7B bass wire on Marini Made Roma Classic model??

[Gregg Bailey]

On the Marini Made Harps website (all lever harps), their largest model (Roma Classic), which appears in the top-left corner on the home page, apparently has a low 7B bass wire BELOW the 7C string of 47-string pedal harps! At first, I thought the lowest wire was an octave above (6B), but, if you look at their octave naming system on their range charts page, they’re referring to the lowest B on the piano. “46 strings” is incorrect; it’s really 42, and the top note of “a4” is incorrect; in their octave naming system, it’s really a3, or the top string of most 34-string harps. The next-to-largest model, the Roma Bella, has 40 strings; the bottom wire is the 7C of concert grands while the top string is merely 1G. The recording sample of the Roma Bella confirms that it has the contrabass octave, because you can clearly hear 6F. Why would they make such a large harp that tops out at 1G when it’s generally accepted that you need at least up to 1A for most serious lever harp study, and why would they offer a 42-string model that has a bass wire BELOW the standard concert grand?? Granted, 7B is the same pitch as tuning 7C down to Cb, but, considering that the Salvi Reus is apparently the only other harp model in the world to have any wires below 7C, it seems so odd that a LEVER harp would have such an unusually long, low wire. In addition, the only Marini Made model to even go up to 1C is their tiny 26-string “Shechinah” model that doesn’t even go as low as a Harpsicle but rather bottoms out at 4F! I guess they don’t believe in high treble strings. And, prior to discovering that website, I’d certainly never heard of lever harps that go below 6A, not to mention with levers on ALL of those contrabass wires right down to the 7B!. Does anyone here have a Roma Classic or has tried one? So many questions!!

[Gregg Bailey]

I forgot to mention the fact that those largest Marini Made models show to be 6′ (72″) tall, which would seem to confirm that the bottom octave is, in fact, the contrabass octave.

[balfour-knight]

Hi Gregg and all!

Well, about all I can say here is, why doesn’t the large Roma Classic have the same standard range of the 47-string pedal harp, 7C up to 0G? This would make much more sense to me, and I dare say, to other harpists. It could even have lever-gauge strings with slightly lighter tension than pedal-gauge strings. I agree with you, the range should go up much further in the treble. These short strings are certainly not expensive! Pianos have 88 notes, standard, so large harps should have 47 standard.

I hope some other harpists reply to this post. What do you all think?

Harp hugs,
Balfour

[Author]

Posts