Aeolian harp
An aeolian harp (or æolian harp or wind harp) is a musical instrument that is "played" by the wind. It is named for Aeolus, the ancient Greek god of the wind.
Also know as the harmonic harp or the wind harp, the aeolian harp originated in ancient Greece and achieved great popularity in Europe during the Renaissance. The instrument was also found in the cultures of India and China. German scholar and a renowned Egyptologist, Athanasius Kircher (1601–1680) is credited with having constructed the first Aeolian harp in 1650.
Aeolian harps were very popular as household ornaments during the Romantic Era, and are still hand-crafted today. Some are now made in the form of monumental metal sound sculptures located on the roof of a building or a windy hilltop.
Description
Aeolian harps can vary in terms of their basic design. The traditional aeolian harp is essentially a wooden box including a sounding board, with 10 or 12 strings stretched lengthwise across two bridges. It is often placed in a slightly opened window where the wind can blow across the strings to produce sounds. The strings can be made of different materials (or thicknesses) and can all be tuned to the same note, or can be tuned to different notes to form chords. There are also larger aeolian harps that stand upright in order to catch the wind with greater intensity. The intensity of the wind crossing the strings determines the variety of tones produced, although it will not affect their pitches.
Sound and operation
The sound of the aeolian harp is somewhat random, depending on construction, tuning, and the strength of the wind passing over the strings. The sound can range from a barely audible hum to a loud scream. If the strings are tuned to different notes, sometimes only one tone is heard and sometimes chords are formed, producing an other-worldly effect as if the wind itself were creating music.
The general manner of the instrument's sound production is based on the wind vibrating the strings and producing pitches of the overtone series (harmonics). According the principles of acoustics, a harmonic is a barely-audible higher pitch contained within a musical tone. The presence of these faint pitches are what produces the tonal characteristics of a particular musical instrument. As wind crosses the strings of the aeolian harp, it sets the strings in motion and results in a series of tones (harmonics): most commonly the third, the twelfth, and the upper octave intoning over the fundamental note in the overtone series and acting as a drone.
The harp is driven by an aeroelastic effect, relating to aerodynamic forces acting on structural members exposed to an airstream, in this case the strings. The merest motion of the wind across a string forces the air on the leading side to move faster than that on the trailing side. This causes the pressure ahead of the string to be is slightly less than that behind, pushing the string further to the side, until the restoring force arising from deflection halts and reverses the motion.
The same effect can sometimes be observed in overhead utility lines, which produce a hum sometimes fast enough to be heard or slow enough to be seen. Often mistaken as caused by electricity, the sounds is actually caused by the vibration of the wire, similar to that found in stringed musical instruments. A stiff rod will perform in a similar manner. A non-telescoping automobile radio antenna can be a dramatic exhibitor of this effect. The effect can happen in other media as well, such as in the anchor line of a ship in a river.
Aeolian harps in literature and music
Henry Cowell's Aeolian Harp (1923) was one of the first piano pieces ever to feature extended techniques on the piano which included plucking and sweeping the pianist's hands directly across the strings of the piano. The Etude in A flat major for piano (1836) by Frédéric Chopin (Op. 25, no. 1) is sometimes called the "Aeolian Harp" etude, a nickname given it by Robert Schumann. The piece features a delicate, tender, and flowing melody in the fifth finger of the pianist's right hand, over a background of rapid pedaled arpeggios. One of Sergei Lyapunov's 12 études d'exécution transcendante, Op.11 No.9, is named by the author "Harpes éoliennes" (aeolian harps). In this virtuoso piece, written between 1897 and 1905, the tremolo accompaniment seems to imitate the sounding of the instrument.
In 1972, Chuck Hancock and Harry Bee recorded a giant Aeolian harp reportedly built by the members of a commune on a hilltop in California. United released their double LP entitled The Wind Harp - Song From The Hill. In the spirit of this, in 2003 an Aeolian harp was constructed at Burning Man. Australian artist, composer and sound sculptor Alan Lamb has created and recorded several very large scale aeolian harps.
In 2006, Italian Classical/New Age composer, Oreobambo, used the Aeolian Harp on his CD Energy Journeys.
Aeolus was the Greek god of the winds and ruler of the island of Aeolia. In Homer's Odyssey, Aeolus provides the wandering Odysseus favorable winds to aid him on his journey.
English Romantic poet and philosopher, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), immortalized the instrument in his poem of 1795 The Eolian Harp, in which he references the harp and wind as being single aspects of the the same universe and origin coming together in a harmonious fashion.
The Eolian Harp (excerpt):
- And that simplest Lute,
- How by the desultory breeze caress'd,
- Like some coy maid half-yielding to her lover,
- It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
- Tempt to repeat the wrong ! And now, its strings
- Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
- Over delicious surges sink and rise,
- Such a soft floating witchery of sound
- As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
- Voyage on gentle gales from Faery-Land,
- Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
- Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
- Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untam'd wing!
American poet Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) wrote a poem entitled "Rumors from an Aeolian Harp" and Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) also references the Aeolian Harp in several of his writings, including The Maiden Song of the Aeolian Harp.
According to Cynthia A. Cavanaugh, of Kean University, late in his creative life, Emerson (who owned an Aeolian Harp), "begins to view the harp as more than an instrument; it becomes a symbol of beauty, wisdom, and divine harmony in his poetry.[1]" She further asserts: "The taint of human impurity does not touch the Aeolian harp because the music of the harp is produced by nature's breeze. Emerson once told Moncure Conway that, 'A single breath of spring fragrance coming into his open window and blending with strains of his Aeolian harp had revived in him memories and reanimated thoughts that had perished under turmoil of the times.' In the Maiden Song of the Aeolian Harp one of the entries in his last book of poetry, Selected Poems, published in 1876, Emerson writes from the point of view of the personified Aeolian harp itself, who declines to be played by a human hand."[2]
- Keep your lips or finger-tips
- For flute or spinet's dancing chips;
- I await a tenderer touch
- I ask more or not so much:
- Give me to the atmosphere. (Emerson, Selected Poems 176)
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Bonner, Stephen, Aeolian harp, Cambridge: Bois de Boulogne, 1968. ISBN 0-900-99800-8
- Hankins, Thomas L.; Silverman, Robert J., Instruments and the imagination, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-691-02997-0
- Mansfield, Jonathan, The design and construction of an Aeolian harp, Cambridge: Bois de Boulogne, 1970. ISBN 0-900-99810-5
- Cavanaugh, Cynthia A, "The Aeolian Harp: Beauty and Unity in the Poetry and Prose of Ralph Waldo Emerson," Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, 2004
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