It was almost exactly 10 years ago, when I visited Rothenburg ob der Tauber for the first time of my life. I was 17 and already fascinated by old cities and fantasy stories as I was creating my very own fantasy world “Mythanien”. Mythanien lies in a parallel universe, a romanticized version of our world and I believe that there’s no place, where the layer between these two universes is as thin as in Rothenburg, maybe this breathtaking place is even a portal between these two worlds.
There was one magical moment, I will never forget. I sat down on the steps of the town hall, enjoyed the view around the marketplace and then it was Oswin Voit, a local harp player, who captured all my senses. Hours of hours I was listening to him being totally fascinated and paralysed from his play and from that time on I knew that I have one lifetime dream: playing the harp.
Tomorrow, 10 years later, I will start living this dream. I’ll travel to Tallinn, Estonia, where I will take part in a harp building course – a worthy final of the last decade.
Until I come back you can already take a glimpse of what you can expect the next years. Curtain Call for Oswin Voit playing “Turlough O’Carolan”.
I’m back. Back from a wonderful trip through the baltic states, back from Lithuania, Latvia and the final destination of my harp journey, Estonia. Just to anticipate one thing: The aim of the trip was to build a harp, but actually it gave me much more: Estonia is the 16th country, that I’ve visited, and I’ve never met so nice, polite and pleasant people with such a positive attitude to life in any other country before. Choosing this workshop in Viimsi was exactly the best thing to do to give my lifetime wish of building a harp a worthy surrounding.
It seems, that I’ve found the recipe for a perfect journey. Besides of having great people around you, you also need a place, that has such a great atmosphere, that you even enjoy it just being there and walking around. Tallinn, especially the old town of Tallinn with its many historic buildings is such a great place. Although Tallinn is a great example for a city both living in the future and the past, I prefered to stay inside those city walls as I totally love medieval things and hanseatic architecture.
Anyway, every day of my journey I left the shelter of the city walls pursuing my actual goal, following the instructions of the instrument maker and initiator of the “Klangwerkstatt”, Christoph Löcherbach, who teached round about 10 participants in four days in cooperation with the local organizer Triin Hio.
The workshop took place in the “Harmoonikum” in Viimsi, a very cozy place, where we were served traditional Estonian food (you should definitely try out “Kama”, it’s so tasty!), had the opportunity of singing and playing music together (and I even had the chance to give a little concert with my former piano compositions!) and – of course – learned how to make a melodious and appealing harp out of a construction kit.
So I designed the sound holes, sawed them out, sanded down the edges, glued the back, grinded the neck, punched a line of squares, grinded the pillar, punched my name in it, carved out a hollow, glued the wooden strips, drilled the string holes, polished and oiled every piece, inserted the grommets, screwed in the bridge pins and stringed the harp (which alone took one day!). And this is the result, my very own harp, my testimony of the hard work, the first Fred Vanterra™ instrument! 🙂
You can’t wait to listen how it sounds like? Stay tuned! (because the harp won’t… it will take 2-3 weeks until the harp remains tuned… ^^)
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