I currently have  a custom Electro-acoustic 36 string harp, one completed custom Laser beam harp, and two Custom Wire Strung harps available for sale and ready to be shipped.

Custom Black Walnut Acoustic-electric 36 nylon Strings

 One of my clients has let me know that he needs to sell an electro-acoustic harp I built for him a few years ago. It is 36 nylon strings, with medium to high string tension, built from Black Walnut, with a solid spruce sound board. It has a full set of Loveland sharping levers.

The decoration, as you can see, is designed in a Bamboo style, with Bamboo shaped back sound joles, relief carving on the side of the pillar. There are also mini partially pierced sound holes/ carvings with black detailing, on the sound board.

The sound system is dual output stereo/mono, using the individual RMC string transducers. This is the same system that Lyon & Healy uses on their electric harps.

It is for sale ...for $4,900 plus shipping from the SF bay region of Northern California. 

Please contact me for information on how you may contact the owner, to talk to him, or to see and play this harp in person, if you are in the area.

Custom Carved Myrtle wood Laser Harp with 8 green Lasers. 

This is a Carved Myrtle wood Laser Harp with 8 green Lasers. Here shown both with fog and the lasers running, and with no fog and the lasers turned off.

I rarely build a Custom Harp that has not been commissioned. But this is one I just built in the fall of 2009 to show at a Science and Technology Center Conference in Texas. It is styled a bit like one that I am building for the 'Jewish Children`s Museum' in NY, NY. That commissioned project will be carved to look like the harp was carved from an olive tree trunk/branches , with lots of Organic detail.

This harp is about 38 inches tall, designed to be installed on the top of a display cabinet or counter, about four high. The supplied software and midi controller will respond to breaks of the laser beams up to 70 times per second. Up to 60 sound or visual 'events', can be programmed for each laser beam, and their is a supplied four-button control box, that can be mounted with the harp, that allows museum patrons to scroll through as many different programs as you desire, or both sound and visuals. The system can control up to three LCD or similar type projectors, via a computer, to allow the lasers to trigger still or video images. With three projectors you can create almost a full immersion experience.

The lasers and sensor as both mounted in such a way that they are protected from damage via exploring fingers or other objects.

Please see my Laser Harp page for specs on all the midi/multimedia control equipment and software that is included with this Laser Harp.

It is currently for sale and available for $15,000, complete with software and all multimedia control equipment, ready to hook to a Laptop computer and sound system.

Thirty Three strings, Rock Maple Bronze wire strung harp

  

his harp shown above  is a wire strung harp built from Birds eye Rock Maple with a solid Spruce sound board a full set of Loveland levers. these is also colorful Celtic designs painted on the sound board. It is in Brand New condition.

 This unusual wire strung harp is built from Rock Maple with Solid Spruce sound board. It also has a complete set of 33 Loveland sharpening levers. The note range is from Fourth Octave C, up to First Octave A.
The combination of the spruce sound board with the rock Maple sound box, gives this harp a bright bell-like sound, but without too much over ring, that you can have from a hardwood sound board. The Loveland levers work perfectly for Bronze wire strings, and This harp has a beautiful five sided staved sound box, with the highly decorative wood grain that Birds Eye Maple wood is know for. Bird`s Eye Maple is highly figured, with many different shades and tones of golden-white and brown.

This harp was built to be comfortable to be played with the finger tips or nails. the string spacing is perfectly placed for either playing style. There is a solid Spruce sound board, made from Old Growth Engelmann Spruce, with very tight growth rings. This marvelous tone wood has been air- dried for at least twenty years. The Spruce was used to balance with the Maple, for a sound that is bright and carries well, but that does not have excessive over-ring.

The full set of Loveland levers give you a fully levered bronze wire strung harp, for the most flexibility in playing any type of music. The Loveland Levers work extremely well on bronze strings, when the lever set is designed and installed properly. They are very gentle on the bronze strings, since they do not force the strings in pushing direction. Instead these levers gently cradle the strings, producing a solid tone when engaged, giving you all the normal key changes that lever harps are able to do.
The sound board is beautifully painted with Celtic designs, in a tasteful blend of Red, Green and Blue colors. this harp comes with a custom Blue colored soft padded case, and a custom shaped tuning key, also made from figured Maple.

Please call or write me if you would like more information on this harp!
 

 Regular  Price: $4,800.00
Sale Price: $3,000.00

Shipping cost to be determined at time of purchase.
Location of harp is Southern Oregon, near Ashland & California border.

Custom 20 wire strings Myrtle Wood Harp

This little wire strung lap harp is designed to be comfortable to be played with the finger tips and/or fingernails. There is a full set of Loveland sharping levers, which work very well with the bronze strings. The sound board is Engelmann Spruce, which matches very well with the Oregon Myrtle wood sound box, neck and pillar. The Spruce give a very nice sound that does not over-ring, sounding much like the ancient Willow wood wire strung harps of Ireland. The Loveland levers work well as they are set up to have just a gentle but clear, one point contact to the wire strings, which prevents crimping. The decoration on this harp consist of a spray of carved leaves on top of the harp neck, and an inlayed and engraved Star pattern of Koa and Holly wood veneers, with Celtic knot work inside the design. The harp is equipped with a Myrtle wood display cradle to rest in. 

