Hi, my name is Ruth Holden
and this is my concert pedal harp.
It's about 100 years old and it has 47 strings.
Three-quarter of the strings are made from guts
and the bottom quarter are made from steel.
The shorter the string, the higher the sound.
(harp playing high notes)
The longer the string, the lower the sound.
(harp playing low notes)
It has a range of about six and a half octaves,
which is slightly less than a piano has,
but we read our music in the same way that a pianist would,
with the right hand playing in the treble clef,
(harp playing)
and the left hand playing in the bass clef.
(harp playing)
As a visual guide, we have different-coloured strings.
The red strings are Cs.
(harp playing Cs)
And the black strings are the Fs.
(harp playing Fs)
A very important thing that a harp needs
to do is to change key, and we do that rather a lot.
We change key by pressing down
any of the seven pedals at the base of the instrument.
Each pedal is named after one note of the scale.
I've got my foot on the D pedal at the moment,
and at the moment also it'll be in flat.
(plays D-flat)
If I press it down, it'll go into natural.
(plays D)
If I press it down again, (plays D-sharp)
it goes into sharp.
So it's sharpening and flattening it
by a semitone each time.
How this happens is the pedals activate rods
that run up the column of the harp
and plates that run down the neck of the harp,
and then these turn these little discs here.
And I'll just show you how they work.
You can see them actually turning around.
So they're pinching on the strings.
In harp-playing, we never use our little finger,
and when we play chords, you can see
that our little finger would not be able
to extend further down and play.
It's just not long enough,
so chords have to be written with four notes
in each hand, like this.
(harp playing chords)
And also when we play arpeggios,
it's always runs of four notes.
(harp playing arpeggios)
Another technique we use on the harp are harmonics.
We pluck them and play them at the same time,
approximately halfway up the string,
and it sounds an octave above.
(harp playing harmonics)
Those harmonics are from an extract
by Stravinksy in The Firebird Suite.
If we're to play harmonics in the right hand,
we play them in a slightly different way.
(harp playing harmonics)
We would normally position our hands halfway in the strings
(harp playing chords)
to get maximum resonance.
(harp playing chords)
But sometimes we're asked to give different effects,
and one of these effects is "prés de la table",
and it's notated as p.d.l.t.,
and we place the fingers much lower, near the soundboard.
(harp playing)
And you can hear that it makes a guitar-like sound
and a drier sound.
(harp playing)
Another effect we can use is by using
our nails to pluck the string.
(harp playing)
And that gives it a more metallic kind of sound.
You could do the nail near to the soundboard,
(playing chords)
which totally alters the sound of the note.
(harp playing)
A more modern technique is to hold
onto the string at the top and to bend it.
So you play the string.
(harp playing)
Extending on from glissandos,
we can also hit the harp with the back of our hand.
(rapidly strumming discordantly)
Another technique we use is called "bisbigliando",
which means "whispering" in Italian,
and we just repeatedly play the notes,
left hand and right hand alternately.
(playing rapidly and softly)
The famous technique you can do
on the harp is the glissando,
and you can really go to town with these,
and some composers really do.
(harp playing glissando)
And this gives it the really heavenly image
that the harp is so famous for.
(orchestra playing Debussy's "Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune")
The role of the harp in the orchestra,
we don't really fit into any category in the orchestra.
It is a completely unique instrument.
It's kind of got strings, but we don't
really belong to the string sections.
But it's also a little bit percussive,
but we don't belong to the percussion section either.
Sometimes there are two harps in the orchestra
and sometimes there is only one,
and it's only really from composers
like Berlioz onwards that the harp was involved
in orchestral writing.
So composers like Beethoven and Mozart,
there's no harp in any of those pieces.
The French composers wrote really well for the harp.
They had a really good understanding of the instrument,
and this was mainly because they used
to study with harpists and other harpists
that would compose and would help,
let's say, at the Paris Conservatoire.
So they had people like Ravel and Debussy.
had a really strong understanding
of how the harp needed to be written for,
and it makes it much easier and satisfying
for us to play those pieces.
This instrument is about 100 years old.
It was made between about 1920
and 1930 in Chicago by the Wurlitzer Company.
The Wurlitzer Company weren't famous for making harps.
They would've employed a harp-maker
from a company called Lyon & Healy.
I think they made other instruments as well,
and they just wanted to develop their instrument repertoire.
Unfortunately the documents were destroyed
in a fire by Wurlitzer and we're unable
to prove who originally would've bought this instrument.
But the rumour was that it possibly would've been one
of Harpo Marx's instruments.
He would probably have had quite a few instruments,
so I don't want to say that
it would've been his special one,
and I have done a little bit of research
on pictures, to see if the carvings at the top match them.
But as yet, I've not found anything.
One of the questions that I get asked a lot
is why did I choose the harp,
and I don't really know why I chose the harp.
It was just something I always wanted to do from about six.
I just remember always saying
that I was gonna play a gold harp one day,
and here I am now, and I do play one.
The reason I like playing the harp is
because of its unique sound,
and it is a really unique instrument.
You get a lot of attention when you play the harp.
A lot of people want to look at the instrument,
and they also want to watch you play.
It's just the chords and everything you can play.
It's just such a resonant,
lovely instrument.
(harp playing)
And the repertoire is really nice as well,
some great pieces written for the instrument.
And I just like the French music and the way it sounds
and the way it's been composed for.
- [Narrator] If you've enjoyed learning
about the instruments in the orchestra,
why not try our iPad app, The Orchestra,
featuring Esa-Pekka Salonen
and the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Fully interactive video playback lets you
view the orchestra from all angles,
and the revolutionary BeatMap shows you who's playing when.
(orchestra playing Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique)
Follow along with synchronised scores,
hear the inside scoop in audio commentaries,
and get a 360 degree view of all the instruments.
Available for download in the App Store on iTunes.