Eye Candy Friday

I've seen a lot of blogs that post cool pix on Fridays and call it "Eye Candy Friday". I think that's cool and I'd like to join in. I just hope it's not a club or something that I'm suppose to belong to to do it. Hmmmm?

Anyway...here's my eye candy for Friday. It's a picture my daughter took of part of her harp. It's such a beautiful instrument. For anyone unfamiliar with the harp these are some of the moving parts at the top of the strings that are moved with pedals at the bottom to make notes sharp, flat, or natural. For example, if the "c" pedal is moved to a certain position it will change all the "c" strings on the harp. This operation is on pedal harps. A harpist playing a harp like this plays with both hands and both feet at the same time.

A folk harp has a lever for each string which is moved to sharpen or make a note natural. They can only be flat if they are manually tuned to that. Each string is adjusted individually, by hand, during the song, as needed. There are other harps without levers or pedals that are tuned to the needs of a particular song. I believe a Paraguayn harp doesn't have any levers or pedals.

I find this all fascinating. It's such a beautiful and versatile instrument. My daughter has been playing the harp for over eight years. She plays classical music with a symphony. But, her true love is playing contemporary, jazz, latin and other types of music that surprise listeners...like "Stairway to Heaven", "Clocks", Rag music, etc. I feel lucky everyday to hear live harp music in my home.

Have a wonderful weekend!