Enjoy the Double-Strung Harp book
Start playing the double-strung harp, or take your double-strung playing to the next level.
Enjoy the Double-Strung Harp is for double-strung harp players who are brand new to the instrument, who already know how to play the single-course harp, or who already play the double-strung harp. How do you make it sound like a double? How do you focus with two sets of strings? And then, what do you do next? Get the hard copy or PDF.
Learn how to play the double-strung harp
Enjoy the Double-Strung Harp is available as a PDF and a spiral-bound book.
Enjoy taking advantage of the double-strung’s signature strengths—overlapping accompaniment, effortless ornaments, faster repeated notes, and fewer lever flips—by learning the technique, appreciating how the technique works in a real arrangement, and perfecting that technique via exercises or etudes.
Because there will never be as much sheet music published specifically for the double-strung as there is for the regular, single-course harps, you will also learn how to apply double-strung techniques to single-course repertoire and lead sheets, as well as single-course method books and technique exercises. This means the book grows with you, offering immediate entry points for beginners and deep exploration for experienced harpists.
You’ll also discover solutions to practical issues like tuning both sides, dealing with levers on the side you can’t see, and dusting between the string rows. Fascinating, right?!
Enjoy the Double-Strung Harp is available in hard copy and PDF. Here is the first section.
Chapter 1: Why play a double-strung?
Welcome to the world of the double-strung harp. The thing that makes a double-strung harp unique is having two rows of the same strings. Here’s what that gets you:
Melody and accompaniment never collide. Take arrangements for a larger harp and move the left hand up an octave. You don’t have to make any adjustments to prevent both hands from touching the same strings; they can’t touch the same strings.
More strings, much less weight. A double-strung harp with 24 strings on both sides is approximately 20” deep and weighs around 10 pounds. A 36-string single-course harp is over 30” deep and weighs at least 26 pounds. Which would you rather carry to gigs or into patient rooms?
Special effects. Echo yourself. Play the same note in both hands simultaneously for a richer sound. Roll overlapping chords for the notes to ring in an unexpected order. Extend arpeggios over the melody for serendipitous ornaments, echoes, and harmonies.
Easier arranging and playing from lead sheets. You can put much more concentration into your melody, because your accompaniment can be a repeating pattern that will never crash into your melody hand.
Freer improvising. Being able to echo and create close harmonies with each hand on their own side invites opportunities to experiment with low risk.
Better-sounding repeated notes. For songs with lots of repeated notes, you can split the playing between rows, so you don’t have to quickly damp the same string to play it again.
Fewer mid-song lever changes. Set your accidentals on one side so you don’t have to flip in
the middle of a song.More resonance. No matter what you are playing, the double-strung harp sounds fuller, because there are more strings to vibrate sympathetically.
This book explores how to take advantage of all of those things.
List of arrangements and etudes in Enjoy the Double-Strung Harp
The lowest note in all but three of the arrangements is the G below middle C. The highest note is three Es above middle C. About 12 of the arrangements and exercises are lever-free, about 17 use an F♯, and four also use an A♭, B♭, C♯, D♯, E♭, or G♯.
“Adeste Fideles” (O Come, All Ye Faithful). Partially finger-numbered. Discover how much echo is too much. No one knows who wrote or composed this. F♯. Bass clef for part of one measure.
“Aura Lea.” Full brackets and finger numbers. Version 1 is arranged for one hand. Version 2 has both hands sharing the melody. Get used to seeing the strings for each hand, and learn how to do this on single-course pieces. This is the tune for Elvis’s “Love Me Tender.”
“Beautiful Dreamer.” Partially finger-numbered. Version 1 presets the melody accidental in the left hand. Version 2 presets it in the right, allowing the accompaniment to be more involved. Published posthumously. Stephen Foster was almost penniless when he died; he had three pennies in his pocket. C♯. Bass clef.
“Carol of the Bells” (Shchedryk). Partially finger-numbered. Try different options to find your preferred method for accidentals. The title is derived from the Ukrainian word for bounty. F♯ and G♯. Some bass clef.
“Cloud 9” and “7th Heaven.” Almost fully finger-numbered. Practice extended arpeggios with 9ths and 7ths while hearing the accompaniment approach, meet, and surpass the melody. ChatGPT helped me name these etudes.
