Aeolian Harp
A stringed instrument whose strings are set sounding by the wind.
What it means
The Aeolian harp is a stringed instrument that no one plays by hand: the wind itself sets its strings sounding. It is named after Aeolus, the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology.
It consists of an elongated, usually wooden resonance box holding several strings of the same pitch but different thickness, stretched over two bridges. When the instrument is exposed to the wind, for instance in an open window, the airflow sets the strings vibrating.
Musical use
Unlike a plucked or bowed string, the strings of an Aeolian harp vibrate mostly in their overtones rather than their fundamental. Because wind strength keeps changing, the timbre shifts constantly too, from a faint hum to full, chord-like blends of overtones.
The instrument became known in England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, where it was set up in gardens and windows. In Romantic-era literature and music it became a symbol of nature making music by itself, without human intervention, and poets returned to the image repeatedly.
The Aeolian harp should be distinguished from an ordinary harp, which is played by plucking the strings with the fingers and has a fixed tuning with distinguishable individual pitches. The Aeolian harp instead produces no deliberately playable notes, only a constantly shifting wash of sound.
Today the Aeolian harp's principle is also taken up outside its classical form, for instance in sound installations and public sculptures that expose large-scale strings or pipes to the wind. The basic idea stays the same: sound arises without any deliberate act of playing, purely from the movement of air.
Other names
The instrument is also called a wind harp.
Performance practice
Place the Aeolian harp somewhere with a steady, moderate breeze, such as a partly opened window; too much wind overdrives the sound, too little leaves the strings silent. Listen for the shifting overtones rather than individual notes, and let yourself accept the unpredictability of the sound, since that is the real appeal of the instrument.