harp
A large stringed instrument played by plucking the strings with the fingers.
In Depth
The modern concert harp stands nearly 1.8 metres tall and has 47 strings spanning six and a half octaves. Seven foot pedals, each with three positions, allow the player to raise or lower each note by a semitone, giving the harp full chromatic capability despite being fundamentally a diatonic instrument.
The harp is one of the oldest instruments in human history — depictions appear in Mesopotamian art from 3000 BCE. In the orchestra, it adds shimmering arpeggios, glissandos, and delicate colour. Debussy, Ravel, and Britten wrote extensively for the harp. The Celtic harp, smaller and lever-operated rather than pedal-operated, remains central to Irish and Scottish traditional music.
The harp has 1,500 moving parts — more than any other orchestral instrument. A concert harpist must coordinate both hands and both feet simultaneously while reading two staves of music.