One of the oldest stringed instruments - the harp - has a rich history. It is not at all surprising that now many lovers of classical music do not even know how many strings there are on the harp. Indeed, over the centuries, the appearance and size of this instrument with a melodic muffled sound has changed.
How many strings did the harp have in antiquity?
It is believed that an ancient person, firing an arrow from a bow, heard a thin sound made by a bowstring. So the idea of creating the first plucked instruments: harp, gusli, lyre. A modern harp is a heavy instrument (weighing up to 29 kg), of enormous size, having from 45 to 47 strings. But she was not always like that. In ancient samples, there were from 7 to 30 strings. At the same time, the dimensions were not so impressive.
Modern concert halls are equipped with spacious orchestral pits, therefore there is a place even for such a massive instrument as a harp. Strings once reproduced only one octave of seven notes.
Gradually, the device changed and improved, as a result, it became possible to produce diatonic scale. But to extract the chromatic intervals, it was necessary to reconfigure the strings using hooks or change the tension force. In the end, for easier extraction of sound, the harp appeared pedals. With their help, it was possible to increase the sound by a semitone. Further improvement led to the emergence of double pedals, thanks to which it became possible to increase the sound by a whole tone.
The device of modern designs
To the question of how many strings the harp has left after all the transformations, it will not work to give a monosyllabic answer. Today there are small harps with 30 strings and large triangular ones with 44 stretched strings. You can optionally use 45, 46 and 47 tension strings. The mechanism left double pedals. Stretch threads are hard, vein, sometimes nylon is used. The longest of them is the lower one, it has a length of 1503 mm. The shortest is the top, only 69 mm long. All of them are fixed on the deck and are driven by a pinch.
With the help of special double pedals, the harp system changes to a half-tone. By pressing the pedal, the mechanism inside the vertical column is activated. The rotary dials, which are activated by the pedal mechanism, shorten the length of the string by 1/18 and the sound rises by half a tone. With a decrease in length by 2/18, respectively, there is an increase of a whole tone.
Why do they like harp?
For millennia, this musical instrument has not lost its popularity. The appearance has changed, the shape, weight and even the design have changed, and the sound still amazes with its gentle timbre. You may not know how many strings a harp has, how much it weighs and how they play it, but its sound is difficult to confuse with any other.
Its sound was especially fond of the secular aristocracy of the 18-19th centuries. It was played by royalty, ladies of noble blood and members of the high society of tsarist Russia. Famous composers did not bypass the majestic harp. Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Alyabyev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Liszt, Wagner and other ingenious composers included the sound of strings in their works.