This harp is for sale for  $1,500, not including shipping. 

It is currently located in MA, on the American East Coast, and will be shipped form there. If you are in that area of the country, and would like to see this harp in person, I can put you in contact with the owner to make arrangements.

Working on new Pentatonic Harp design in my shop today

I am creating a design/drawing for a client today in my shop, for a large Double  Pentatonic harp. It will have 5 octaves, with 60 strings in total, set up with the longest string in the middle, and then with two identical string sets in one line going out from that middle string, like a mirror image of each other. These nylon and composite metal strings will be set into an oval neck frame, with the sounding box at the bottom of the harp. It will be about 68 inches tall. the tuning pegs will be in the top of the neck, along with bridge pins. There will be no levers, since the tuning is to be only played pentatonic.

I am not sure if this one will be built, as the clinet has nto yet decided which way he wants to go, with a more typical double harp, or with this approach! :-)

New Mountain Glen Custom harp page on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=name&id=1647122326#/pages/Mountain-Glen-Harps-LLC-Custom-one-of-a-kind-Harps/397266495566?ref=mf

Facebook | LaserHarps LLC, Custom one-of-a-kind Multimedia Laser Beam Harps

Facebook | LaserHarps LLC, Custom one-of-a-kind Multimedia Laser Beam Harps

New web site up and running !! New photos of harps under construction too !

OK, got my Totally new web sites up and running, a couple days ago, both www.laserharps.com, and wwwmountainglenharps.com

If you catch any typos, please let me know !! :-)

And here are a couple of shots of two harps on my workbench that are almost finished!

One is a 34 string Cherry wood harp that will be nylon strung, with Camac levers.


The other is a Carved Cherry wood 33 string nylon strung acoustic-electric-midi harp, that is also set up with 6 green lasers. This is a first of a kind hybrid string/laser harp that anyone has built. It has the capacity for each string to send out a midi signal coded to the string`s pitch, that can allow the harp to play any sounds to go with the strings, in harmony with those notes generated by the strings. There is a set of 7 triple slide switches , that act as 'midi pedals' to sharp or flat all the midi signals for all the C`s, D`s, ect, so that the midi signals are the same pitch as the strings are when their levers are flipped up.


The lasers will allow the triggering of any back ground musical or natural sounds, and /or projected video and still images, to go with the music being played. This harp is a custom creation for a Harpists who plays Nature oriented Celtic music. So for example she might be playing Celtic music while she is triggering back ground sounds of ocean waves, while one-to-three LCD projectors are showing video of a seas shore scene.

The multimedia controller that goes with the Lasers actually has 12 channels available , with 6 being used by lasers, and the other 6 being used in this harp by a multi-channel midi pedal. the Harpist will be able to use this pedal to capture and trigger loops of music she has just played, to accompany herself. The triggering can be via one of the lasers beams, that can have up to 60 sequences of sound or images programed on it. The Lasers will also react to their light being broken, to trigger sound or video, up to 70 times per second.

When this harp is finished, I will be posting videos of it being played, with haze to illuminate the lasers. There are two green Lasers that shoot up the soundboard, to sensors hidden under the carved leaves that you see in the picture. Those beams will reflect off the lacquer of the soundboard to give the harp soundboard a green glow, to go along with the gold of the Spruce soundboard. The harp has cared cherry wood leaves all over the carving, which when finished will have touches of mother-of-pearl based green paint to highlight their veins and edges. So the finished harp will be Rich Red Cherry wood with iridescent green highlights in places, with a gold Spruce sound board and with a green halo to the whole instrument, when the lasers are lit!! :-)

New Photos of my latest Laser Harp

I have been deep in the depths of HTML code, working on my web site , that is only three years behind !! But........ it should be up tonight. Right now we are having a problem with FireFox Not showing the background color, but if you use Internet Explore, you can see it right now at this address: www.mountainglenharps.com/index.htm

Meanwhile here are a couple of photos of this latest Laser Harp:

String Theory

Phoenix harp builder searches

for the right sound

By Sanne Specht

Mail Tribune
March 29, 2009 6:00 AM

Birds twitter from branches atop a leafless tree, their songs mingling
with the classical music that spills through the open door of the
harp maker's garage workshop.

The real world blending of natural sounds and man-made music
reflects Glenn Hill's passion — creating one-of-a-kind,
hand-carved harps that do the same.

"I make between six or eight of them a year," says Hill,
stroking a harp's carved wooden leaves, an important part
of the "Lord of the Rings" motif of this
soon-to-be completed, commissioned instrument.

During a 30-year span, the Phoenix harp maker has created
about 325 carved and sculpted harps made in single,
double or cross-strung versions which can
range in price — depending on size and complexity — from $1,825
to $26,000.

