The first known mention of a harp fitted with additional chromatic strings is around 1550. Certainly, chromatic harps must have been around in Spain at least from the second half of the 16th century.

In contrast to the Italian chromatic harp, the Spanish chromatic baroque harp has only two rows of strings, one diatonic and one chromatic (equivalent to the white and black keys on a modern piano). The rows of strings cross each other approximately at a third of the string length below the neck, enabling the right hand to reach the diatonic strings easily in the top third of the instrument, close to the harp's neck rather than close to the soundboard as on most other European harps, while the left hand plays the bass strings lower down, approximately in the middle of the string length.

This playing position can still be observed with Latin American harp players, whose tradition is directly derived from the Spanish colonisers of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and makes for an interesting contrast in sound - the high notes in the right hand bright and clear, the bass booming but less focussed and incisive. A sound contrast between high and low registers which is, in fact, also explored on many Spanish baroque organs with their medio registro, the split register.

In Spain and large parts of Latin America, the harp was immensely popular throughout the 17th and well into the 18th century. It was frequently used as part of dance or theatre music bands, mostly in conjunction with one or more guitars - ensembles of this sort are also still quite common in Latin America. But the harp was also widely used in church music, as a cheaper and more portable substitute for the organ. Pretty much all large churches in Spain and the colonies had at least one, more often two or even three harpists in their service.