“Cremonea.” Fully finger numbered. Learn how to alter single-course sheet music for your double-strung and adjust scores that don’t fit your harp’s range. Sometimes attributed to Turlough O’Carolan. F♯. Bass clef.
“Dona Nobis Pacem.” Version 1 has no finger numbers and demonstrates how to play multiple melody lines. Version 2 is partially finger-numbered and demonstrates multiple melody lines plus accompaniment. No one knows who composed this music. F♯.
“Five Trios.” Partially bracketed and finger-numbered. Both hands share the melody. Train the left hand to play triads while the right hand moves around. Learn how to add variety to a repetitive piece. This is just an etude made up of five triads.
“Floating Balloons.” Partially finger-numbered. Discover the beauty when rolled chords overlap. This is the first piece I composed for the double-strung. F♯.
“Für Elise” (Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor) abridged, WoO 59. Partially finger-numbered. Play this Beethoven classic without changing levers mid-song, then experiment with different lever options. Know one knows who Elise was. D♯ and G♯. Some bass clef.
“Home on the Range.” Partially bracketed and finger-numbered. Accompany using the same shape with different rhythms. How gorgeous is this song?
“How Great Thou Art” (O Store Gud). Partially finger-numbered. Hear richer harmonies with accidentals, or leave the accidentals out. An old Swedish folk tune with new lyrics. Optional B♭ and E♭. Some bass clef. Three pages.
“La Cucaracha.” Almost fully finger-numbered. Use the left hand in both the melody and the accompaniment. No one knows what the original lyrics were. F♯.
“Loch Lomond.” Partially finger-numbered. Use two hands for snappy Scotch snaps. “Oh! ye’ll tak’ the high-road, and I’ll tak’ the low-road…” F♯. Some bass clef.
“Neap Tide.” Partially bracketed and finger-numbered. Learn to accompany with triad arpeggios using a consistent rhythm. Four additional rhythms are provided for fun. We named one of our cats after neap tides.
“Oh! Susanna.” Partially finger-numbered, including fourth-finger slides. Hear the connection of echo and syncopation when hands strategically overlap. What you will not hear is the shocking second verse.
“Prelude in C” (Praeludium), BWV 846, from The Well-Tempered Clavier. Use both courses to work around accidentals with minimal lever changes. It’s Bach, baby! A♭, B♭, C♯, E♭, F♯. Some bass clef. Four pages.
“Scarborough Fair.” The first verse is fully finger-numbered. Discover serendipitous melody decorations from the accompaniment for this piece in the Dorian mode. The version of the tune we’re most familiar with comes from a retired lead miner.
“Skye Boat Song” (Outlander Theme). Partially finger-numbered. Hear the changing density of overlapping accompaniment notes. The lyrics used in the television show are based on a rewrite by Robert Louis Stevenson. F♯.
“The Sheep-Shearers” (Next Oars). Partially finger-numbered. Version 1 lets you delight in the magic of echoes created from overlapping, syncopated accompaniment that sounds harder than it is. Version 2 is an etude for training the left hand to play melody, which is harder than it sounds. Slip jig in the Mixolydian mode. F♯.
“Silent Night.” Versions 1 and 2 are fully bracketed and finger-numbered. Versions 3 and 4 are almost completely finger-numbered. Start playing hands simultaneously with more and more variety in the accompaniment: one note, two-note chords, triads, and arpeggios. Practice simplifying any piece to make it playable at your current level. They dug up the lyricist’s skull to make a sculpture of him!
“Streets of Laredo” (Cowboy’s Lament). Almost fully finger-numbered. Learn the sound and feel of an octave reach versus a seventh. Do you have a cowboy outfit?
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Melody is fully finger-numbered, accompaniment is self-explanatory. Use a busy, overlapping accompaniment to reduce repeated melody notes. Written by a father and daughter who were freed after being enslaved by the Choctaw Nation.
“Syn-echo-pation.” No finger numbers. Think of syncopated notes as an echo. Just an etude. F♯ in the accompaniment.
