This is a harp that I had accidentally knocked over while recovering from Covid and was still too weak to really move around well. The harp hit a Victorian roll top desk and cracked the ornate pillar shield with the Celtic knot abalone inlay fracturing along the edge, the bubinga wood stave back separated at the back and along the left side all the way to the top, and the entire sound box rotated off its base to the right.

Months later I attempted to repair the damage with some shims, wood putty and MinWax gel stain but the force of the harp under tension continued to pull the soundbox apart. In July I shipped it back to Triplett’s.

Moments after impact… outrageous damage to my harp… never again!!

Rotated soundbox… the repair work features structural reinforcements to insure this cannot happen again!

I felt sick when George picked up my harp (and me) off the floor and I saw this… pillar shield crack… shudders!

You would never know it was damaged!!

The harp looks and plays like brand new!!

Amazing repair work from the shops of Triplett Harps!!

Moral of the story: never practice your instrument when you’re really, really sick or recovering and can just barely move around (uncoordinated). Very bad things can happen. Maybe stay in bed with a small lap harp?

This beautiful harp will not be making her grand re-appearance at my church just yet… we’ve decided to hold off until next May when our heating season is over. We’ll be rearranging some of our church furniture at that time so Luna harp can reside in our sanctuary throughout the warm spring and summer months right into autumn, eliminating the transportation piece from my house to church each Sunday (my church is literally 800 feet from my house!). Less worry about bumps, loading into the car and inclement weather from week to week.

My harp family portrait:
Triplett Luna stands tall in the middle, with Stoney End Esabelle to her right, Argent Fox “Forest” in front and my Paraguayan harp in back.

The other announcement is I’ve placed an order with Stoney End Harps for my second harp from them! Rebecca is a cross-strung floor harp in maple, a big sister to Esabelle, but with nylon strings. This harp will be what I call “full chromatic”, that is, all sharps and flats available, just as on a piano keyboard.

I will probably call her “Rebekah”.

This large x-harp will allow me to pursue the classical concert literature more in depth. A historic Pleyel cross-strung harp is a bit out of my pocket book’s reach and to the best of my knowledge, neither Lyon & Healy nor Salvi have ever built a concert pedal grand harp for lefties (the strings on the opposite side of the neck). My Triplett Luna is also a custom-built lefty harp.

I’ve played Esabelle, my wire cross-strung lap harp for ten years now and so I’ve researched the topic of x-harps quite a bit. Over the years I’ve built up a collection of cross-strung books on classical music, one for the Pleyel cross-strung harp written in French, with progressive lessons and repertoire. Another goes into the history of the instrument, both in the 19th century European music conservatories and its rebirth in America as an affordable folk harp of varying sizes.

Update – June 2025 –

Strings are in short supply and the bottom-most strings for my Rebekah harp are not yet available. Two string makers have gone out of business, leaving one small family business to be the supplier to the U.S. folk harp builders. Rebekah is more or less complete, but still waiting for her bass strings. I don’t know when that will happen.

My Argent Fox double-strung harp was originally planned to have wood carvings added to it but that final touch was overlooked as other concerns took precedence preparing for the harp’s delivery in fall 2022.

This spring I decided it was time to revisit that forgotten detail and complete the visual aesthetic of the harp.

My source here for ready-made wood carvings was the very popular online shop Etsy. I measured the sound holes and found several very nice daisies that would look just right, plus some Baroque scrolls for the base of the soundboard:

Daisies for the top two sound holes.

Baroque scrolls and larger daisies for the bottom sound holes.

The wood ornaments needed a flexible adhesive putty to make them stay on the soundboard. Soundboards rise and fall with tuning, humidity and temperature. Elmer’s carpenter’s wood glue dries too stiff, so they would fall off on the first tuning. Products like Quake Hold and Loctite Fun-Tac, if they’re spread thin enough, allow the wood carvings to be securely mounted to soundboard and move up and down with environmental and tuning tension changes.

I have four senior cats (or maybe, four senior cats have me!) In any case, 17 year old Jasmine Kitty has her own Internet fame with her little cardboard kit harp that I made for her 10th birthday. This harp has engraved fox paws going up the front pillar.

Time for the cat carving!

Here’s a kitty reaching up for a purple daisy centered on a green meadow.

I layered different colors of metallic paint markers. Here I used a wood glue, because there’s not flexing going on at the pillar cap.

