The Minstrel is Roosebeck’s largest Celtic harp: 29 strings, four full octaves from C3 to C7, and on the carved rosewood models a sharping lever on every single string. That last detail is the whole reason to care about it. A lever on all 29 strings is the specification that separates a harp you can play real music on from one that is locked into a couple of keys, and everywhere else it appears you are paying well over a thousand dollars for it.
Buy the carved rosewood Minstrel, and buy whichever carving is cheapest.
Vine, Thistle and Celtic Knotwork are the same instrument. Roosebeck says so themselves — the carving on the side panels is the only thing that changes, and all three sound identical. They drift up to about $45 apart, which is real money for a decorative panel you will look at from the wrong side while you play.
What 29 levers actually buys you
A sharping lever raises one string by a semitone. Put levers on the C and F strings only and you can move between a handful of related keys. Put a lever on every string and any key is available, plus accidentals mid-piece, which is what most published harp arrangements assume you have.
The step from partial levers to full levers is the single most expensive rung on the lever-harp ladder. Rees, who build the Harpsicle family in Indiana, publish the arithmetic plainly across one 26-string design: the bare Harpsicle with no levers lists at $650, the Sharpsicle with levers on the F and C strings at $955, and the Fullsicle with a lever on all 26 at $1,320. Same harp, same wood, same number of strings. The levers are worth $670.
The Minstrel arrives with three more strings than a Fullsicle, an extra octave of range, and levers on all of them, for a little over half the money. That is the entire argument for the instrument, and it is a strong one. What it costs you is real, and it is not nothing.
The four Minstrels are not the same harp
Roosebeck sells the Minstrel in four configurations under one name, and two of them differ in ways that matter more than the price gap suggests. The number of levers changes with the model, and so does the range — that is the specification worth reading twice before ordering.
| Model | Range | Levers | Height | Price band |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rosewood, carved Vine / Thistle / Knotwork | C3–C7 4 octaves | 29 — one per string | 36.5″ | ~$745–790 |
| 5-panel with pedestal | A2–A6 4 octaves, pitched lower | 24 | 45″ | ~$850 |
| Walnut, plain | C3–C7 | 24 | 36.5″ | discontinued |
The pedestal model is the one to think about carefully, because it is the most expensive and it is not simply a better Minstrel. Its range starts on A2 rather than C3, so the whole instrument sits a minor third lower — more bass, but every piece of music written for a C3 harp now needs rethinking at the bottom. And it carries 24 levers rather than 29, so its lowest five strings cannot be sharped at all. You are paying about a hundred dollars more for extra bass, a built-in stand, and five fewer levers.
That stand is a genuine convenience. At 45 inches the pedestal model reaches playing height on its own; the standard Minstrel, at 36.5 inches, stands on the floor on its base and gets tilted back against your shoulder from a chair, the way any Celtic harp of that size is played. Neither arrangement is wrong, but one of them decides where in the house the harp lives.
The harp itself
Roosebeck Minstrel Harp, 29 strings, carved rosewood
- 29 DuPont nylon strings, C3–C7, four octaves
- A Chelby lever on every string
- Solid sheesham frame, hand-carved side panels, Finnish birch plywood soundboard
- 36.5″ × 22.75″ × 9.5″, 14.6 lb
- Tuning tool and a spare string set in the box
Four octaves is the point at which the standard Celtic and folk repertoire stops being an arrangement problem. The seven strings the Minstrel has over a 22-string harp all sit at the bottom, where accompaniment lives, and they change what the left hand is able to do rather than just extending the top. Chelby levers engage the string from the side instead of pinching it from above, which is why they do not pull strings off the bridge pins the way cheaper levers can, and the caps are color-coded — red for C, blue for F — so you can find your bearings without counting.
Fourteen and a half pounds is a real instrument’s weight. It is not a lap harp and it does not travel casually, but one person moves it to a car without help.
- A lever on all 29 strings, which normally costs twice this
- Four octaves — enough for intermediate repertoire, not just beginner arrangements
- Solid sheesham frame, not a laminate shell
- Tuning tool and spare strings included
- Plywood soundboard, not solid — the compromise at this price
- Weeks of daily tuning before it settles
- You may have to set the lever intonation yourself
- No case included
What owning one is actually like
Roosebeck’s own owner’s guide is unusually frank about this, and it is worth taking seriously before you order, because most of the disappointment with this harp comes from not knowing it.
