Broken String Question

[karen]

Hello. I am new to the harp (began taking lessons and playing Sept. 2008). In Dec. I purchased a Dusty Strings FH-32. I have not played it since Monday (2 days ago) and arrived home this evening to find a string broken. I live alone so no one to blame. It was fine on Monday. Seemed fine yesterday. Why would a string break all by itself? It is well tuned so there is no extra stress on the strings and all levers were down. Should I be concerned? Bummed that I can not play until it is fixed. Thanks for any insights to a neophyte.
Karen

[barbara-brundage]

Broken strings are a normal part of playing the harp. You need to learn to change them, and if you can afford it it’s nice to keep a set of extra strings on hand so you can always just switch out a broken one and go on.

No one is to blame when strings break and there’s nothing at all to be concerned about unless you keep breaking the same string over and over in a short period of time.

[Laura Adams]

Harps are very sensitive to changes in temperature, so to avoid more broken stings than normal, keep your harp away from radiators and draughts. I also find my harp responds to weather- most of my broken strings occur when there’s a thunderstorm coming.

Laura

[unknown-user]

I also have a dusty string, which string is broken?

So far, it happened to me twice. And the last time, in the middle of the night. I let you picture me and my boyfriend jumping out of the bed in panic since the harp was very next to our bed!!!

gen

[Pat Eisenberger]

Every time a string has broken for me, it was when I was not playing – except once, and that time the string hit me square in the glasses. If I wasn’t wearing them, it would have hit me in the eye!

The funniest string break happened one evening when we were watching TV. One of my Shelties liked to sleep cuddled up to my pedal harp which was in another room. We heard the loud “Bong-g-g-g!” of a lower register string break, and the dog ran like lightning into our room and hid behind the couch.

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