Riki’s Harp of David

            One of Riki’s favorite people from history was David the Harpist.  “Whenever the evil spirit from God bothered Saul, David would play his harp. Saul would relax and feel better, and the evil spirit would go away.” 1 Sam 16:23.

            So for fun, I decided to make Riki a kinnor… a harp of David.  There isn’t a lot known about exactly what David’s instrument was like, but there is a lot of speculation based on limited writings and engravings.  There are images depicted in engravings and on coins. Based on this the Kinnor had an acoustic sound box with two long horns connected at the top by a yoke.  Ten strings extended from the yoke across the sound board to the base of the instrument.  Little is known about its tuning or exactly how it was played.

            From Wikipedia… “Josephus describes the kinnor as having 10 strings, made from a sheep’s small intestine,  and played with a plectrum (pick) though the Book of Samuel notes that David played the kinnor “with his hand”.”

            I wanted to build it from authentic woods (acacia, olive, fig or cedar of Lebanon).  Turns out those are really hard to get.  So I went with a really pretty walnut for much of the body and Sitka spruce, a common soundboard front in guitars and other acoustic instruments.  But to make things more interesting, I also used chechen, a beautiful New World tropical wood that I had on hand.  I made the back and some of the trim from that wood.  I also decided to do some inlay.  I liked the idea of making the sound hole as flames with matching inlay on the arms.

            It was a fun project that required some serious improvisation along the way.  I bent the maple into the sides and glued that up with the arms, then glued on the back and the front and installed the yoke.  All of it was designed beforehand life-size on butcher paper, but getting all the angles right and shaping everything was something of a do-it-as-you-go project. 

            I installed the tuners, drilled out the anchor holes and made a floating bridge (also at an angle, like the yoke).  I used a double, double overhand knot, slipped the strings through the anchor holes, across the bridge and into the tuning pegs.

            I initially tuned it for her in a standard chromatic scale, key of G, but it can be tuned in other scales, as needed.

            It’s a Kelly Miller project for sure, I won’t tell you a couple major errors I made that needed some serious fixing.  One of them is painfully obvious, and I will see it every time I look at the instrument.

            I sure hope she likes it!  She’s already playing tunes by ear, and it sounds pretty good. She is so talented!!  

“Make music for him on harps. Play beautiful melodies!” Ps 98:5