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[Sylvia]

Sorry to take up space with this, and I’ve said plenty of stupid things in my lifetime, but I thought I’d share this,

I played a Thanksgiving lunch at a local rest home (it pays a little) today, and there were families of the residents there. When I was done, this guy (someone’s family member, not a resident) came up to compliment my Somewhere in Time, which is really the Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, but which played throughout the movie. Anyway, he asked for my card and saw that I play weddings. Then came the clincher. He asked…do you have a harp?

I was speechless because I was standing beside my harp which he had just heard me play. So I said…yes, there it is…in fact, I have two. He said he asked because he wasn’t sure it was mine. (did he think the place owned one, and I just walked in and played it?) Anyway, I think that’s the most off the wall comment I’ve ever heard.

[kreig-kitts]

Not harp related, but one summer in college I worked as a catering waiter for the student union, which included a hotel and several meeting rooms. After one luncheon at which I served, a lady came up to me and commented how nice everything was. She then asked: “Do you have a summer job?” I’m not sure what reason she had ascribed to the fact that I’d just spent an hour carrying trays of food while wearing a cheap tux if it wasn’t for pay.

[Sylvia]

LOL. That was wonderful.

[mae-mcallister]

That’s funny! Although not unreasonable – a concert harp looks like a massive, immovable object (don’t we all know better) and most venues will have a piano (which really IS a massive immovable object) so I guess they just thought that it’s something that normally comes with the venue, like a piano or organ or something. Hehe.

[carl-swanson]

Also, like Kreig, not harp related, but several years ago I went on a caribbean cruise with family and friends. At the last show someone from the crew told us some of the questions that people had asked them over the years:

Is that island completely surrounded by water?

How far are we above sea level?

What do they do with the ice sculptures after they’ve melted?

Does the crew sleep on the boat?

Stupidity is not limited to questions about harps!

[catherine-rogers]

On many jobs I’ve been asked “Is that your harp?” so I guess many people may think it’s rented for the occasion, perhaps by the venue or client, as a piano might be. They’re wondering if they would have to provide one if they hired a harpist. Of course the other question you always get, which I try to avoid answering directly, is how much it costs. The average non-harpist has no frame of reference so we really can’t blame them for asking, although it’s a tacky question.

[Sylvia]

I always tell them the current cost, as per the insurance company replacement cost. People are really ignorant about harps, so I like to help out by educating them.

[eliza-morrison]

Stupidest comment I ever heard (does it count if the guy was drunk? Because I’m pretty sure he was) was when I was playing at the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock. A man approached me and asked me if he could climb up the harp and sit on top of it. When I just stared at him, unable to even muster a reply, he said in a wheedling tone, “pleeeeeze? I’ll give you twenty bucks!”

[alexandra-baldwin]

I might win for ‘most ironic.’ I started on the flute, it was my primary instrument in college, and I still regularly preform on it, but I have been moving more and more towards harp in the past several years. A few months ago I was taking my Prelude 38 out of my car at a church where I play regularly and they know me only as a harpist, and a someone stopped and said, ‘Don’t you wish you played the flute! Hahahaha!’ I didn’t explain 🙂

[natalie-wagner–2]

How many of you have been asked, “Is that a harp?” while you still have your cover on?… I’ve gotten that at least three times. *blank expression*

Of course I cannot judge, everybody has “blonde” moments from time to time. I don’t know how blondes were associated with stupid questions, I see it as more of a lazy person trait.

I asked my mother how to spell I-75 when looking up directions. I meant do you put a “-” in the middle, but she was too busy laughing to even answer me.

[carl-swanson]

Years ago I was loading a harp into my car(remember, this is Boston). Two boys, maybe 12 years old, were walking past. One of them looked at me and hollered “Hey mistah. Is that a hahp?” “Yes” I said. The kid turned to his companion and said, “See, I told you it wasn’t a banjo!”

[andy-b]

I was playing with a group of other harpists today at an event, and during a break, I overheard one of my friends – an accomplished harpist – explaining the levers on her Heartland Delight CF harp and how they worked to a bystander. The bystander then said “So this is just a learning harp, right?”

[carl-swanson]

My dear friend Eleanor Fell told me that one time she was answering the phone at Vanderbilt when a woman called and said that she needed to replace the “learner” strings on her harp with regular strings. Mystified, Eleanor asked the woman what she meant by “learner” strings. “Well” the woman said,”I have red C’s and blue F’s, and those are just for while I was learning to play. I need to replace them with clear strings now.”

[David Ice]

I’ve had people ask, repeatedly at wedding shows, if that thing I’m playing is a cello.

Seriously.

For non-harp idiotic questions, my sister worked for the national parks system for a while. Her best question was: “Does the Mule Train at the Grand Canyon have a dining car?”

[Sherri Matthew]

Hi Carl,

That’s a great story! There’s a tradition even today in the wire harp community that strings are normally not colored, esp. for those who play on replica historic wire-strung harps. The Irish harpers of old times were often blind, so there was no need to color their strings. (For what it’s worth, my instrument does have colored strings, but it’s a modern wire harp.) Maybe this is where the woman of your story may have gotten her ideas, consciously or otherwise.

(Also thanks for posting your earlier ones, those were really good! I don’t think I’ve encountered anything quite like those 🙂

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