Plucked string instruments

Harp, kantele and guitar are a trio of plucked string instruments that are suitable to classical music, folk tunes and playing music at home. You can practise all of these instruments with us, both as a hobby and with a goal in your mind.

Harp

Harp is suitable for people of all ages. You can start playing at the age of 5–6, but even an adult can gain a lot by studying it. Half of the harp enthusiasts in the Turku region are adults. You start practising with a small lever harp. Students who have progressed further will move to a pedal harp that requires more advanced playing technique.

Both the lever and the pedal harp require a vehicle for transportation. For this reason, you do not use a personal instrument during the lessons. Instead, the school’s instruments are primarily used in teaching.
You can study harp in all departments at Turku Conservatory. We have both child and adult students.

Advertising video for the harp 2023.

Kantele

Kantele is Finland’s national instrument, which has thousands of active enthusiasts and numerous professional musicians. This string instrument is a zither instrument, and you can find instruments belonging to the same family of instruments also in Baltic countries and Karelia in Russia, for example.

Tuomas Kourula

Small kanteles usually have 5–15 strings and large kanteles 36–40 strings. Kantele is part of Turku Conservatory’s folk music studies, and during the basic studies, the aim is to learn the technique to play both the small and large kantele. In the final stages of their studies, students often have both a 5-string and 11-string kantele, as well as a large kantele, and they play concerts where they use all the instruments with different techniques.

Folk music studies emphasise creative music, improvisation, making your own music, and the combinations of being a soloist and playing in a band in their different forms.

Classical guitar

The popular, versatile and expressive guitar is suitable for concert halls, campfires and playing at home.

At Turku Conservatory, teaching focuses on classical music, but the lessons also include the basics of accompanying with chords. The studies follow the extended syllabus in music. In addition to music lessons, the studies include the guitar orchestra and the basics of music.

Our guitarists can perform regularly at concerts if they so wish. Our institution has three guitar orchestras, in addition to which almost all of our guitarists participate in various chamber music ensembles during their studies.

Starting to play the guitar does not require large investments: you can get a good guitar for learning for a couple of hundreds of euros. Turku Conservatory provides music instruction, progressing from one level to another.