Level 1: Early Elementary

Busy juggling tempo, dynamics, and proper technique—not to mention playing all the right notes in the right order—my brain temporarily shuts off the valve of external worries to focus on musical quandaries. All my fears about the pandemic and the state of the world, mourning over all the ways life has transformed, and grief over losing people to disease, politics, and change disappear as my fingers glide across the strings.

Harp practice has become an oasis of peace for my frenzied brain. But sometimes I wonder how my harp is coping. Every time I sit down to practice and release tension into the strings, I wonder if they will break, or if my stress will damage the frame. It seems a lot to ask one instrument to handle. As if to express displeasure, my harp’s strings occasionally snap. The sharp cracks ring out like gunshots.

After five weeks of lessons, my teacher pauses and asks if I have considered moving to a bigger harp. She gently suggests that the one I have may not be compatible with my musical taste, ability, and intensity.

“You’re plucking too hard,” she says. “If you want to grow musically and not fight the harp every step of the way, it would be better if you got a bigger one.”

I knew I would most likely need to upgrade one day to an instrument with more range and strings and levers. I had hoped that my present harp would suffice for a year or two to learn the basics, because as harps grow in size, they also grow exponentially in price. The average price of a lever harp ranges from $2,500 to $5,000, while the average full-size pedal harp ranges from $20,000 to $100,000. Now, I was forced to consider that my plans to buy a second harp would have to be moved up drastically.

Level 2: Mid-Elementary

I don’t give my harp the “It’s not you, it’s me” speech—we both know this isn’t working out. No matter how gently I try to pluck its strings, the notes still roar out instead of delicately ringing before fading back to silence.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, I began to learn the ukulele, choosing the instrument for its accessibility in terms of cost and instruction. I faithfully practiced every day during my copious spare time, and I took a chaotic Zoom class crowded with stuck-at-home children. But even as my ukulele skills progressed, my musical heart’s desire remained elsewhere: the harp.

I can’t pinpoint exactly what drew me to the harp. I love the sound and lack of fretting. Even if you’re a beginner or haven’t touched a harp in years, the resulting sound is still reasonably melodious. Unlike the violin, you never sound like a catfight. In fact, now that I play the harp, neighbors tell me that they sometimes stop by my window to listen, and no one complains when I play after midnight.

I had taken some harp lessons in high school but stopped after I moved for college, away from my teacher and rented instrument. Still, harps remained my favorite in spite of their cost and wild impracticality. Modern orchestral harps are expensive, unwieldy behemoths. Pedal harps, the ones you see in orchestras, are about six feet tall and weigh around eighty pounds. I didn’t think I would ever play one and instead set my ambitions on the smaller lever harp, which uses levers to change keys instead of pedals. From time to time, I would idly peruse online listings for used harps. One day, I saw a mid-sized lever harp with twenty-six strings that I thought I could afford.

Buying an instrument during a pandemic is no easy proposition. I considered ordering a harp online, but buying an instrument without inspecting it and hearing it in person seemed dicey. I emailed the seller, and we agreed to meet in a park by her house. This being Portland, no one gave a second glance at the two people chatting from far ends of a picnic bench with a harp in between. After playing some scales while trying to balance the harp on a bench and finding the tone satisfactory, I agreed to purchase my first harp and we parted ways. Now I had to lug it home.

Harp technique is not intuitive. My last formal instruction had been a decade ago, and my fingers remembered nothing. My brain, however, retained snippets like, “Keep your fingers curved! Raise that thumb!” Proper technique seems to be a combination of what looks most graceful and what brings about the best tone. Most beginners, myself included, start with the dreaded “claw hand.” I worked on keeping my hand gently curved and closing my fingers into my palm after each note. I made my way through endless variations of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” instilling in my partner a new loathing for the tune. Playing chords was particularly satisfying, as the multiple strings seem to ring out with great intensity. My finger calluses grew apace with the daily practice.