Pillar cap ornament.

Jasmine would approve.

Argent Fox double wire harp in my recording studio.

Forest Kitty

After two months of carefully changing out my bronze wires for copper phosphor bronze ones and bringing my double-strung harp up to tension (currently at A=390, Baroque pitch), my newest wire harp is ready to make his grand appearance at our Christmas Eve services!

In the harp world, we tend to give our harps a name. Esabelle was already named by her builder Gary Stone when I got her, but she was made in 2015 in memory of my beloved tuxedo kitty Isabelle, who died in May 2014 of complications from feline diabetes (after two years of twice-daily insulin injections).

On March 25, 2017, I lost another beloved tuxedo kitty, Forest, also to diabetes. He belonged to my parents and became my kitty after they were unable to care for him. He came to live with us and I managed his insulin until he also developed the same complications as Isabelle.

Both of my harps have these kitties’ paw print impressions inside, at the bottom. I decided to rename my third wire harp, the Argent Fox Lady Marilyn, to “Forest Harp”, in honor of Forest Kitty.

Forest Harp

Paw prints on harp pillar

Here is a video I made some years ago, when the grief was still fresh, of Forest. The harp I’m playing in the background is my Triplett Luna. (I haven’t renamed my Luna harp yet. She’s still Luna.)

https://youtu.be/ke3TGzIDwFc

Since my double strung harp is out of commission for the time being, I’ve been relying on my lightweight (10 lbs.!) Esabelle harp to come to church with me every Sunday.

Playing her on a weekly basis has certainly helped improved my technique! Cross-strung (X) harps are usually not wire; they normally have nylon strings instead and therefore don’t call for the usual wire harp playing techniques: nails, damping, etc. But nylon and wire X harps both share similar playing methods: the fingers of one hand reaches up for chromatic notes while the fingers on the opposite hand goes downward for the same sharps and flats. This is due to the angle of the chromatic rank of strings as it passes across diatonic string rank. Looking at the strings from the player’s point of view above the neck, one sees an X.

Looking down from the top of Esabelle. Two rows of strings: one diatonic, the other chromatic.

On a nylon strung cross harp, learning this geometry is challenging enough. Add in the long-ringing resonance of wire strings that occasionally need damping, and the repertoire of basic playing technique for this instrument grows!

However, it’s not impossible. Play the cross wire harp as you normally would, but also using your nails as on a traditional wire harp. In the beginning, as you’re learning, you will naturally play at a much slower speed. You may find you have to consciously start thinking about damping strings with your finger pads, which is often times an automatic action after years of playing wire-strung harp.

As one finger(nail) goes up to pluck, the previously played note, especially if it’s an interval of a second above or below, can be damped by the thumb pad simultaneously going down to damp. Or vice versa, depending on which hand is playing. Intervals of seconds, like C sharp and B, can be a little jarring on a wire harp in a way that they maybe aren’t on other instruments. At least that’s been my experience, so I have a tendency to damp them in favor of more consonant intervals, like thirds and fifths, that support the natural harmony of the bell-like wire sound.

(But please note that they don’t really sound like actual cast bells; carillonneur husband George Matthew Jr. has made that clear to me. There’s no minor third in ringing wire harp wires as there is in real carillon bells! Harp wires tend to have a fundamental and a strong octave overtone though.)

Getting used to playing a wire X harp takes some time. I started by focusing on two keys: F Major, which uses the Bb string and G Major, which uses the F# string. Learning to hit those angled chromatic strings instead of the natural B and F is a good workout for your brain and your ears will certainly tell you when you’ve plucked the wrong one!

My learning strategy started with playing those two scales and breaking it down even further: just play A Bb C and notice how different it looks and feels from playing A B C.

Or try playing F# F back and forth and note the string spacing before going back to playing E F# G. Then try playing the entire scale.

After getting comfortable with the placement of the chromatic notes, then you can try playing a very simple melody.

I usually don’t play chords on Esabelle very much. Her individual strings are very harmonically rich in overtones and trying to play chords just sounds overwhelming and I lose the sense of what’s going on in the underlying melody. I’ve found though, that she makes for a very good contrapuntal instrument. I’ve started exploring Bach’s organ music transcribed for lever harp and found she is an excellent harp for that! Baroque harpsichord music is another possibility.

