Welcome!
The magic of the harp is difficult to explain in words; it really needs to be experienced. Since we began building harps in the early 80s, we have heard over and over again, “I have always wanted to play the harp.” It has been our distinct pleasure to build harps that let people make that dream a reality. It happens for people in so many ways, and on infinitely many levels, but they all share the same joy of making a sound that simply brings pleasure – whether it’s playing their harp alone in the living room, with friends and family in a jam, at a wedding or concert, or in the hospital in intensive care or hospice. The satisfaction runs deep and the impact is powerful, both for the players and the listeners, wherever they may be.  Let us help you realize your dream of playing the harp, no matter what it may be.

Why choose a Dusty Strings harp?
When we began designing and building harps in 1983, we first learned by looking at what existed in the harp world. Then we started experimenting — finding practical ways to make lasting improvements, no matter how small,  to the sound, reliability, longevity, reparability and ease of use of our harps. That led us through years of innovation and improvement in areas we never would have predicted.

Designing our own strings and developing the machinery to produce them gave us the ability to custom tailor our sound. Pioneering a radiused neck joint that would flex with the string tension yet remain solid gave us a new way of attaching the neck to the body without using bolts or screws. Breaking the all-spruce tradition by using mahogany as a tone-wood in the soundboards gave us a particularly bright, yet warm, articulate sound. The distillation of much of our tone research was guided by groups of local harp players invited to participate in our many “harp playoffs” to give us feedback on comparative design changes. Not satisfied with the status quo of harp hardware, we designed custom threaded bridge pins for easier and more accurate regulation, threaded tuning pins that don’t get loose, and better screws for attaching the sharping levers. We even came up with (and patented) a completely new way of assembling a harp to allow the inexpensive, yet solidly performing Ravenna models to come into existence. Our design philosophy is that there is always room for more improvements and it is this quest that keeps us so totally engaged.