Harp

Almost every problem a beginner harpist has starts with not knowing that "harp" refers to two substantially different instruments. They share a shape and a technique and they are not interchangeable in cost, repertoire, portability or teaching tradition.

The pedal harp is the orchestral instrument: 47 strings, seven pedals that each change one note across the whole range, and the ability to play in any key and to modulate mid-piece. It is what you have seen in a concert hall, it is what most published beginner material assumes, and it costs more than a car.

The lever harp — also called the Celtic harp, the folk harp, or in Scotland the clàrsach — has 22 to 38 strings and a small lever at the top of each one that raises it by a semitone when you flip it. You set the levers for the key before you play and change individual ones with a spare hand during the piece. It is the instrument of the folk tradition, it is what adult beginners in Britain overwhelmingly learn on, and it is affordable.

The blunt version: unless you already know you want to play in an orchestra, you want a lever harp. Everything below assumes that unless it says otherwise.

The adult beginner’s instrument

Lever harp, 26–34 strings

What it costs

£1,000–£3,000, or rent at £30–£80 a month

What makes it hard

Two hands, two staves, and the levers

What makes it easy

It sounds good on your first day

1. 1

   Step 1: Go and put your hands on one

   Harp shops and makers expect this and most harp teachers will let you try theirs in a first lesson. Thirty minutes with a real instrument settles the lever-versus-pedal question and the size question better than any amount of reading, including this.

   You will know it worked when: You know which instrument you actually want.

2. 2

   Step 2: Find a teacher before you find a harp

   This inversion is deliberate. A teacher will tell you what to rent, will often know of a second-hand instrument, and will stop you buying something unplayable. Harp technique is unusually specific — which fingers, which part of the finger, how the hand leaves the string — and habits formed alone in the first months are genuinely hard to undo.

   You will know it worked when: Somebody knowledgeable is steering the purchase.

3. 3

   Step 3: Rent for three to six months

   Long enough to find out whether the daily reality suits you, short enough that stopping costs a few hundred pounds rather than a few thousand.

   You will know it worked when: You know whether this is a hobby or a phase, cheaply.

4. 4

   Step 4: Learn to tune it yourself, immediately

   A harp goes out of tune constantly — every string is under tension against a wooden frame that responds to temperature and humidity — and tuning all 34 of them is a five-minute job you will do before every practice. This is not a chore to postpone; it is part of playing the instrument and it trains your ear.

   You will know it worked when: You can make the instrument sound right without help.

5. 5

   Step 5: Buy, once you know what you want

   By now you know the size, whether you want full levers, and probably which maker you like. This is the point at which spending real money is an informed decision rather than a hopeful one.

   You will know it worked when: An instrument chosen rather than guessed at.

The harp gives an unusually generous first hour. Every string is already a note in the key you have set, so almost anything you play sounds pleasant — which is why people fall in love with it in a shop. What follows is harder than that hour suggests, and knowing where the difficulty sits helps.

The things that are genuinely difficult, roughly in the order you meet them:

• Four fingers, not five — The little finger is not used. It is too short to reach the string cleanly and it is left out entirely, which feels wrong for weeks and then stops registering.
• Placing rather than reaching — Harp technique places the fingers on the strings ahead of playing them, so the hand is prepared rather than grabbing. This is the single largest difference from piano and it is the thing a teacher fixes fastest and self-teaching gets wrong for longest.
• Two staves, two hands, no keyboard — You are reading the same notation a pianist reads, on an instrument where you cannot see the strings you are playing without leaning round the soundboard. Players learn to find strings by feel and by the coloured C and F strings, which is why those colours exist.
• The levers — The lever harp’s defining constraint and its defining skill. Set them before the piece for the key; change one mid-piece with whichever hand is free, at a moment the music allows. Arranging music for a lever harp is partly the craft of finding those moments, and it is a real and satisfying part of the hobby.
• Your fingertips — They will hurt. Twenty minutes is a long first session and this is a physical limit rather than a lack of application. Calluses build over a couple of months and the problem then disappears permanently.

How to choose the size, which is the decision within the decision:

• Under 22 strings — A lap harp. Cheap, portable, delightful, and limited — you will meet the bottom of the range quickly and much written music will not fit. Good as a deliberate second instrument or for a child; frustrating as an only harp.
• 26 to 29 strings — The practical minimum for a serious start. Enough range for most folk repertoire, still light enough to carry to a session, and the size a lot of teachers recommend for an adult beginner.
• 34 to 38 strings — A full-size lever harp. Almost everything written for the instrument fits, it is what you would eventually want, and it is heavy enough that moving it is a considered act rather than a casual one.
• Full levers or partial — Cheaper instruments sometimes have levers only on some strings, usually the Cs and Fs. Avoid this if you can. It saves a few hundred pounds and permanently limits which keys you can play in, which is the constraint you will meet soonest.

The harp has an unusually flat middle. The first weeks are rewarding, the next few months are the technique grind that every instrument has, and then it opens into a long stretch where you can play a great deal of real music and improve slowly and pleasantly for decades. There is a graded examination route if you want structure, and a large part of the community ignores it entirely.

The two things that most reliably keep adult learners going are playing with other people and having something to play towards. Harp circles, folk sessions, summer schools and the traditional-music festival circuit all exist and are unusually welcoming, partly because harpists are thin on the ground and are pleased to find each other. Playing for other people — even badly, even once — is what turns practice into a hobby rather than a chore.

• Tuning, every time — Before every practice, all of it, with a clip-on tuner and a tuning key. A new harp or a new set of strings will need it more than once a day while everything settles.
• Strings break, and it is normal — Usually the thin high ones, usually with a bang that is more alarming than it is serious. Keep spares for at least the top octave. Replacing one is a five-minute job and a new string will go flat repeatedly for a week while it stretches.
• A full restring is a maintenance event — Every few years, £80–£250 depending on the instrument, and it transforms a dull-sounding harp. Done gradually rather than all at once, so the frame is never suddenly unloaded.
• Humidity and temperature — A wooden instrument under several hundred kilos of aggregate string tension does not enjoy a radiator, a conservatory, or a car boot in August. A stable room is most of the care it needs.
• Levers need occasional attention — A lever that does not produce a true semitone can be adjusted, usually by a technician and occasionally by a confident owner. Worth checking when buying second-hand, because it is the commonest fault on an old instrument.

• Scottish and Irish traditional — The clàrsach in Scotland and the Irish harp tradition, both with active teaching structures, competitions and summer schools. Much of it is taught by ear and by tune, and it is the largest amateur community in Britain and Ireland.
• Welsh triple harp — A distinct historical instrument with three rows of strings and no levers or pedals, chromatic by having every note strung. A specialist tradition with a strong Welsh institutional base, and not a beginner’s route in.
• Early music — Renaissance and baroque harps, gut-strung and often played with historical technique. Overlaps heavily with the wider early-music scene and tends to attract people already in it.
• Classical and orchestral — The pedal harp’s territory, with a conservatoire route, a graded examination pathway and orchestral positions at the end of it. A different commitment and a different budget.
• Therapy and community playing — A genuine and growing strand — playing in hospitals, hospices and care settings, usually on a small lever harp, with its own training and its own etiquette. Worth naming because a lot of adult learners find it is what they actually wanted.