Clarenbridge harp

[miriam-raphael]

Does anyone have any information on Clarenbridge harps? I am buying one site unseen. Are they generally considered high quality harps? Also, my daughter is a beginner harpist and this harp has 22 strings — how long will this harp last her before we need to upgrade to a harp with more strings? One year? Two years? She is seven and this is her first instrument.

One last question. This harp has no levers yet. Is adding levers difficult or expensive?

Thank you

[randal]

I have one. The sound box is quite small and does not provide much resonance in the lower octave–particularly with its mid- to low-tension. Should be fine for a first harp for a seven year old to begin to acquire skills, but may be soon outgrown. My own kids (age 8) are learning on mine, but we’re not hitting it very hard at this point. You might want a larger harp for more serious study

Although you can add levers on this harp, personally, I wouldn’t put much money into upgrading this harp–I don’t think it has enough resonance to bother with. Perhaps look for a Sharpsicle?

[ashley-c]

I have a 27 string Clarenbridge Amergin and I absolutely love it! It has a beautiful voice and a LOT more volume than I would have expected from a harp that size. Sometimes I think it actually sounds better than my larger 34 string harp. I haven’t had the privilege of playing their 22 string model, but I think that Clarenbridge harps are generally considered good quality. A harp that size is fine to start out with, especially if you aren’t sure whether she’ll want to keep playing. If she does fall in love with the harp, she’s going to need an upgrade to an instrument with more strings pretty soon. My advice is to find a beginner lap harp book with songs that were specifically written for instruments of that size. Getting a new piece of sheet music only to find that you can’t play it because you don’t have enough strings is VERY frustrating.

I added B levers to my Clarenbridge and while it was very time consuming, I didn’t personally find it difficult and I was happy with the result. Just make sure you have a very good tuner that you trust! Levers run between 10-20 dollars depending on which brand you go with, so adding levers to every string is going to be a bit of an investment. You could add the levers a few at a time, but unless I’m mistaken, most lap harp songs don’t require lever changes anyway and a lot of them are written in the key of C.

[randal]

Yes, I agree; even my little 22-string has a very nice sound–with its solid mahogany box. It only loses its resonance in the lower octave.

[Author]

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