Close your eyes and imagine your favorite song from a video game, if you can’t clearly remember it then you can always find it on YouTube, if not the official OST then someone recreating it. You can find plenty of people playing that specific tune on piano or guitar, but sometimes you will find something unusual like someone playing the end theme song of Pokemon Crystal on the harp.
Known as her internet persona, Harpsona, started off on the piano before switching to viola. It wouldn’t be until her senior year in college where she would stumble upon her college music department offering harp lessons. Some encouragement from her friends, and now fans can stumble upon her videos online.
Her work online has a variety of video lengths and sense of nostalgia, as she covers older Pokemon themes, songs from Undertale and even some classical music. Fans should take notice that no matter how the song goes, that each note sounds like it has a softer edge to it which makes it pleasing to the ear as a familiar tune takes a different tone.
“Ever since I was little I loved video games,” said Harpsona when talking about her covers. “I just love the experience of listening to video game music.”
She would mention that easier songs, stuff that she could play by ear, would take around 15 minutes to record while harder songs would take a week of practice and usually around 10 takes. While she does have another career and is currently pursuing a PhD, she does plan to continue playing the harp.
“Harp is like a part time job with the amount of time and effort,” said Harpsona. “It is something that I enjoy and this is something that I plan on doing for the rest of my life.”
You can check her current work and keep an eye out for any future work on her YouTube, Tumblr and Patreon.
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