Harp

Simple and Beautiful

The harp is a stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicular to the soundboard. All harps have a neck, resonator and strings. Some, known as frame harps, also have a forepillar; those lacking the forepillar are referred to as open harps. Harp strings can be made of nylon (sometimes wound around copper), gut (more commonly used than nylon), wire, or silk. A person who plays the harp is called a harpist or a harper. Typically, folk/Celtic musicians prefer the term "harper," whereas classical/pedal musicians prefer "harpist."

Various types of harps are found in Africa, Europe, North, and South America, and a few parts of Asia. In antiquity harps and the closely related lyres were very prominent in nearly all musical cultures, but they lost popularity in the early 19th century with Western music composers, being thought of primarily as a woman's instrument after Marie Antoinette popularised it as a lady's pastime. There was no harp-exclusive museum until the North Italian harp-building firm of Victor Salvi started one in 2005.

The aeolian harp (wind harp), the autoharp, and all forms of the lyre and Kithara are not harps because their strings are not perpendicular to the soundboard; they are all technically part of the zither family of instruments along with Piano and Harpsichord. The Blues harp or Harmonica is not even a stringed instrument; it is a free reed wind instrument. The Laser harp is also not a stringed instrument, it is a harp-shaped electronic instrument with laser beams where harps have strings. The Harp guitar has extra unfretted bass strings like a theorbo.