Harp guitar

Harp guitar
	Gibson Style U, c. 1911.
Classification	Decay
Related instruments
	Steel-string acoustic guitar; Classical guitar;
Musicians
	List Don Alder; Muriel Anderson; John Doan; Antoine Dufour; Andy McKee; Jimmy Page; Matt Thomas; ;
Builders
	Gibson

The harp guitar is a

stringed instrument generally defined as a "guitar, in any of its accepted forms, with any number of additional unstopped strings that can accommodate individual plucking."^[3] The word "harp" is used in reference to its harp

-like unstopped open strings. A harp guitar must have at least one unfretted string lying off the main fretboard, typically played as an open string.

This family consists of many varieties of instrument configurations. Most readily identified are American harp guitars with either hollow arms, double necks or harp-like frames for supporting extra bass strings, and European bass guitars (or contraguitars). Other harp guitars feature treble or mid-range floating strings, or various combinations of multiple floating string banks along with a standard guitar neck.^[4]

Electric harp guitars

While most players of harp guitars play on acoustic instruments, a few of them also work with electric instruments. Notable artists who played electric harp guitars are Tim Donahue (who uses a fretless guitar section) and

noise band Solmania

built their own harp guitars. Yuri Landman has built a 17 string electric harp guitar for Finn Andrews of The Veils.^[6] The instrument has an additional movable bridge on the harp section allowing players to pitch the harp section higher or lower.

Players

Historical harp guitar players include Polish guitarist-virtuoso Marek Konrad Sokołowski (1818-1884), the German composers and guitarists Adam Darr (1811–1866) and Eduard Bayer (1822–1908) and the Italian virtuosi Pasquale Taraffo (1887–1937),^[2]^[7] Mario Maccaferri, Italo Meschi (1887-1957) and Luigi Mozzani. Viennese and French virtuosos who often played instruments with extra, floating bass strings include Carulli, Coste, Giuliani, Mertz, Padovec and Sor.^[8]

English guitarist John McLaughlin notably played a harp guitar, particularly with the group Shakti, often using the harp strings for Indian-inspired drones and open chords. Michael Hedges was known for occasionally using a 1920s-era harp guitar, such as in his song "Because It's There".

Don Alder uses the Harp guitar in songs such as "Sayonara.calm" and "Man from Ladylane" a song dedicated to Stephen Bennett, founder of the Harp Guitar Gathering and one of the top current day harp guitar players. Antoine Dufour

also uses the instrument occasionally, such as in his song "Paroxysm".

Oleg Timofeyev primarily uses a traditional Russian seven-string guitar with floating sub-bass strings. American harp-guitarist Gregg Miner owns the world's largest collection of harp guitars ("The Miner Museum") and runs harpguitars.net, a website dedicated to education and promotion of harp guitars. Alongside Stephen Bennett, he has organized, attended and documented every Harp Guitar Gathering since its inception.

Bristol Sessions

in 1927. He was known for songs such as "I'm Bound for the Promised Land" and "To the Work". His records are the only known use of the harp-guitar in Old Time Music.

(in alphabetical order)