In order to practice, I have to bring out the harp from where it is wedged between the desk and washing machine. Once you eliminate all the places where the harp will be exposed to direct sunlight or a heat vent, that leaves few places where it can go. Their top-heavy nature means that they’re best wedged into a corner to cushion any potential falls. Thus the current spot. Once the harp is set up, I tilt it between my legs and lean it against my right shoulder. Correct positioning means it feels almost weightless. As I pluck the strings, the vibrations run up the soundboard and sink into me. I run through various scales to warm up, explore the techniques and pitfalls of the current song I’m practicing, and count time under my breath. Endless counting.

Level 3: Late Elementary

My harp teacher tells me about a 36-string maple lever harp for sale, with stronger string tension and more concert harp-like spacing. It’s available locally, and I can rent it to try it out before buying. I balk at the cost, but I decide to give it a trial run.

Once I bring the larger harp home, it feels right, even though my partner is momentarily struck silent by the size of it as I angle it through the doorway. When I play, I find I’m not fighting this harp to get the sound I want. The taut strings stand up to the pressure of my fingers as I pluck out melodies. The levers glide smoothly up and down. By this point, I don’t have to stare at my hands constantly to make sure they’re in the right position, and most of my focus is on the music. The larger stature makes it more comfortable to sit and play—I don’t need to prop it up or use a stand. Unlike its sibling, which is small and delicate, this harp is robust. I joke to my teacher that you could use it as a battering ram. On the first day of renting it, I know that I need this harp, or one like it, to progress.

I moved frequently when I was younger, and I still struggle with goodbyes. You would think that the art of losing would be easier to master as one grows accustomed, but losses still haunt me, in real life and in fiction. I would be perfectly happy reading a never-ending story. In this case, though, I find saying goodbye to the small harp almost too easy. I wonder if I should feel ashamed of my readiness to move on.

My small harp was right for me when I was just starting out. It stood by me as I worked my way through various pandemic woes, it absorbed all the tension that I expelled, and it put up with my rudimentary fumbling. But I was ready for change, and truthfully, I think the harp was too. I end up selling it to another beginner, a woman who wants a smaller and lighter instrument to play when she travels. It sounds like a much less stressful existence for the harp.

This new harp will likely not be my forever harp. Already, my teacher is hinting that I would really enjoy a pedal harp, one with high string tension. But for now, when I play on the new harp at home, the strings ring true and clear. I learn how to coax out ever more complex sounds, like glissandi and bell-like harmonic effects. My aspirations reach higher peaks, and I hope to play The Nutcracker Suite one day. I experiment with playing the “Imperial March” from Star Wars, waking my partner, who recognizes the song even while slumbering. I still struggle with dynamics transitions, from loud to soft and back, but I am getting there. The strings fly under my fingers and the harp sings, happy to be brought out of silence.

I record a video of myself playing “Amazing Grace” on the new harp and send it to some family and friends who have been asking about my new hobby. I don’t think anything else of it until my partner’s mother, a pharmacist, tells me that she has been playing the recording for people while she was administers vaccines. I feel that I have contributed a tiny drop to the vaccination efforts. I hope that the newly inoculated found it soothing rather than annoying.

I decide to lug my harp to the park to join members of a harp circle for their first in-person meeting since the beginning of the pandemic. As I load the instrument into the car, I rue the life decisions that have brought me here and wonder afresh why I took up such a bulky instrument.

It’s almost surreal to be among people again, playing together. The music comes easily—unlike conversation during our breaks. Small talk feels like a tongue twister—the shapes of the words unfamiliar and heavy. Afterward, I walk away with a bundle of sheet music someone was giving away, various tips on playing the harp outdoors, and a feeling of terrified exhilaration, like I’m riding a galloping horse that I don’t know how to stop.

Level 4: Early Intermediate

Soon after our first meeting, the harp circle sends an email that says future meetings will be held online due to a rise in cases. I return to being a solitary player as things shut down once more. The harp music rises in complexity so my fingers never have a chance to grow complacent. Haydn, Bach, Salzedo, Mozart, and Grandjany drag me away from the gloom of life put on pause. I focus on arpeggios, harmonics, and new chord patterns. I must be precise to bring forth a ringing harmonic. The sound muffles my fear.

***

April Choi is a Portland writer. Her work has appeared in newspapers and magazines around the U.S. and beyond. She has since bought a bigger harp. This story first ran in Oregon Humanities magazine‘s Beyond the Margins series (read the original here).