Re: Regulations (not Rules)

[carl-swanson]

It’s such a different world now. When I started doing regulations 30 years ago, there were no more than 3 or 4 places to turn to in the United States to get your harp regulated. Dale Barco was working for Salvi and doing road trips for them. I don’t think Lyon & Healy had a road technician then. Sam Pratt was repairing and regulating harps in New Jersey, and there was me. I did a fair number of road trips over the years and every single trip was done at the request of the harpists in one city or other. I never arranged my own road trips. Now there are many technicians who do only regulations(no rebuilding) and who have their own circuit that they plan on their own. I never get requests to do road trips any more and that’s fine. It’s a much better world now for harpists all over the country.

One word of warning though. Regulation is not hard to do and all of the technicians that I am aware of are competent regulators. However, there are one or two regulators who tell people that they can do major repairs and their work is incompetent and appalling. They’ve cheated many people out of money for repairs that were incorrectly done. So be very careful when any technician tells you there is something wrong with your harp and that they can fix it. Get a second opinion. Research that technicians work before handing your harp over to him for major repairs. And make sure that he tells you, in terms that you can easily understand, what is wrong with the instrument and what he is going to do to fix it.