Lyon & Healy Harps, Inc. is an American musical instrument manufacturer based in Chicago, Illinois and is a subsidiary of Salvi Harps. Today best known for concert harps, the company's Chicago headquarters and manufacturing facility contains a showroom and concert hall. George W. Lyon and Patrick J. Healy began the company in 1864 as a sheet music shop. By the end of the 19th century, they manufactured a wide range of musical instruments—including not only harps, but pianos, guitars, mandolins, banjos, ukuleles and various brass and other percussion instruments.
Lyon & Healy pedal harp (1891–95)
Washburn parlor guitars (1894/96)
Advertisement for banjos, mandolin banjos and violin-back mandolins (1921)
Lyon & Healy reed organ's inside (Peloubet system)
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or concerts. Its most common form is triangular in shape and made of wood. Some have multiple rows of strings and pedal attachments.
Harp
The Harps of Chogha Mish Iran are considered to be the world's oldest surviving stringed instruments, 3300-3100 B.C.E
The Queen's gold lyre from the Royal Cemetery at Ur; Iraq Museum, Baghdad
Lyres of Ur