Todd Harrop's Th Muses site has an article about the Stone Harp which includes closeup photos of the stone harp and a clear explanation of how the instrument works.

"sometime around 2007/08 christoph nicolaus and i decided to work together with his new instruments, so called stone harps. these are blocks of black granite, roughly cut into a conical (harplike) form, so that when material sawn out and taken away, the remaining object consists of a number of increasing in length plates, furtherly shaped and polished.the overall size and shape of these "harps" may vary extensively. in order to get sounds out of these heavy instruments, one "bows" them with wet hands and/or fingers. each of these plates has two main sounds, one deep and one higher sound. like on any other acoustic musical instrument, these sounds have to be developed and the way one uses the instrument defines its sound quality and projection. before and while building such a stoneharp, it seams impossible to define its pitches. this characteristic is a basis of my approach towards composing for stone harps: each of them has its own microtonal material and character, so we have to accept it as given!

on this release we present two of my oldest compositions for stone harps on cd 1 and the newest on cd 2.

für eckl(a tanz der hauttöne) (2009) is an acoustic chamber duo on two specified stone harps recor- ded at kunstraum düsseldorf in 2012.stoned fridge (2008-2019) is based on my electronic work with the sound of a refrigerator recorded by michael pisaro. each time that piece gets played in concert (twice each time), we play with all layers recorded in former concerts. this is an hommage to our friend marcus kaiser and his piece "an einem ort - an einem anderen ort".

ménage à trois is a composition for three players (featuring rasha ragab) with six stone harps. the concert recording (november 2018 at klang im dach, munich) which was accompanied by a field- performance-recording claude-lorrain-ambient (me 2008, in and outside christoph's old residence) gets layered with a private performance we did one day after the concert, therefore the additive (double) .

the improvisations show a few glimpses of the improvisatory potential of a single stone harp or even six of them."-from the liner notes

"The stone harp is elemental. Of the five classical Chinese elements what is not represented is fire. Otherwise the harp is made of stone, it sits on a wooden box, it is played with water and it sings through the air."-Todd Harrop