Icelandic composer Elfur Hansson is quite well known in small circles and has written music for the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra and the American Kronos Quartet. Although Elfur prefers to work with “classics,” he also writes electronic music. However, the composer notes that at this point he does not feel a physical connection to the melody and the instrument. The reason is that the computer is responsible for the processing of the sound, and the loudspeaker system is responsible for the playback.
Three years ago, an enthusiast decided to close this “gap” and developed his own instrument, called the Segulharpa. It is an electroacoustic harp with steel strings in a magnetic field. It is generated by electromagnets located inside a large oval body. To activate them, just touch the capacitive metal sensors on the front panel. The played sound changes according to the force of the touch. At the same time, the instrument can also be programmed using MIDI.
- There is a four-handed harp, which can be played by two performers at once.
- The longest harp performance lasted 25 hours and 34 minutes. The young American harpist Carla Seate was only 17 years old when she endured such a long marathon in 2010, performing music of different genres.
- According to legend, the Celtic god of plenty changed the seasons by playing the harp.
- The priests of ancient Egypt performed rituals involving the harp.
- Until the 19th century, the harp was a purely masculine instrument. But in 1929 at the excavations of the royal tombs in Ur, found about 70 skeletons of women with gold and silver harps in their hands.
- Scientists believe that the energy flows generated by playing the harp make the human body healthier. Even Pythagoras used the sounds of the instrument to heal diseases. Today there is a whole branch of alternative medicine – harp therapy, as one of the directions of vibroacoustic therapy.
- There are many long-livers among harpists. For example, the soloist of the Bolshoi Theater, the famous harpist V.G. Dulova lived 90 years, and her colleague harpist K.K. Saradjeva almost 100 years.