Styrofoam Harps

Professional harps are cool instruments, but expensive and difficult to play.   These may be toy instruments, but they still sound nice and have possible uses in the creation of music.  With maracas and drums I could imagine some fun jamming with these. 

The instruments are feather weight.   I don't know how child-proof they might be, but I am tempted to find out.  I think these would be great learning tools for introducing children to string instruments. 

All four sides of the harps can be played.  Each side has a slightly varied selection of notes.  The strings are not tunable, but there is a general progression from low to high notes.  

Be sure to listen to the .mp3 audio file in the last step to hear how they sound. 

Step 1 Shaping the Foam

I made two harps with differences in length.  The long one uses only mono-filament nylon fish line, which is next to invisible in the photos.  The short one alternates fish line with rubber bands.  The rubber bands give the notes interesting overtones. 

The harps are basically Styrofoam triangles cut out of a thick sheet of the material.    That gives a variety of string lengths, and a variety of notes.  The longer strings make lower notes. 

The strings make contact with the body only on the edges, which are protected by half-pipes of 1/2 " CPVC pipe (smallest size for hot water use).  On the face of each side, between the pipes, I hollowed out the foam some, to give the strings more clearance for movement.  If the strings touch anything while they vibrate, it results in a buzzing sound. 

Comments

[mistic]

The audio was good ,here. Now for a video?

[rapidprototyping]

A friend once had a styrofoam flat panel speaker in the rear deck of his baby blue GTO I'm remembering the acustic properties of that speaker and of course the ride and the eight track music a foam speaker sounds novel but
its also good insulation. best sounding speakers i ever heard were in mahagoney boxes with foam insulation its resonance sound is warm like the foam the mahagoney was pourous and yet resonance

[stringstretcher]

You can hold up a block of styrofoam to your ear, place a small radio on the other end, a LOOOONG way away, and hear the sound *very* clearly from you end, perhaps even louder than if you were near the source. I have read that this was tried with a piece of foam several blocks long, and worked! Try it!

You may find inspiration at www.oddmusic.com a conglomeration of creative musicians/inventors that have done this to the utmost. And the results are often stunning. Fun stuff! Thanks for the instructable.

[mikeasaurus]

Styrofoam is an interesting choice for a harp, light and strong. But, aren't acoutsical instruments supposed to be hollow to better amplify the sound?

I like your new projects on styrofoam instruments, what's next?

[Thinkenstein]

I don't understand why solid Styrofoam works as well as it does. Perhaps it is so mass-less it is almost like being hollow. It vibrates with little energy because it weighs so little.

I don't know what's next with the Styrofoam. I'm working on hollow rubber wind instruments at the moment. Not a whole lot of success thus far.

[Kiteman]

Styrofoam is effectively hollow - think of all those bubbles.

[Ninzerbean]

It sounds wonderful, amazing, thank you for posting this.

[Thinkenstein]

My pleasure. Glad you like it.

Bread, liberty, and a harp for everyone!

[tbcross]

I love this ible! BB King first learned to play using a single strand of wire from a broom that he hung from a nail on the porch! I love the simplicity and the sounds pretty good too. Great job.

[Thinkenstein]

Nice BB King tidbit. Glad you like the harps.