Thoughts on harps of the Dunedain?

For discussion of Dunedain culture, what it might have looked like and how it worked.

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Elleth
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Re: Thoughts on harps of the Dunedain?

Post by Elleth »

What of the possibility of mallorn wood being the material the "harps of gold" are made of. The wood is not golden but the trees were known as "golden" due to the color of leaves in the fall.
That's my thought - mere poetic license rather than the body of the harp being literally made of metal. That said, there's been a bit of research in the last ten years that indicates the strings of the wire-strung clarsach harps were at times made of gold in the bass:

http://www.wirestrungharp.com/material/ ... eport.html
http://www.annheymann.com/gold.htm

As the latter link suggests, it's possible the taller forms of Celtic harp indicate a waning of the Gaelic culture, as the precious metal strings became less available and longer less-dense bronze ones were substituted in their place.

My own Queen Mary replica had silver strings for the bottom octave, and it worked quite well. :)
Persona: Aerlinneth, Dúnedain of Amon Lendel c. TA 3010.
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SierraStrider
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Re: Thoughts on harps of the Dunedain?

Post by SierraStrider »

Peter Remling wrote:What of the possibility of mallorn wood being the material the "harps of gold" are made of.
It might account for those of the elves, but Thorin is described as having a harp of gold, and I doubt his family used much Mallorn in their lutherie.
Elleth wrote:...our earthly metal strung harps use single-thickness drawn wire rather than twisted wire. Interesting!
(Wire wrapped gut is a thing, especially for bowed instruments in the pre-synthetic string era - but I don't recall ever seeing a twisted wire music string.
A lot of modern instrument strings use a single drawn wire core with other wire twisted around it to increase the weight for purposes of resonance:

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Elleth
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Re: Thoughts on harps of the Dunedain?

Post by Elleth »

So.... I'm starting to make some progress on this front!

Normally I'd stick with our habit of keeping the really cool projects under wraps, but since we've several harpers here I'd like to get some feedback while I'm still in the design stage. I made an initial contact with a luthier last year, but life interfered and it had to go on the back burner. Now I'm back on the project - and once I can say "pretty much like this" I'll send off the design thoughts and wait.

I'm looking for a fairly easily carryable lap harp fitting to a Dunedain of the late Third Age. I'm thinking strung with "gut" (probably faux gut, maybe real, maybe nylon) rather than wire, and gothic-style silhouette. Here's some initial thoughts and piece for a pine mockup I roughed out to get the idea of how it might feel in the arms:
merf-dunedain-harp-00-initialplans.jpg
merf-dunedain-harp-00-initialplans.jpg (26.69 KiB) Viewed 12227 times
Assuming a 1/2" string spacing I'm estimating I can get 17 strings - and comparatively deep notes at that, given the sharp soundbox angle of the gothic design. (I've not worked out a proper string chart, but since I'm copying an existing model's proportions I'm assuming it'll mostly work out).

It's got a fairly shallow soundbox, but that's another gothic trait and doesn't seem to impact them poorly. I've not gotten the mockup together yet, but it's feeling like it'll be really sturdy and surprisingly packable. I'm not certain how it'll feel to play though, as shallow as it seems to be: it might feel rather cramped. I'm planning on "stringing" it with fishline once I've the body together to get a feel. If I really don't like it, I'll experiment with opening up the soundbox/pillar angle to an earlier medieval form.

Thoughts before I go any further? Has anyone played "baby gothics" before? Do you think it fits the culture?
Persona: Aerlinneth, Dúnedain of Amon Lendel c. TA 3010.
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Iodo
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Re: Thoughts on harps of the Dunedain?

Post by Iodo »

Elleth wrote:Normally I'd stick with our habit of keeping the really cool projects under wraps, but since we've several harpers here I'd like to get some feedback while I'm still in the design stage.
Well, I know absolutely nothing about harps, or anything musical apart from drums :lol: so I won't pretend to but I love the design so far and its defiantly a really cool project. Your design looks like a miniature version of the harps played in rivendell in the movies and I think it looks right for a middle earth setting. Are you going to have any paturns carved onto it?
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Elleth
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Re: Thoughts on harps of the Dunedain?

Post by Elleth »

Thank you Iodo!
Hrm... a dwarven drum - that's an interesting idea! :)

The shape is fairly late medieval / early renaissance: normally I'd want to stick to an earlier period for inspiration, but I'm thinking this may work given the Professor's admitted 500-year pastiche of a "mythic middle ages." I can certainly envision a similar piece in Minas Tirith at any rate.

As to carvings:
I don't know if it will be carvings, painting, or both - but I would like a "singing nightingale" theme on it as a nod to a certain someone singing in the starlight. I've yet to figure out the details, but if anyone has some reference inspirations, I'd love to be pointed to them! :lol:
Persona: Aerlinneth, Dúnedain of Amon Lendel c. TA 3010.
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Re: Thoughts on harps of the Dunedain?

Post by Will Whitfoot »

Udwin wrote:Good catch! Hmmm. I wonder...gold is a fairly soft metal - would it even be able to hold up to the structural stresses of a fully-strung instrument?
Pure gold is very soft, true. But some alloys of gold are quite stiff. 22k gold (22/24 or .916 fine) is commonly used as coin gold. There was an old test for gold coins that involved biting the coin. Most people think this was to see that it took a bitemark because gold is soft... NOT SO! The test was to check that the gold was actually quite hard, because counterfeit gold coins were most often made of gold plated lead or lead/zinc. The counterfeit would be much softer than the genuine. (and real gold has no taste, while biting through the gold wash to touch the teeth against the base metal would give a sharp metallic taste. Modern jewelery gold is usually either 14k ( .583 fine) or 18k (.750 fine) while an older common karat was 10k (.417 fine). The springs for high-end modern flutes are made of 10k gold. karat gold has been used to make very high-end flutes, trumpets, and saxophones and is widely regarded (by those who can afford it) to have very lovely acoustic properties. So I think that it's conceivable that some part of the vibrating structure of a harp could be made of a gold alloy to good effect. But it would be tricky and expensive, and it would probably take an elven smith to pull it off well.
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