robert Grawi in 1984, which is closely related to both the West African kora and the mbira. It was designed to employ a separated double tonal array structure making it possible to easily play cross-rhythms in a polyrhythmic musical style in a modern electro-acoustic instrument. The Gravi-kora is a similar instrument, also developed by Grawi, which is tuned identically to a traditional 21 string kora.
The electric harp is an instrument based on its acoustic original. There are both solid-body and hollow body electro-acoustic models available. True electric harps have a solid body versus a hollow body electro-acoustic harp, which can be played either acoustically or electronically. A true electric solid-body harp cannot be played acoustically since it has no hollow soundbox, and must be amplified when played.
The jarana jarocha is a guitar-shaped fretted stringed instrument from the southern region of the state of Veracruz, Mexico. Typically strung with 8 strings in 5 courses, usually arranged in two single outer strings with three double-courses in between. The strings are usually nylon, although they were gut in the past. The body is somewhat narrower than a guitar because of its direct lineage from the Spanish baroque guitar of the sixteenth century. Sometimes mistaken for a ukulele, the jarana jarocha comes in at least five sizes, the smallest being the chaquiste, somewhat smaller than a soprano ukulele; then the mosquito, about the size of a soprano ukulele; the 'primera', about the size of a concert ukulele; the 'segunda', in length between a tenor and a baritone ukulele; and the 'tercera', somewhat longer than the baritone ukulele. Some luthiers are building jaranas of a size they label "tercerola" or "jarana cuarta", but there is some discussion as to whether these represent a distinct size or are merely particularly large variations of the standard tercera.
The triple harp is a type of multi-course harp employing three parallel rows of strings instead of the more common single row. One common version is the Welsh triple harp, used today mainly among players of traditional Welsh folk music.
The pedal harp is a large and technologically modern harp, designed primarily for use in art music. It may be played solo, as part of a chamber ensemble, or in an orchestra. It typically has 47 strings with seven strings per octave, giving a range of six and a half octaves.
The Paraguayan harp is the national instrument of Paraguay, and similar instruments are used elsewhere in South America, particularly Venezuela.
The épinette des Vosges is a traditional plucked-string instrument of the zither family, whose use was confined to two areas in the Vosges mountains of France approximately 50 km apart: around Val-d'Ajol and around Gérardmer.
The arpa jarocha is a large wooden harp that is normally played while standing, although early examples from the 16th through the first three or four decades of the 19th centuries were smaller and were played while seated. It has a wooden frame, a resonator, a flat soundboard, 32-36 nylon strings, and does not have pedals. This harp is tuned diatonically over five octaves. The top of its soundboard sometimes arches outward due to the tension of the strings. Unlike other Mexican harps, the arpa jarocha has its sound holes located on the back of the sound board instead of on the front.
The claviharp, also known as the harp piano, or xenorphica, is a 19th-century musical instrument that combined a harp with a keyboard. Johann Christian Dietz invented the instrument in 1813 CE. His grandfather was one of the first upright piano manufacturers. Struck by what he saw as difficulties and defects of the harp, in 1810, he built an instrument à cordes pincées à clavier, which connected a keyboard to the harp strings.
Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet and String Quartet was written by Maurice Ravel in 1905. It premiered on 22 February 1907 in Paris.
A multi-course harp is a harp with more than one row of strings. Harps with two rows are called double harps; harps with three rows are called triple harps. A harp with only one row of strings is called a single-course harp.
 | This article includes a list of general references, but it remains largely unverified because it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(April 2012) |
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