Rosina and Harspiels

Fran handed me the smaller harspiel meant for children to practice with. Even so, it was surprisingly large given my small frame. The child’s harspiel had a lot fewer strings than the adult’s—probably around half as many—which gave it the range of a practice keyboard I had played in elementary school.

I put it between my thighs as the High Priest had done and rested it on my left upper arm. It was mostly made of wood instead of anything too heavy, so I could hold it up just fine despite my weakness.

“It will get increasingly heavy if you hold it diagonally. Try to keep it perfectly upright.” Maybe due to it being a practice instrument, one of the strings was colored. “This is the fundamental sound of the instrument,” said the High Priest while plucking that one string.

On the “do-re-mi” scale, it was a do. Skip a string and the next was re, then skip another string and that was mi. The thin strings were lined up right next to each other, each a half-tone apart, but the way each one played a unique tone made it feel like plucking a piano’s strings directly. But unlike a piano, there were no black keys, which made searching for specific sounds incredibly difficult.

“Consider this a musical scale. The sounds get increasingly high or increasingly low on each side.”

I understood the musical scale by converting it to the do-re-mi scale I was more familiar with. I had been forced into it, but in my Urano days I had practiced piano for about three years. It would be difficult to get used to playing smoothly, but I would probably be able to play the more simple songs I remembered from back then.

“Sah ee tah... Sah ee tah...” While matching this world’s language, I clumsily played the classic song “Tulip” and nodded in satisfaction.

“What in the world was that song?” murmured the High Priest.

“As you heard, a song about flowers.” No tulips existed here as far as I knew, but it would be fine. It wasn’t like the High Priest knew every flower to have ever existed. And sure enough the High Priest fell into thought, a finger on his chin.

“...Perhaps, of all things, you have a talent for music?”

“No, I don’t! Not even a little bit!”