Rainbow-colored strings!

[Gregg Bailey]

Right around 4 years ago, I came up with what I thought was just a hypothetical idea of rainbow-colored strings using the following repeating scheme going downward:

C = red
B = orange
A = yellow
G = green
F = blue
E = violet
D = magenta/pink

As you can see, C’s are still red and F’s are still the common folk color blue; I just filled in the rest with the other logical colors. Well, I just now discovered that there’s actually a harp maker in the UK who has been making a 27-string harp model with that SAME EXACT color scheme for the strings (“Rainbow Harp”) for about 4.5 years now so that people with learning disabilities can learn the harp more easily with color-coded music. In case this forum blocks posts with website addresses, I’ll refrain from including it here, but you can easily find it in a Google search. Their website also contains videos from their YouTube channel (“Hands on Harps”).

Not only do I think it looks wonderful, I’m also wondering if it would ever be feasible for Bow Brand or anyone else to offer pedal strings in those colors as an alternative option.

-Gregg Bailey

[balfour-knight]

Hello Gregg,

I looked at the Rainbow Harp website, and those strings look very pretty! I believe the colors go like this: R O Y G B I V (Roy G. Biv) red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, & violet, just like the colors of the rainbow. Have they been able to market this harp in the USA yet? I read that their business is up for sale.

Thanks for letting all of us know about this.

Harp Hugs,
Balfour

[Gregg Bailey]

One might think that the ROY-G-BIV color scheme would be a logical choice for this, but, if you look more closely at some of the images, you can see that violet (purple) follows the blue, and then pink is between the purple and red strings. I’m sure they came to the same conclusion as I regarding indigo, in that since indigo is basically a dark blue, it would be too confusing to make the “E” strings indigo, since those of us who are used to blue/indigo/black for the F strings would likely mistake the E’s for F’s. Actually, when I’ve researched ROY-G-BIV, I’ve come across information regarding the notion that back when Isaac Newton first came up with ROY-G-BIV, what people called “blue” back then really was what we now call “cyan,” and what they called “indigo” is what we now call “blue.” So, the modern interpretation of those 7 shades would now be:

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Violet.

This actually makes more sense anyway, because when dividing up the spectrum, true indigo would be analagous to something like a quarter-tone key on a microtonal keyboard, with the other colors on the white (natural) keys, so ROY-G-BIV doesn’t really divide up the spectrum evenly at all. Actual indigo is too close to Blue and Violet to be easily distinguishable on something like harp strings.

Anyway, I just think those strings look pretty!

-Gregg

[balfour-knight]

Thanks for the additional information, Gregg. Those rainbow string colors do look pretty, but I bet the traditional colors for harp strings are much easier to see, especially in dim light. My eyes are certainly not getting any younger, ha, ha!

Harp Hugs,
Balfour

[balfour-knight]

Gregg, in the above post, I was referring to the white or clear D, E, G, A, & B strings, Red C’s and Black or Blue F’s as the “traditional colors for harp strings.” Even those are difficult to see in dim light, especially since nylon “naturals” sometimes are very clear colored, not white enough. That is one thing I really like about the Nylgut NGH strings, the “heavy whipping cream” color! With these, you can really see the red and black strings, even in dim light.

Harp Hugs,
Balfour

[Author]

Posts