Esabelle’s range is quite modest, being a lap harp: G to G 22 strings, so it took me a while to find some nice Bach arrangements that would work well on her. Eventually I plan to play these on my double wire Argent Fox harp, which has a larger range. But she is also excellent for playing a variety of international and little-known Advent/Christmas carols for the upcoming season!

Stoney End Esabelle’s little sound hole heart ~ A much-loved harp!

Almost every Sunday, unless husband George has to be away (substituting at another church, playing the carillon for Convocation or Commencement at either of his two colleges), he’s playing the historic pipe organ at our church. Preludes, postludes and hymns.

With, of course, wire harp accompaniment!

Intricately painted organ pipes were once common in 19th century Vermont. Yes, these do speak, they are not just for looks!

If you happen to have a spouse, friend or otherwise happily willing organist in your church, you can play wire harp accompaniment on Sunday mornings to hymns.

Here’s how.

Let the organist lead. The congregation will enjoy (hopefully!) singing their favorite hymns. Check the key of the hymn in your hymnal at some point during the service and set your blades or levers in advance if you have them.

When the organist plays the first line of the hymn through, don’t accompany right away. You’ll join with the congregation. Note what register the organ is at: if there’s a lot of 8′ and 16′ Diapason, you’ll probably want to be at top most octaves of your harp (A5 to A4 strings). If the opposite, a lot of 2′ or 4′ flutes, let’s say, then switch. Go down to the lower end of your instrument: roughly E4 to E3. Please note these are approximations and are what I’ve found work on my harps; your mileage may vary. Experiment to see what is best for your acoustic environment, the voice of your harp and of course, how well your harp pairs up with the organ in your church. Like harps, pipe organs have their own unique voices too!

So having got that out of the way, what are you going to be playing? Answer is, it depends. Sometimes you’ll need to improvise a descant. Let your strings ring and sing. Othertimes, a sweeping gliss… the stereotypical harp sound people that people always think of when you say the word (congregations love these but don’t overdo them!).

Or sometimes folks just don’t know the tune very well and you need to help them (and your organist out). Rhythm harp is the answer! I actually sit right in back of husband George where I can watch his feet on the pedalboard – I do play organ some and fill in on the days when he’s away – and I’ll play a counter rhythm, fast and light on my harp. Triplets, Irish style, one-two-three, one-two-three on top of an otherwise duple meter can help bring a draggy hymn to life. It will also help get them back on track and singing again. Once they’re on board, some syncopated, jazzy rhythms, off beats here and there will keep them going. Generally people aren’t aware that you’re helping them, they’re just a bit more confident with the pulse of an unfamiliar hymn that they’re still learning.

There is a lot more to this subject, but this should help you get started. I will post more on this topic. Be sure to subscribe and check back often!

At this point I gradually, softly begin to play my wire harp, from imperceptable softness to a gradual increase in volume. Husband George will frequently accompany on the pipe organ a few feet away, on a soft 8′ Flute stop, which shimmers on that antique instrument like a Celeste.

Frequently I leave the levers (if it’s the Argent Fox double strung harp) set to the last position they were in for the last hymn we sang and play the Communion music in that key. The harp is tuned to Eb but if the last hymn was in F or D, that’s what I’ll use here. Partly it’s because of how quickly the service is moving along and I don’t want to be changing levers at that point and partly it’s because I want to be involved with the act of Communion itself and focusing on the rite, which I’ll soon be partaking in as an Episcopalian and a Christian believer.

The melody that I play at that very special point is frequently one that suggests itself to me. I have found over time that it is best to settle, listen to the words of the service, watch as the Eucharist unfolds and then wait as the Holy Spirit informs me as to the melody to play. I have found quite often I don’t know until I begin playing what it will sound like, and sometimes the melody that emerges from my harp can be a number of things: surprising, interesting, peaceful, meditative, a few twists and turns here and there in the melisma that go to unexpected places and then settle quite comfortably on what we think of as “home”… musicians would refer to this as the tonic note.

It’s often times during the most curious melodic developments that the Eucharistic Minister will bring me the common cup of wine. I’ve learned to let go at that point, let the silence settle, take the element and pray and then amazingly, when I return to my harp, the melody picks up where it was, with its modal suspensions and arpeggiated borrowings from classical orchestral pedal harp technique… and then quickly, neatly turns to a resolution. At this moment the last member of the congregation is in process of returning to their seat in the pews.