The harp ships de-tuned, deliberately, to keep the frame from taking shipping stress under full tension. Bringing it up to pitch stretches 29 new nylon strings and loads the soundboard for the first time, so it will need tuning constantly for the first few weeks and regularly for months after that. Roosebeck describes the tone as developing over that period rather than arriving with the instrument. That is normal for nylon-strung harps and it is still a surprise if nobody told you.
Their recommended first tuning is worth following: disengage all the levers, check every string is seated in its bridge-pin notch and not resting against any part of a lever, then tune from the longest string to the shortest — reds first, then blues, then the clear strings — so the soundboard loads evenly rather than from one end. The tuning pins are tapered, so push inward as you turn or they will not hold.
Then the part nobody enjoys. Once the levers are engaged, each one has to actually produce a clean semitone, and on this harp that is not guaranteed out of the box. Roosebeck’s guide walks the owner through adjusting it themselves: bridge pins get pulled out or pushed in with pliers to change how far the string moves, and the levers can be shifted up or down. On a harp costing twice as much that regulation is done at the workshop before it ships. Here it is a job you may inherit, and if the idea of taking pliers to a new instrument makes you wince, that is the honest reason to spend more on a harp that arrives already set up.
Two other things follow from how it is built. The soundboard is Finnish birch plywood rather than solid spruce, which is stable and consistent and does not open up with age the way a solid top does. And the harps are made in Pakistan for an American importer, so fit and finish vary more between units than the photographs suggest — not badly, but visibly.
The one accessory it needs
The Minstrel does not come with a case, and a 36-inch harp with 29 exposed strings is not something to move in a blanket. The purpose-made padded nylon bag is shaped to this instrument — 36 inches across the back, a 24-inch tuning arm, a 39-inch pillar — which a generic cover is not, and a harp shifting inside a loose case is how necks get knocked out of line.
Roosebeck padded nylon case for the Minstrel
- Quilted nylon, shaped to the Minstrel
- Fits every Minstrel variant
- Shoulder strap, pockets for music and the tuning tool
- About 3 lb
It is a soft case, not a flight case, and it is priced like a hard one. That is the trade on an instrument this shape: nobody makes a molded case for it, so this is what there is, and it is better than the alternative of not having one.
You will also want a clip-on tuner that reads low nylon strings cleanly, which is a different problem from tuning a guitar — we go through the options in our harp tuner guide. Beyond that, the tuning tool and spare set in the box cover the first year, and replacing a string is a job you can do yourself.
Who should buy it, and who should not
The Minstrel makes sense for someone who already knows they want a harp. If you have had lessons on a rented instrument, or you have outgrown a 22-string harp and keep running out of bass, this is the cheapest way to get four octaves and full levers under your hands, and the money you save against an American-built equivalent is most of a year of lessons.
It is the wrong instrument if you are not sure yet. Seven hundred-odd dollars to find out whether you like the harp is a lot, and a smaller harp answers that question for a fraction of it. It is also the wrong instrument if you want something that arrives finished. A harp that needs weeks of settling and possibly a session with pliers is a project, and the people who are happiest with a Minstrel are the ones who expected that.
And if the budget can stretch, it is worth knowing what the next rung looks like. A Dusty Strings Ravenna 26 lists at $1,715 and a Rees Fullsicle at $1,320 — both American-built, both regulated before they leave the workshop, both with hardware that will still be working in a decade. They have fewer strings than the Minstrel. You are not buying range at that price, you are buying the things this harp asks you to supply yourself, and that is most of what a harp’s price is.
Questions people ask
Is the Minstrel a lap harp?
No. At 36.5 inches and 14.6 pounds it stands on the floor and leans back against your shoulder while you sit. A harp you hold on your knee is a 12- to 22-string instrument weighing four to eleven pounds.
How many keys can you play in?
With a lever on every string, tune the harp flat and every key is reachable by setting levers before you start, plus single accidentals mid-piece by flipping a lever. That is the practical difference between a lever harp and a pedal harp, where the changes happen with your feet while both hands keep playing.
Does the carving affect the sound?
No. The carving is cut into the solid side panels of an otherwise identical frame, and Roosebeck states outright that the three carved versions sound the same. Choose on looks and price.
Is the Minstrel a beginner harp?
Not really. Roosebeck lists it just under $1,000 and position it as their flagship Celtic harp, above the 22-string Heather and well above the small lap harps. A complete beginner is better served by something smaller and cheaper; the Minstrel is the harp people move to once they know they are staying.
How long before it holds its tuning?
Expect daily tuning for the first few weeks and frequent tuning for several months. Nylon strings stretch a great deal before they stabilize, and the soundboard is settling under load for the first time. This is not a fault; it is what a newly strung harp does.