question for dick

[WYKS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

What a wonderful quick account, Dick: got to get "Harp Handbook".  Now
another question.  What about the labeling of "positions"--when did it
start, and how?  I just talked with the orchestra/band director at Calvin
and says there is no real analogue to positions on any other instrument.  On
guitar "positions" are just different ways of playing the same chord; etc
for other uses.  I am finding a great beauty and usefulness in the circle of
fifths way of ordering positions;  but who started this?  Did the person who
first called cross-harp "second position" really have this fifths-logic in
mind, or was it just "a second position"--and ditto for "third".  And then
someone found you could extend it to all 12 in a logical way.  The guy here
wondered if, as a folk instrument, this nomenclature just evolved.  Any info?