Antoine Theunissen

 

When I was ten, I started playing harp, following my eldest sister. Three years later, when I had a harp performance at school I completey screwed up, I didn t play harp for 6 years, until I met one at my friends place. I fell in love with the harp again, playing for  3 hours every day since then.

From that time, I was only dedicated to improvising. Making my own compositions, my fingers dance on the strings, slowly changing their patters over time. 

 

I want to make music coming straight out of my heart.

 

Music makes a connection between heaven and earth and goes through all layers. Your breathing, your heart, your brain waves and all the water in your body can go along with the rythm and the resonance of the music. When you allow the music to toch your being, you can change your state of mind and consciousness. It is even possible that sounds can from new synoptic connections in yout brain. Music can enable people to connect with a magical dreamworld where imaginatio becomes creation.

But before you can listen, you first have to embrace the silence, because the essence of music is connected and organised.

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When I play I focus on the people and the circumstances. My music is meant for rest and relaxation and healing, for a specific place and time. Sometimes people fall asleep or they laugh or cry when they hear me play. Children love it when I play for them; most of them never heard  a harp before. Crying babies comletely relax. Drunk and rowdy people become silent and listen admiringly. Just like demented people, ppeople with ADHD or psychiatric disorders, they become calm and relaxed, making it easier for caregivers and familiy to deal with them.

In 2011 I have built a chromatic harp with crossed strings. This makes me the only man in the Netherlands playing a cross-stringed harp . A chromatic harp has no levers or pedals and many more strings, allowing you to focus more on playing and your surrounding, since all the strings are already there.  Also the harp is more compact and it weights less.
Most of the music that I listen I make myslf. 

 

My whole house from top to tow is filled with musical instruments. Besides harp I play piano, jewsharp percussion, didgeredoo, and I am an impressive throat singer. Many of my friends are musicians as well and when they come we have wounderfull jam sessions.

At the moment my main focus is on instrument building.