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People often ask: “Why the harp?’ and it’s a very good question.
There are many reasons, and I will try to be brief and methodical.
The choice of harp has nothing to do with a sentimental caricature
of heaven. The reasons are practical and
seasoned.
First, the musician-clinician working in music-thanatology needs a
polyphonic instrument (many sounding) in order to deliver
end-of-life prescriptive music. So many instruments are
beautiful
– that is not debated. But a monophonic instrument (one-sounding
or single-sounding) such as the flute or the oboe can only
liberate one note at a time. A polyphonic instrument (such as
piano, organ, harp) can deliver multiple notes simultaneously.
Second, the polyphonic instrument needs to be highly portable
and
has to be able to be played in what are oftentimes difficult,
confined spaces, such as intensive care units, cardiac care units,
private homes, etc. The piano, the organ, and even a symphonic
pedal harp cannot fit into any IC unit that I have ever visited in
the United States or Europe. The harp used in the clinical
setting differs from the highly mechanized symphonic pedal harp,
and will be explained shortly. The harp becomes the polyphonic
instrument of choice as will be continually explained.
Third, the musician-clinician who works in a hospital or a hospice
is loading and unloading the instrument in and out of a car,
carrying it across hospital and hospice campuses or through
medical complexes, up and down stairs, across bridges, through
parking lots, and finally, into the room where the patient is dying.
When you do this every day, five days a week, with
hundreds of maneuvers a week, you need something that is portable
and will not negatively affect the musician’s back, shoulders,
hands, etc. The highly portable harp that we recommend for the
clinical setting is lyrical, lightweight, stable and perfect for
these kinds of repeated movements.
Fourth, because the instrument will be moved continually from
patient bed to patient bed, in the hospital this morning, in a
geriatric home by mid-day, inside a private home later,
and the back at the hospital again, being exposed to many air, pressure and
humidity changes, coming in and out of cars, in the rain and snow,
the heat and the wind, the musician clinician needs a very stable instrument (pitch-stable), hence our specific recommendations for
only certain harps with which we have years of experience, tested
and true.
Fifth, the manner in which the sound stream is liberated from the
instrument is very important, as is the volume. Many instruments
are gorgeous, affect our bodies and souls in remarkable ways, but
the sheer volume and nature of the sound production of many kinds
of otherwise gorgeous instruments can be physiologically and
psychologically invasive to someone who is extremely vulnerable,
horizontal, and in close proximity. By the time we receive the clinical referral, oftentimes the patient is not alone, but
shares a room. (In geriatric homes and hospitals, for example,
the patients often share rooms.). The intensive care unit, for a
different model, is an arena of close quarters, burdened and
liberated both by technological life-support machinery, and this
is a situation where the volume of the sound stream can seep
through the glass windows and down the hall. For these reasons,
the harp winds up being remarkably perfect, because the sound is
always dissolving. Without any intention to defame the beauty of
a particular family of instruments, does it make sense to you that
a trumpet, trombone, oboe, bassoon or French horn would far exceed
the delicate parameters needed here?
A final practical reason is physiological and therapeutic:
the
music-thanatologist leans on the uses of many warm, low, resonant
tones in the delivery of prescriptive music for the care of the
dying. This has to do with the relief of pain and/or suffering.
There are many beautiful instruments, but few meet the criteria
listed here, with the exception of a particular harp.
There are
ultimately many more subtle reasons for the harp, but those are
theological, mystical, psychological and more subjective, will
be left for a future time.
I hope it goes without saying that harp literature is beautiful,
and we must become more beautiful, inwardly, to carry its voice.
Some people say that the sound of the harp is heavenly, but it
always depends on the literature being played and the musician,
for there is much exciting, wonderful, avant-garde literature that
is highly stimulating, earthy, and demanding, and it is also
possible on our worst days to give correct notes but leave
listeners unmoved. So beauty with a capital B (Beauty) is
elusive; we work for her; she is one of the great
Transcendentals.
In the end, it seems that our patients and concert listeners
deserve nothing less.
By way of conclusion: Harps are not standardized;
there are many
different kinds and sizes of professional concert quality harps,
and the size, design, tension and substance of the strings depend
upon the repertoire the artist is carrying (i.e., medieval,
Renaissance, Baroque, classical, symphonic, opera, 20th century,
chamber music, art song, folk music, etc). The instruments we
have been recommending for many years for the clinical work are
some of the most stable instruments in the industry.
I have never
seen one implode or explode, and their makers are luthiers of
great integrity.
The 31-stringed “Gothic” harp found on our on-line bookstore is a hybrid design of tremendous dependability.
It is not a
reproduction of a medieval harp, though the slender pillar echoes something of that sensibility.
Historically, the soundboards of many harps are known to either
implode or explode after several generations of playing;
their
entire existence revolves around sustained torque or string
pressure. The harps we recommend are built by luthiers and
designers who are serious and their harps are tried and true.
(I
say this with twenty-four years of teaching, some years, thirty
eight students a semester). The “Gothic” harp is
lightweight (22 pounds), very lyrical, warm, unusually stable (come rain or
shine!) and is very modestly priced. If you happen to know the
recording Rosa Mystica, this music was recorded on the same model
harp. Another harp that we play is larger, more than twice the
weight, three times the price, gorgeous in tone, physically
beautiful, stable as an oak, and heard on
The Geography of the
Soul.
If you would like to go visit our Online
Gift Shop, you'll be able to find the Gothic
harp available, with a
second model, the more expensive one, coming
soon. Both harps are examples of instruments my
colleagues and I play in concert and on clinical
rotations, and both are harps we're sure you will
love and enjoy.
Come back to this page soon and see a small photo-history of harps
through the ages. Meanwhile, we wish you Beauty in music!
To continue, please go to
What is the Mercy Run?
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© Therese
Schroeder-Sheker 2003. All rights reserved.
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