“Taps.” Full finger-numbered and almost fully bracketed. Accompany using arpeggios an octave wide. There is extensive information available on the tune, but almost nothing is known about the lyricist.
“Wayfaring Stranger.” Fully finger-numbered. Both hands help with repeated notes in the other staff. No one knows who wrote this.
“When the Saints Go Marching In.” Make echoes of short phrases and individual notes. This was first recorded at a restrained tempo and became more raucous as years passed. F♯ in the accompaniment.
No sharps or flats needed unless mentioned. No bass clef unless mentioned. Scores are on one page or on two facing pages (no page turns in the hard copy) unless mentioned.
Except for “Carol of the Bells,” all songs have lyrics for at least one verse. Except for “Five Trios,” all pieces have chord symbols, so you can treat them as a lead sheet and do your own arrangement.
See more detail for the hard copy or PDF.
Make it sound like a double-strung harp
Whether you are new to the harp or just new to the double-strung, the main question doublers have is, “How do I make it sound like a double?”
The quickest answer is to play arrangements that showcase things that can’t be done on a single-course harp or are very difficult to do on a single-course. This book has 27 arrangements and etudes, so if you just play the scores and skip the exercises and the text, you’ll already be sounding like a double.
But there will never be as many double-strung arrangements out there as there are single-course arrangements, so just leaving it at “I’ll play double-strung arrangements” will only get you so far. The next step in Enjoy the Double-Strung Harp is to read the explanations of what makes each arrangement special, and then to try that out yourself on other pieces.
Overlapping accompaniment. This is the easiest to understand and to implement, and you get the most benefits from the least effort. Every one of the arrangements involve some amount of overlap. As for implementing this technique on single-course harp scores? Start by moving the left hand up an octave! Try out more ideas and explanations from the book.
Echo.
Syncopation.
Left hand helps with melody.
Right hand helps with accompaniment.
Preset levers.
Lead sheets:
“Ten Thousand Miles Away,”
“Tear the Callies,” an early version of the “Kesh Jig.”
“Shalom chaverim,” a round.
Four pages of accompaniment rhythms in 3/4, 6/8, and 4/4 time.
..and more! There are at least 40 suggestions throughout the book saying, “try this, try that.” I know because I tallied them all up in the last chapter, your two-page, one-stop section for how to keep going.
Exercises to develop good harp technique and practice double-strung effects
“Drunken Sailor.” Three versions and a lead sheet explore how to make repeated notes prettier. Based on the sea song in the Dorian mode. F♯.
“Frere Jacques.” Four versions teach you how to decide when to use which hand to “help” with the melody.
“Going Home.” Twelve accompaniment variations on the first eight bars to learn and listen to develop your ear for creating your own double-strung arrangements, which you can practice on the full lead sheet.
“Kum ‘Baa’ Yah, Little Star.” Practice and listen to the different ways to repeat notes between both hands so you can decide when you want to do it. Based on “Kum Ba Yah,” “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.”
Eight examples of how to modify single-course exercises to make them more doubly.
Six exercises to practice using the left hand in the melody, plus a bonus based on “Prelude in C.” F♯.
Four exercises to practice using the right hand in the accompaniment, plus a bonus based on “Carol of the Bells.”
Six exercises to learn how to roll chords through both hands, plus a bonus for trills and bisbigliando.
Five exercises to practice mid-song lever flips, including one that uses the right hand to flip a lever on the left side. The flipped levers are A♭ and B♭. Contact me for a different version if you do not tune in flats.
Three exercises to flip levers on the blind (right-hand) side! The flipped lever is F♯.
Twelve exercises that also make good intros, outros, or interludes, including some in the Dorian and Mixolydian modes. Some use F♯.
Two ways to purchase Enjoy the Double-Strung Harp
Click either option to see the table of contents, list of songs, and sample pages from the book:
Don’t have a double-strung harp yet? Check out my list of double-strung harp luthiers. Want even more double-strung harp music? Here are all of the composers and arrangers for double-strung harp, including links to their social media channels and double-strung sheet music. Not sure what a double-strung harp is in the first place? Find out what makes the double-strung harp different. Contact me for more answers over email, or set up one or more private lessons for double-strung harp, regular harp, or therapeutic harp.