The nature of harping before the general use of the pedal harp makes research peculiarly frustrating. Apart from bagpiping—which is to this day so secret a skill that most virtuosi will never reveal the true details of their reed-making and playing—no instrumental technique remained so long a craft, without a written literature. As far as the baroque era is concerned, there is the additional problem that the word harp covered a number of harps with different forms, techniques and functions. This preamble is not, like that of the music-hall juggler, to make the act seem so difficult that the sympathy of the audience is assured at the start, but simply to warn you that the information I have been able to collect on the subject of harps between roughly 1600 and 1750 is drawn from somewhat disparate sources and is rather unevenly spread, both geographically and chronologically.