“;This may take a couple of takes,”; says harpist Melody Lindsay, as she gets ready to record “;Sleigh Ride”; for a visitor. She finished preparing it for her upcoming recitals only a couple of days earlier.

She settles down and, save for a page-turning glitch, plays the piece flawlessly, the merry melody dancing along, her sweeping scales smooth and bright, the sound emanating from her harp rich and clear.

It's been like this for years now for Lindsay: one outstanding performance after another, in front of everyone from senior citizens to students, in symphonies and competitions, from Hawaii to Europe. Performance has been in her blood since first picking up the harp at age 4—and plinking through Beethoven's “;Ode to Joy”; on stage just two weeks later—receiving high praise at a talent so young and yet so polished.

Lindsay's sound is so resonant it makes the spine tingle. Local audiences who know and love slack-key guitar will recognize the pure sound of resonating “;open”; strings.

“;I don't worry about making mistakes, except ... when I have to play in front of my teacher,”; she says.

Lindsay's displayed her Hawaii roots well, playing an arrangement of the “;Hawaii 5-O”; theme on the National Public Radio station show “;From the Top”; when it featured local young musicians. She's also composed songs based on popular Hawaiian tunes.

“;I've always just thought the sound was really pretty, like compared with piano or organ or other really loud instruments, the harp is much quieter,”; Lindsay says of her instrument.

But for local audiences, the opportunities to hear this wunderkind are dwindling. Now 17 and a senior at 'Iolani School, Lindsay will be in college on the mainland next year, having been accepted at several schools since her junior year. It's likely that she will have to take her delicate, 100-pound concert harp with her, an undertaking so expensive and nerve-wracking that it would preclude bringing it back to Hawaii during semester breaks.

So it doesn't matter if you don't know much about harp, or think it's only good for setting the mood at weddings. It's worthwhile to go enjoy this young talent while it's in full bloom.

  Watching Lindsay perform is also a treat. The precision with which she picks out the individual notes is so deft that it seems like a card shark doing sleight of hand; her glissandos (the strumming scales distinctive to harp music) trace a graceful arc from the tips of her fingers all the way to her shoulders. Her harmonics, produced by placing the heel of one hand across the string while plucking with the other, look like light karate chops across the strings.

Lindsay's virtuosity impresses even the most experienced professional harpists. “;You have a beautiful, fluid technique—celebrate it more!”; wrote Carrol McLaughlin, harp professor at the University of Arizona, in comments to Lindsay after her performance this summer at the World Harp Congress in Amsterdam.

The most prominent American harpist, Susann McDonald, professor of harp at Indiana University, also heard Lindsay in Amsterdam, and said in an e-mail, “;I predict a great future for her.”;

For as much as Lindsay has accomplished, however, there is the possibility that her future might not center on the harp. Her varied interests, from economics to astronomy to karate, could take her focus away from music.

“;It's very difficult to have a career as a harpist,”; she says. “;But it will always be a part of my life.”;

Fortunately for music lovers in Hawaii, much of her life so far has been here.