Making a Tagelharpa (Bowed Lyre)

With a name meaning "tail hair harp" (also spelled "talharpa"), this bowed lyre instrument is related to the Finnish jouhikko, Welsh crwth, and Shetland gue. Today it seems to have developed strong Viking associations.

The one I've built is made of maple (body frame), spruce (top), cherry (back and sound hole Celtic knot), and walnut (bridge and tailpiece). The bow is a naturally curved oak branch I found in the woods, strung with black horsehair. Tuners are electric bass tuners. The tailpiece is attached to the endpin with braided artificial sinew. Scale length is about 17.5in (444mm). Finished with Minwax tung oil finish.

I played this with both my hand-wound horsehair (tuned D-A-A) and modern viola strings (tuned Bb-F-Bb). I think the horsehair strings range from around 25-40 hairs each. Very different sounds - horsehair is dark and gritty, and viola is bright and metallic but I had an easier time getting sound out of those (maybe I wasn't winding the horsehair correctly).

Overall I suppose it makes sound but many improvements to be made in the future, so it was a good learning experience.

[and please forgive the playing demo - I'm not a bow guy]

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00:00 Body Frame
04:13 Back
07:14 Top
08:58 Sound Hole Cover
10:36 Bass Bar & Sound Post
11:27 Attaching the Top
13:23 Tailpiece, Bridge, Endpin
15:24 Bow
17:17 Finishing & Assembly
19:56 Playing (Horsehair)
21:07 Playing (Viola)