We warmly welcome you to our Harps and Art site
Harps made by Geoff Legg
Played & marketed by Rhonda Dawson

Harps made in Australia.
We make with pride, a wide range of custom made harps in a variety of available timbers and a choice of polished or colour finishes.

Let us introduce ourselves:

Hello, my name is  Rhonda Dawson.
I was brought up on a fruit property with a musical and art influence from both parents. Learnt the piano as a child and revisited this later to succeed in passing 6th & 7th grade piano, and also studied musical theory. I gained a degree in Visual Fine Arts in 1999 majoring in painting. 
  
In 1997 I bought a 26 diatonic string lap harp. From this my love and admiration for this instrument has grown.  With a little encouragement I now have my own harp maker – Geoff, who now is as passionate about making harps as I am playing them.  My job is polishing, tuning and marketing these precious instruments.

Hello, my name is Geoff Legg
I met Rhonda at Art School and our mutual interest in creating art has been a sound foundation and an exciting journey for this friendship. I have a farming and mechanical background. The ongoing drought was a strong influence for leaving the farm and redirecting my life.  I gained a degree in Visual Fine Arts in the year 2000, majoring in Sculpture.  I also enjoy painting, working with timber and steel, making furniture, and learning new skills. 

We make a variety of harps, ranging from the 26 string lap harp to the 36 string fully semitoned levered harp, which has a 5 octave range in pitch. These harps have one row of strings. Also available in the similar sizes and same range of pitch, is the chromatic cross strung harp.

The Chromatic Cross Strung Harp:- This harp can be traced back to the 16th century. It has a string for every semitone within its range, and has two rows of strings that are strung from the harp's soundboard.  These cross over at aproximately the centre distance of the strings and are connected to the tuning pins on the opposite sides of the harp's neck.

The two rows of strings can be compared to a piano. One row repesents the white notes of the piano with the strings being evenly spaced. The other row represents the black notes with these in groups of twos and threes repeating like the piano. The C and C# are coloured red and the F and F# are coloured blue as a guide for string recognition.

To play the Chromatic Cross Strung Harp isn't as complicated as it looks, as your hands are in a similar playing position as the single row or diatonic harps. Your left hand plays on the lower half of the strings (the soundboard end) towards the centre, and your right hand plays on the upper half of the strings, (the neck end) towards the centre.

To play simple tunes in the key of C major which has no sharps or flats, (the black notes  on the piano)  is a good starting point to become used to this instrument. Then move on to more challenging arrangements.

The advantage of this instrument is that you can play music in all the keys, and music which includes key modulations and accidentals within the musical arragement, without having to use pedals or semitone levers.