Hill's unique harps incorporate traditional acoustic strings,
or electric strings and/or laser "strings" to create a wide
array of sounds.

"The first thing I do is design the string set," Hill says. "It has to have
the right feel, the right tension, the right sound."

Harpists typically will hold the instrument on their right shoulder,
plucking the upper
register strings with their right hand, and the lower bass strings
with their left hand,
he says.

"The chords are similar to a piano," Hill notes. "Except you pluck
strings toward yourself instead of pressing down on the keys."

Hill also makes "stringless" laser harps with bands of colored light
that burst forth in a variety of sounds, or even sights,
with the simple wave of a hand.

Breaking the laser beam allows the artist to trigger any of a series of
pre-determined/
pre-recorded sounds, such as wind rustling through leaves, water
rushing over rocks
or even the soulful wail of a pre-recorded James Brown.
The technology allows harpists to incorporate virtually
any sound into their music, Hill says.

In the case of his latest commission, Hill is incorporating a few
colored "strings" of the laser technology into the more traditional
acoustic and digital stringing of the instrument.
Natural sounds will likely be the musician's selection
for her laser "strings," he adds.

"She is a Celtic harpist who likes to play music that is
nature-oriented," Hill says.

Hill, who admits to having only a "noodling" ability with the
instruments himself, built his first harp in 1978 while living
at a "yoga-based monastic community" in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Although he had never taken woodworking, the community
workshop called to Hill.

"I made my first few harps there," he says.

His first harp was made without much knowledge or a good
construction plan, Hill said.

"The first harp I made is probably in pieces somewhere
out in the desert in Nevada."

But in 1985, Hill got serious about crafting quality, hand-carved
wooden instruments
when he entered the Violin Making School of America in
Salt Lake City. He studied
at the prestigious school for two years, he says. It is there he
met Yo-Yo Ma, the French-born, Chinese-American virtuoso
cellist and composer. Yo-Yo Ma is also
highly accomplished on the piano, viola and violin, and the winner
of multiple Grammy Awards.

"I learned a lot," says Hill, who moved to the Rogue Valley
in 1987 and started making
harps full time in 1991.

In 1990, Hill built his first laser-beam harp. He has created
two more since then —
both are public art pieces.

The first is in the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester,
N.Y. Installed as a
part of the permanent display in Reading Adventureland,
the laser harp sits at the
top of a giant's castle.

"That one is carved to look like the giant's harp in Jack and the
Bean Stalk,"
says Hill.

The museum's senior exhibit designer, Kevin Murphy, says
Hill's harp is a hit with
the kids familiar with the famous fable. Children scramble past a
10-foot-tall giant, climb to the top of the castle,
"and play the magic harp," he says.

"They love it," says Murphy. "It's a very popular feature of the show."

Another of Hill's laser harps is at a children's hospital in
Virginia Beach, Virginia.

In its simplest form, a laser harp is a light-controlled switch,
Hill says. When a beam is interrupted or broken —
for example by a hand passing through — a signal
is sent to a computer, which serves as the controller unit,
Hill explains.

"This beam interaction can trigger sound, lighting, visual images,
video, special
effects, smoke, pyrotechnics and other digital applications —
all in real time," Hill says.

The nature of the sound is dependent on the synthesizer or
sampling device, and
the amplifier and speaker setup, Hill says.

"If you plug the harp into the back of an inexpensive keyboard
synthesizer, you
will hear the usual keyboard-synthesized sounds when you play
the harp," Hill says.
"If you plug the harp into a newer rack-mounted synthesizer,
some very convincing sounds will be produced."

Exciting possibilities result from plugging the harp into a computer
that is running audio production software, says Hill,
playing a snippet of a video. Hill chuckles as James Brown vocals
began to play when his laser harp is activated.

Hundreds of scrolling templates adorn the walls in Hill's Phoenix
garage workshop.
At a nearby table, Hill studies a series of blueprints
for commissioned harps which have been paid for —
but have yet to be built.

The process of creation is collaborative, Hill says.
He consults with his clients, makes the initial drawings,
and then sends them to his customers for their
input and approval.

Hill points to a blueprint which is about to be turned
into a template. Once built, the
harp will be painted in vivid hues at the request of the musician, Hill says.

"She wants it to be bright red with no wood showing except for
painted imagery and little red rhinestones,"
he says, with a grin and a grimace.

Hill will follow the harpist's request. But he's making the harp
out of cherry wood
so if the woman changes her mind about the red paint,
the wood will be similar in color, Hill says.

Another harp, also fully paid for, has been years in the design stage.
This one will have 34 strings and a unicorn with a flowing mane carved
into the top. The notes on the blueprint request that Hill
insert citrine or blue topaz stones for the unicorn's eyes.

"I've got a lot to do," says Hill. "Luckily, people understand there
is a waiting list for custom-made harps."

Reach reporter Sanne Specht at 776-4497
or e-mail sspecht@mailtribune.com.

Find out more

If you're interested in the harps built by Glenn Hill, call 541-535-7700
or visit www.mountainglenharps.com.