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My Queen Mary has a crack in the arch that we'll repair someday, but for the time being it's not in the cards. Moreover, my fella doesn't like the ringing sound of wire strung harps but likes my old nylon-strung beast from school. And I would like something small enough I can easily carry it into the woods or just around the living room.
It would be extra nice if I could squeeze it into a Dunedain aesthetic.
And then I realized with some re-reading - as many times as harps pop up in the text, there's very little description of them at all. Not even whether they're metal wire or organic strings, for the most part. That dwarven harps are "wrung" rather implies metal I think, and the "harp, viol, and flute" or Aragorn's coronation implies a high-medieval ensemble that IIRC typically (but not exclusively) used gut-string harps.. but there's no solid reference I can find.
What's your mental image of a Dunedain or Elvish harp?
Less the decorative aesthetic, and more the overall form, I mean. More celtic? More early medieval? high-medieval?
Once upon a time I had this little wire-string darling, but traded it in for my Queen Mary - It was a fairly handly size, but I'm leaning this time towards a more gothic style. Something closer to the small one this luthier at "Another Era" is holding - .. which is similar to instruments that pop up in late medieval artwork a fair bit - (source)
I'm telling myself the nice thing is that the thinner soundbox will pack a lot easier, and the more acute angle will I think give me a slightly deeper range for the same number of strings. (This matters to me b/c with Celtic style harps, the top octave tends to be quite "tinkly" to my ears, and I hardly ever use it)
Either one could be gussied up with more Middle-Earthy aesthetic elements, of course.
Any thoughts?