All of this is quite remarkable to me, as I’ve thought of noting these melodies down but they seem ephemeral and slip away. They seem to exist only in the sacredness of the moment. And this is why I love being a church musician.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Amen.

My new harp at home.

I’ve enjoyed playing my harps for you on Sunday mornings and I hope you’re enjoying them too. If you’re wondering a bit about them, here is a brief intro: they’re not like most harps you may have met in the past. Wire strung harps are a kind of rare unicorn in the harp world. They’re not the classical music harps you see in orchestras. And they’re not the “Celtic” harps you sometimes read about in area musical events. So, what makes these particular harps different?

First of all, they are strung with wire. Not nylon strings, which is the case with the popular Celtic harps. So they are at very high tension (thousands of pounds of pressure) and are specially reinforced to withstand this force without being damaged. The small Irish harps you may have seen being played at your local farmer’s market or folk music concert would be severely damaged within a few minutes from the sheer tension that these strings put on the instrument!

Copper-Phospher-Bronze alloy harp wire with end toggle to keep the string from pulling up through the soundboard.

Secondly, they are all custom built to order. They’re not off the shelf, bought from Amazon, etc. On average they take a year to be built, with my most recent harp having taken two years! The people who build them are small family business owners in the U.S.A, with typically 30 years of experience, very large woodworking shops, family employees and offering apprenticeship programs to promising young people interested in a vocational/entrepreneurial career. They frequently started off as fine cabinet makers before transitioning to making musical instruments. Each builder has his own unique approach to crafting an instrument and works closely with the commissioning harpist on how the final harp should turn out.

The harp I play each Sunday in the workshop of Argent Fox Harps, Kirkwood, IL.
The harp on the right is for another customer.

They also consult with string makers, who calculate what is known as a “string band”, that is the array of wire strings that will work correctly with the ratio of neck curvature and proportions of the instrument… and not break when being brought up to full tune! The string makers are also long-established family businesses. They will readily supply replacement strings as needed should any break.

These harps are modern interpretations of medieval Irish and Scottish harps. They have many contemporary (and useful) features not found on 14th and 15th century harps. The basic shape is the same but there have been many significant design updates offered by builders in the last few decades to allow harpists to play a wider range of musical literature on them.

https://youtu.be/q0tz-GahRLs

Here is a one minute video featuring some autumn scenery at St. Thomas & Grace. I’m playing my new double-strung wire harp built by Dan Speer of Argent Fox Harps, Kirkwood, IL.

More later!

Sherri Matthew

King David plays his kinnor

In my continuing research for interesting liturgical music to play on my three Irish wire-strung harps in church, I recently came across the work of the late French archaeomusicologist and organist Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura (1912-2000). She is best known for her book La Musique de la Bible revélée (1st ed.: 1976), a study in which the cantillation marks of the Hebrew Scriptures could be successfully transcribed to modern music notation. These marks, known as te’amim, are melodic accents in the original Hebrew script.

Her system is complex and her first book, written in French, was later translated into English (1991) but is quite pricey, even on the used book market. For those that are interested, more in-depth coverage is available here, including a pdf download of the English translation.

Haïk-Vantoura’s reading of Psalm 150: Hebraic cantillation marks become modern music notes.

French harpist Esther Lamandier recorded her music score interpretations of the Biblical manuscripts. It’s important to be aware that’s been some criticism of Haïk-Vantoura’s concept by other musicologists, the most significant point being that it is essentially a hypothesis that uses Western music theory and structures to build a body of playable and singable sheet music, which may or may not be what was actually done in King David’s time.

Still, authenticity debates aside, there may well be a grain (or two or three) of historical accuracy in Haïk-Vantoura’s work and efforts like hers can invite others to investigate the Hebrew Scriptures more in depth to find out what King David’s psalms may have really sounded like.

Also it’s worth noting that he most likely didn’t play an Irish wire-strung harp! Or any kind of harp that we’re familiar with in the Western world today (think orchestra pedal harps, today’s popular Celtic harps, etc.). More likely he played a kinnor, possibly one that looked like this (Lyre of Har Meggido) or maybe this (Kinnor David, House of Harrari, Jerusalem). Certainly he wasn’t reading sheet music as we know it! (The modern five stave notation system with clefs and other symbols is a comparatively recent invention.)

King David plays his lyre or kinnor. Note he does not have a music stand!

The Psalm scores are interesting nonetheless, because you can try them out on your harp and imagine for yourself, if all or part of this is what King David actually did play on his lyre (kinnor), you can now recreate that worship experience for yourself and others.

