Computers pull strings for the harp maker

Advanced technology is being pressed into service to help build a better harp. A research group at the Dublin Institute of Technology is analysing the characteristics of the traditional Irish instrument as a way to make things easier for the harp maker.

Dr Paddy Healy, a physics lecturer at the DIT described the work yesterday afternoon at a Science Week Ireland presentation at Cork Institute of Technology. The object, he said, was decidedly not to replace the harp maker but to help speed up the harp-making process.

Irish harp makers cannot keep up with world demand for the folk harp, a national symbol of Ireland, he said. His study sought "to unlock the secrets of the Irish folk harp to advance the musical instrument-making business in Ireland and, with luck, create a few jobs.

"We have to understand the relationship between the music that emanates from the harp and the harp's physical properties. If we can understand this we can help the harp maker to make them more quickly."

The project is funded by the DIT and by Forbairt and Dr Healy is working in conjunction with one of Ireland's leading harp makers, Mr Colm O Meachair of the Marley Craft Centre.

The work requires extensive use of computer technology to analyse the sounds and the harp's structure, the elements of the instrument that amplify the fairly weak sounds that come from the strings when plucked.

The group was studying the elasticity of the wood, its density and the "resonance frequencies" of the harp's overall shape. "It is about vibration and the structure of a musical instrument," Dr Healy said. "We are trying to fully understand the behaviour of the harp's structure and the way it amplifies the notes."

Dr Healy believed that what was learned during the study could be reapplied in the manufacture of other stringed instruments such as guitars and violins.

Dr Healy will repeat his talk at Queens University on Wednesday at 3.45 p.m. and on Friday at TCD at 3 p.m.