Желмен ойнайтын аспап: Эол арфасы

Type of musical instrument
the piece by Frédéric Chopin

An Aeolian harp (also wind harp) is a musical instrument that is played by the wind. Named after Aeolus, the ancient Greek god of the wind, the traditional Aeolian harp is essentially a wooden box including a sounding board, with strings stretched lengthwise across two bridges. It is often placed in a slightly opened window where the wind can blow across the strings to produce sounds. The strings can be made of different materials (or thicknesses) and all be tuned to the same pitch, or identical strings can be tuned to different pitches. Besides being the only string instrument played solely by the wind, the Aeolian harp is also the only string instrument that plays solely harmonic frequencies. They are recognizable by the sound which is a result of this property, which has been described as eerie and ethereal. The Aeolian harp – already known in the ancient world – was first described by Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) in his books Musurgia Universalis (1650) and Phonurgia Nova (1673). It became popular as a household instrument during the Romantic era, and Aeolian harps are still hand crafted today. Some are now made in the form of monumental metal sound sculptures located on the roofs of buildings and windy hilltops. The quality of sound depends on many factors, including the lengths, gauges, and types of strings, the character of the wind, and the material of the resonating body. Metal framed instruments with no sound board produce a music very different from that produced by wind harps with wooden sound boxes and sound boards. There is no percussive aspect to the sound like that produced by a wind chime; rather crescendos and decrescendos of harmonic frequencies are played in rhythm to the winds. As Aeolian harps are played without human intervention, the sounds they produce are an example of aleatoric music. Aside from varying in material, Aeolian harps come in many different shapes. Some resemble standard harps, and, in one monument, a fiddle. The effect can sometimes be observed in overhead utility lines, fast enough to be heard or slow enough to be seen. Similar taut wires like non telescoping radio antennae, ships' anchor lines, and stiff rods also exhibit this phenomenon. The effect results in Aeolian harps only producing overtones. Were the strings plucked, they would produce the fundamental frequency in addition to several overtones. Most household Aeolian harps are made of wood, featuring a sound board and sound hole to improve how the instrument resonates. In terms of size, they are usually about one metre by 13 centimetres by 8 centimetres, For a building material, metal is generally preferred to wood at this scale due to how metal can withstand the environment for longer, needs less maintenance, and is stabler and stronger than wood.

The ability of the wind to play string instruments has been known and referenced since ancient times. Aeolian harps have been featured and mentioned in a number of poems. These include at least four Romantic era poems: "The Eolian Harp" and "Dejection, an Ode", both by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and "Mutability" and "Ode to the West Wind" by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The former of these two appears alongside his essay "A Defence of Poetry". Henry David Thoreau also wrote a poem called "Rumors from an Aeolian Harp", which he included in the "Monday" chapter of his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Aeolian harps have also been mentioned in several novels. These include George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871 2), Thomas Hardy's The Trumpet Major (1880) and The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita (1955), and Lawrence Durell's novel "Clea" (fourth book of the Alexandrian Quartet) (1960). James Joyce had a short section "O, Harp Eolian!" in the Aeolus chapter of Ulysses (1922). More recently, an Aeolian harp was also featured in Ian Fleming's 1964 children's novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to make a cave seem haunted. In William Heinesen's novel The Lost Musicians (1950), set in Tórshavn, character Kornelius Isaksen takes his three sons to a little church where, in the tower, they sit listening to the "capriciously varying sounds of an Aeolian harp", which leads the boys into a lifelong passion for music. El arpa eólica (The Aeolian Harp) is an alternate history novelette written by Óscar Esquivias. It was originally published in 2011 by Fábulas de Albión. The novelette depicts the life of Berlioz as a young student in Paris.

In recent history, a number of Aeolian harps exceeding six metres in height have been constructed. Aeolian harps of this size are normally made from metal. In Negrar, in the province of Verona (Italy), is a modern monument Aeolian harp more than six metres high. It is a sound monument designed by the Italian architect Giuseppe Ferlenga which was inaugurated in November 2015 from the Sports and Cultural Group of Mazzano. The acoustic part of this tool is composed of a frame that contains a copper harmonic case. The Aeolian Harp of Negrar has six strings of different lengths and materials. If there is wind, this monumental harp produces audible sounds up to a distance of about four metres. There are many more Aeolian harps of this size and larger in North America. In the Mimbres Valley of New Mexico, there is an Aeolian Harp, titled Tempest Song, exceeding seven metres in height. Tempest Song is similar in appearance to a standard harp with 45 strings tuned to the C minor pentatonic scale and a central bearing originally being from a semi truck. An even larger Aeolian harp, measuring in at eight metres tall, can be found at the Exploratorium, a museum in San Francisco. The largest Aeolian harp in the world dwarfs even Sydney's. In San Francisco stands the Lucia and Aristides Demetrios Wind Harp, which stands at 28 metres tall. This Aeolian harp is located a little over 74 metres above sea level, which means it is always receiving a suitable breeze and that it comes with a panoramic view of South San Francisco and some of the Bay. Likewise, the instrument, in appearance resembling a set of steel beams connected by curved grates, is visible throughout much of the city.