Just one more before I head to bed

[lady_kishiria]

"Amoroso", played on a gothic harp:

http://www.asni.net/amoroso!.wav

To answer your question, yes, that is one single instrument. I've been mentioning bray strings; they're the vibrating strings providing the drone sound. The hurdy-gurdy gets its distinctive, bagpipe-like sound from them. The medievals thought it was great and so do I. During my abortive attempt to learn to play guitar, I found I liked the noise of strings buzzing against the frets, even though I later found out it was considered an "error" in playing.

Screw that! Bray strings have been described by musician Melissa the Loud (look her up) as the reason they didn't need electric guitars in the middle ages. Apparently even though gothic harps don't have loud voices due to their narrow soundboxes, they can be heard over other instruments because of the bray strings. Of course, if a harp's competition is a lute, that's not hard.

Comments

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

If you get the $$$ get a Harpsicle and try playing anyway. It's good against tremors and twitching. patgund will attest to this.

There is also an instrument that looks like a lute with no neck that was made specifically for music therapies. I'll look again for it. It's such a neat little thing I want one myself!

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

It's called the Reverie Harp. Isn't it gorgeous?

http://www.harpkit.com/reverieharp/

[seki-raku.livejournal.com]

Yay, Bray strings! Sound pretty...