the Harp & Dulcimer Room


Harps are the best-known members of the Lyre family of stringed instruments, having numerous unfretted strings running at a more-or-less perpendicular angle to the soundbox. The large harps found in symphony orchestras have complicated pedal mechanisms which allow the player to sharpen or flatten the pitch of a group of strings quickly while they are playing. We sell the simpler folk style harps here, with manual sharping levers, or no levers at all. Folk harps are especially popular in Celtic music.

The hammered dulcimer is a percussion-stringed instrument that probably evolved from the psaltery. A hammered dulcimer consists of strings typically stretched over a trapezoidal resonant body. The player holds small "hammers" in each hand to strike the string producing a distinct, elegant tone - this is distinguished from the oblong "mountain" or Appalachian dulcimer, also commonly called the lap dulcimer. We've got all of the above!

A lot of our miscellaneous zither-ish objects also live in this room - autoharps and psalteries and lap harps as well!

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