Electromagnetic Harp? Music And Technology Come Together In The Most Fascinating Way!

This instrument known as Segulharpa produces completely acoustic music.

These days, we hardly survive without technology. So, it’s not a surprise that even musical instruments take an electrifying journey, quite literally. If you’ve ever stopped to notice the musical instruments that we play, you must know that we have been playing them exactly the way they were supposed to be played, since the beginning.

With our minds reaching the heights of technological creativity, we can very easily use some of it while designing musical instruments, making our work less but output, even more. All the heckles, the process of “modernizing” instruments receives, are baseless, for all we care. At Georgia Tech’s annual Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, the instruments of the future shined brightly in everyone’s eyes. The Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology (GTCMT) is an international research center that specializes in technological research in music and focuses on the developing and transforming musical experience.

So far in the world of harps, the magical world of the multi-stringed musical instrument which dates back to 3500 BC, we have seen some developments. We have seen electric harps from Chicago, Italy and France. These use piezoelectric transducers, one per string with small internal microphones, to produce a direct output mixed electrical signal. And then, we have laser harps.

A laser harp is an electronic musical instrument and laser lighting display. Several projected laser beams are blocked and stroked to produce sounds as if, an acoustic harp is playing. The laser harp was popularized by Jean-Michel Jarre, since 1981. They have also been used at Burning Man in 2005 and 2012, Harmony Festival, and at multiple Art and Music Museums around the World.

After a laser harp, now we have an electromagnetic harp.

This 25-stringed electric instrument has been in development for the past three years and produces music “using special types of electromagnetic actuation modules”. These actuation modules “generate powerful magnetic fields around the strings causing them to resonate, even forcing the strings to vibrate in ways that are otherwise physically impossible.”

Oh, the wonders of technology! The music from this instrument is completely acoustic in spite of it’s electric bodice.

It can be played by touching the metal sensor keys on the front panel or via programming the instrument with bluetooth or Wi-Fi. A “magnetic feedback loop is created between a sensor and driver coil, manipulating the signal between sensor and driver.” Listen to the music it can create.

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