I caught a bit of Thursday night's Earth Harp Jam Session at the Utah Arts Festival, and it looked like a lot of fun.

I just wish I could have heard it.

The set-up is impressive - long strings of brass musical wire running from the long wall of Library Square down to the library's round concrete mini-amphitheater. On the stage, the harp's artistic director, Bill Close, solicited volunteers from the audience. Each volunteer put on heavy gloves and, at Close's direction, started rubbing their individual string in a rhythmic fashion while other musicians - I saw a guitarist, a flutist and two tuba players - jammed along.

The results sounded something like a Philip Glass composition. At least, that's all I could hear over the music bleeding over from the Amphitheater Stage on the other side of the wall, where blues singer Janiva Magness was starting her set - some unfortunate scheduling on the festival's part.

The Earth Harp Jam Sessions are scheduled tonight, Saturday and Sunday at 8 p.m. - and there's a full-blown Earth Harp performance Sunday at 9:30 p.m.