- aeolian harp
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a box with an opening across which are stretched a number of strings of equal length that are tuned in unison and sounded by the wind. Also called aeolian lyre, wind harp.[1785-95]
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Stringed instrument played by the wind (named for the wind god Aeolus).It is usually a long, narrow, shallow box with soundholes and 10 or 12 strings strung lengthwise between two bridges. The strings are of the same length but different thicknesses and are all tuned to the same pitch; the wind makes them vibrate in successively higher harmonics. The harp may be hung, or set horizontally under a window sash. The first known Aeolian harp was constructed с 1650 by Athanasius Kircher (1601–1680).* * *
(from Aeolus, the Greek god of the winds), a type of box zither on which sounds are produced by the movement of wind over its strings. It is made of a wooden sound box about 1 metre by 13 cm by 8 cm (3 feet by 5 inches by 3 inches) that is loosely strung with 10 or 12 gut strings. These strings are all of the same length but vary in thickness and hence in elasticity. The strings are all tuned to the same pitch. In the wind they vibrate in aliquot parts (i.e., in halves, thirds, fourths…), so that the strings produce the natural overtones (harmonics) of the fundamental note: octave, 12th, second octave, and so on. For a more technical explanation of the phenomenon, see sound: Standing waves (sound).The principle of natural vibration of strings by the pressure of the wind has long been recognized. According to legend, King David hung his kinnor (a kind of lyre) above his bed at night to catch the wind, and in the 10th century Dunstan of Canterbury produced sounds from a harp by allowing the wind to blow through its strings.The first known Aeolian harp was constructed by Athanasius Kircher (Kircher, Athanasius) and was described in his Musurgia Universalis (1650). The Aeolian harp was popular in Germany and England during the Romantic movement of the late 18th and 19th centuries. Two attempts to devise a keyboard version using a bellows were the anémocorde (1789), invented by Johann Jacob Schnell, and the piano éolien (1837), by M. Isouard. Aeolian harps are also found in China, Indonesia, Ethiopia, and Melanesia.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
