Why are harps so expensive?

The harp is known as one of the most expensive instruments not just in Türkiye but everywhere in the world. In truth this is partly a misperception, because all instruments of good quality sit in roughly the same price range. The difference is that instruments like the saz, guitar, violin or flute come in cheap beginner versions, and students usually start on those, moving to a proper instrument as they progress. Ideally one would start on a good instrument — but the cheap versions make starting easy.

For the harp there is no such option: sadly, no cheap harp exists that a student could actually play. By its nature the harp is harder to build and demands better materials. When makers try to produce cheap harps from the same materials as budget guitars, the result is an unplayable, toy-like object. These instruments usually cannot even be tuned — and when they can, the strings are so slack that learning is impossible. This is not a matter of good or bad tone; it is the difference between a playable instrument and a non-instrument.

So while cheap versions of other string instruments can be made, for the harp, piano and drums it is impossible — though electronic versions can bring the price down for the latter two. For the harp, because of the materials required, electric versions are actually more expensive. A word, too, about the instruments sold online under the name “lyre”: while some small workshops do build properly, most of what you see for sale online are decorative objects, not playable instruments. A true lyre is neither that small (even with few strings, correct sound needs a certain length and size) nor that cheap.

Why can’t it be made cheaply?

The biggest reason is that a harp carries many times more tension than other instruments. The combined pull of all the strings on a violin or guitar roughly equals the pull of a single thin harp string. The harp most resembles the piano: where a piano’s steel frame carries over ten tons of tension, the harp’s entirely wooden frame carries around a ton — while other string instruments carry perhaps 20–30 kg. That is why a harp must be engineered precisely, from exactly the right materials. Piano-style steel reinforcement was tried on harps in the past; because the harp is played leaning against the body, the weight doomed the experiment.

This very particular instrument truly requires the right woods: it must bear that load while staying flexible enough to move with sound waves, and it must not be heavy. Some parts use woods of special hardness from the world’s coldest regions — Canada, Siberia — because wood grown slowly in cold climates is stronger; other parts must use medium or soft woods where flexibility and lightness matter.

Harp strings, meanwhile, are made in only two or three places in the world. Strings designed specifically for an instrument — rather than standardized ones — transform its sound, which is why we import custom-made strings for each of our models from a string maker in the United States.

The tuning pins and metal fittings are also custom-made. Cheap pins can be imported from Asia, but they eat into the wood over time until the harp no longer holds its tuning. Our harps use stainless pins that can be adjusted as the wood ages, holding their tuning for years. And unlike most factory harps, whose levers are cast iron, our levers are brass — a more expensive material used by a few specialist makers. Levers are the most easily damaged part of a harp: where a cast lever shatters on impact, a brass one usually just bends and can be straightened. (On our lowest-priced model, Arna, plastic levers are used to keep costs down.)

With all this considered, we price our harps around 40% below their counterparts abroad — comparing not against custom-built harps like ours, but against factory harps of the same size.