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Instrumental

Instrumental

By: Dr Mike Baldwin
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About this listen

 Instrumental explores the hidden stories of musical instruments. From ancient bone flutes to modern synthesisers, it reveals how instruments shape culture, technology, and human expression. Rooted in organology - the study of how instruments are made, function, and evolve - the podcast educates, inspires, preserves endangered traditions, and celebrates global diversity. Through expert voices, rich storytelling, and sometimes the sounds of the instruments themselves, Instrumental invites listeners to discover instruments, their makers, their stories, and their players.Dr Mike Baldwin Music
Episodes
  • A life in harp-making with John Hoare of Pilgrim Harps

    A life in harp-making with John Hoare of Pilgrim Harps
    Dec 20 2025

    Harps - and by extension their making - are among the oldest families of musical instruments known to humankind. Most of us recognise the sound of the modern harp, often associated with serenity and calm, but this is only one facet of a far richer and more complex instrument. Far fewer people know how the harps we hear today came to be.

    In this episode of Instrumental, I speak with John Hoare, founding partner and director of Pilgrim Harps, the UK’s foremost maker of folk and concert harps, as he reflects on his retirement after nearly sixty years in the craft. John is a true font of knowledge and one of the most experienced harp makers of his generation.

    We discuss how he first came to make harps, his life in the workshop - rich with wonderful anecdotes - and the future of Pilgrim Harps under his successors, Penny Johnson and Tom Greaves, as John steps back into a well-earned retirement.
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    1 hr and 42 mins
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