The sheet music is downloadable here. There are also other books of the Hebrew Bible that are available in sheet music form at this Dropbox link. All are handwritten scores by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura and as such are not typeset. They are quite legible however.

Since the kinnor has about 10 strings (give or take, but it’s generally in that range), you can play just the melody as written on your harp, or you can choose to harmonize it or even add Baroque ornaments to it, if you are playing one of the Psalms as an instrumental piece with no singing. They may or may not adhere to strict Western notions of tempo and rhythm; she doesn’t appear to have indicated metronome markings either. It might also be the case that these pieces speed up and slow down considerably, similar to speech. This, of course, is all speculation on my part.

However, they are an interesting doorway to Bible study!

King David Illustration 257572988 © Maryna Kriuchenko | Dreamstime.com (Ukrainian artist)

Photo of King David Painting 92080543 / King David © Hannah Babiak | Dreamstime.com

Cover of my collection of Polish Advent hymns

In recent months I’ve become aware of a fantastic collection of kolady (Christmas carols) and hymns and service music for Mass on the website of the Polish American Liturgical Center at Orchard, Lake Michigan. Under Śpiewnik (hymnal) you will find a fabulous collection of Polish language hymns in PDF format to download!

As I am Polish-American on my father’s side (4th generation, from Buffalo, NY, Michalska) and currently working on becoming more fluent in my ancestral language – dad taught me some – I decided it was time to start adding some Polski hymny to my weekly Sunday offerings at St. Thomas & Grace!

The hymns have been well-received and I play my harp arrangements of them as preludes, postludes and for Communion. They are perfect for wire-strung harp, almost as if they were written for the instrument! I use the melodies as a framework and build harp fantasias on top of them, adjusting the length as needed.

I downloaded and collated the hymns into collections on my computer and assembled them into booklets, which I sent to the UPS store to have printed and spiral bound. The Christmas collection was the largest; I had to break the set up into three volumes as UPS’ limit is 150 pages per book. At the moment I’ve just completed the Lent and Easter collections and will soon be sending these out for printing.

Below is a Polish Lenten hymn in the key of F. As my new Argent Fox double strung harp is currently tuned to the key of Bb, this means I flip the Truitt levers on all of the E strings to the up position, taking the strings from E flat to E natural. The strings that are tuned to Bb don’t need to have their levers adjusted.

And under the Cross Mother stood  – Polish Lenten hymn

This hymn gives only the melody – no harmonization – and repeating notes, which is perfect for what I want to do on my double strung harp. Play the first F on the right side, the second F on the left side. The strings will not be precisely in tune and this will result in a shimmering, celeste effect.

The rest of the melody allows for Baroque ornamentations – turns, mordents – usually I play this on the left side of the harp while continuing to play the melody “straight” on the right set of strings.

Also breaking the eighth notes down into sixteenth notes is very effective. The opening F can be played twice: an octave apart on the right side in rapid succession, followed by the same F repeated on the other side an octave apart as sixteenth notes.The double-strung harp is very flexible!

Another thing you can do is to look at the last line and notice that the melody is scalar… this offers the opportunity to once again insert sixteenth notes between each of the ones on the printed page. They can be a second, third, fourth, five or an octave above or below, as long as rhythmic consistency is maintained and no clashing harmonies occur. On a wire harp, good damping technique is essential here! If you can damp rapidly on notes that may clash but let the “good” notes keep ringing on, the result is a beautiful singing, ringing natural sound. The trick is to not let the damping itself be obvious… abrupt stopping of sound anywhere does not work well with these hymns! But this is a skill that develops itself over time.

There are numerous opportunities for improvisation on a wire-strung harp with melodies like this. A solid background in music theory is very helpful. It will give you insights and creative ideas how to take a melody apart and put it back together again in imaginative ways and in real time, before your church congregation!

The wire strings pass through the Truitt levers up to the tuning pins. The tuning pins for the row on the other side are visible.

My new Argent Fox double strung wire harp has a full set of Truitt sharping levers with delrin fret pins.

Here are some photos of them on my harp!

A nice, brief article introducing the concept of levers:

Types of Harp Sharping Levers

A view from underneath showing the Truitt levers on both sides of the neck for both rows of strings.

The C Truitt lever in the up position.

A view of the two parallel rows of wire strings