Double-strung harp saga

[Tacye]

Psychology was someone else’s error where I had written physics – I am amused at the places that crops up.

One of my points was that the good sounding percentages for ST need not carry across precisely between string materials and changes which leave the %TS essentially unchanged can be worth trying. I admit I didn’t do the calculations, but some of the odder things I have put on as strings behaved very differently from my gut experience. (I can report that an 8 string ‘playable’ Pakistan made harp was improved by rubber bands.)

[Biagio]

It is certainly fun to experiment! Achieving consistent or desired tone and “feel” throughout the range is usually the driving consideration when sitting down to design – which is why designers start with the string band and next the sound board.

“Folk” harp makers also have a lot more latitude and choices than the pedal harp makers. Who, for example, will be playing and with what technique? One can use some South American technique on a pedal harp and vice versa – although using the same strength on a Paraguayan would sound just awful. I can well believe the rubber band story.

I guess my point, if there was one LOL, is that if you over-drive a medium, whether it is a harp string or a speaker membrane, the result will be unpleasing. Here then %TS is is not a particularly good gauge – we don’t look for a smooth curve in the metric – but rather in tension and “stiffness”. The latter is usually represented by the ratio of tension to length – not a perfect metric but better than over-complicating the analysis. But %TS is useful to highlight where the anticipated technique may over or under drive the string, particularly with respect to the adjacent ones.

Speaking of which, it often used to puzzle me when players spoke of the “tremendous tension of wire harp strings.” I’ve come to realize that they are using “tension” to mean “resistance”. As a physicist Tacye will understand what I mean.

They are different variables but suffice it to say here that a wire harp will feel stiffer (and therefore seem to have more tension) than nylon or gut which is far more elastic. But the actual tension may well be the same.

OK that’s enough for one morning:-)

[mae-mcallister]

You guys always amaze me. There I was, reading your posts with ever increasing determination to step in and be peacemaker …and it turns out I didn’t have to. This would happen on-line in no other place ever. This forum has got to be some kind of interent phenomenon, where people are just as nice an reasonable to the screen as they are face to face.

Anyway, updates:

tl;dr Am going to order KF for the top five and wound strings for the rest.

Tayce – I agree with you about different materials being worth a try. I am also a physicist and as much as I want to understand what’s going on at some point you just have to say “sod it, let’s try it and see what happens”. Hence my first instinct/experiment was to try a gut string on the harp. To that end I have redesigned the top five strings to take KF as they are too small to take wound ones, I am not hopeful because the gut didn’t make much of a difference but KF is thinner still and who knows. The strings arn’t that expensive and straightforward to get (am I correct in assuming that what Morley call “synthetic gut” is actually KF?) so let’s see what happens.

Wil – The shop emailed back and said they are too busy at the moment, how about trying this other shop…VT strings. *facepalm*. I think I will order just what I need to fill the rest of the harp and replace the snapped one from the US and if it’s all good I can see if the Dutch shop are more free and can do me some spares.

Balfour – I wish that too! I feel like I am in the wrong country for what I am trying to do! Although we have free health care and guns are illegal, so I can’t have it all my own way I suppose:D

Biagio – Thanks for not saying I was stupid to try this. Also, my bass strings are magic and I am a massive convert to wound strings. I am super SUPER fussy about sound, when I chose my big harp I went round and played every single freakin’ harp in the entire exhibition and gave them marks out of 10 for sounds, feel, comfort etc. and the Dusty came out way tops. But I’m not looking for this one to sound amazing, it’s a practice/travel harp, so size and weight are important, exact quality of sound is not. I just want it to sound DECENT. I don’t care where there are wound strings except in terms of how expensive they are to get and replace. They’re comfortable, about the same thickness as the mono ones would be, and only in my LH which is where all my wound strings are on my big harp anyway so it doesn’t feel much different. I just want it to be ok.

[Biagio]

Hi Mae happy that it’s all good! Craft folks get kind of passionate about our opinions – you should hear some of the debates about sound boards. Or maybe better not, LOL.

About “synthetic gut” – not sure what they mean here. KF means to me fluorocarbon marketed by Savarez Alliance of France. It’s close to gut albeit with slightly greater density and tensile strength (factoid: it’s an improved version of Japanese fishing line).

When I read “synthetic gut” I of think Nylgut, marketed by Aquila of Italy. Different formula but generally speaking the same properties for our purposes; perhaps a mellower tone. You can safely use either in place of gut.

Cheers,
B

[Biagio]

Oh, and a second thought Mae… I Would NEVER suggest that this saga is “stupid” – quite the contrary, in my book it is brilliant. “Stupid” would be to reject something out of hand because “it’s never been done” or “we just don’t do things that way.”

Trying different things is how we progress, in music as much as any other field.

You’ve also given me incentive to restring one side of a double 23 to be a fifth apart- so that merits huge thanks. I do wonder what Laurie will say when it’s done (she was one of the two who developed the modern double strung and nixed the idea a year or two ago) but what the heck, it’s my harp:-)

B

[balfour-knight]

Mae, I want to say again how much I am enjoying following this blog! I found the conversation between Tacye and Biagio very informative and riveting.

Although I usually do things by “feel” and “from the heart,” I wanted to say to the physicists that I designed and built my own four-octave harpsichord when I was in high school, finishing it my first-year in college, getting college credit for it. I did study and know the string physics at that time of my life, and took two college physics courses. My special project in second-year physics was “The Physics Involved When Designing a Harpsichord.”

Also, when I was in Graduate School, I was still working on a nine-rank pipe organ (two manuals and pedal) that I designed and built, taking over nineteen years total from start to finish. Check out the math and physics involved with organ pipes and the all-tracker action if you want a fascinating subject! My sister, who is a high-school math instructor, helped me with the logarithms and higher mathematics during this long project! So did my sweet, long-suffering wife, ha, ha!

So, I have really enjoyed the highly technical end of this forum. Now lets all go have a cup of tea with Mae, at least in spirit. 🙂

Thank you all so much!

[mae-mcallister]

Balfour – how funny, my project for my physics masters was on the physics of the harpsichord:D And my partner’s official job title is Organ Builder, so I hear enough about that…:)

Quick update: I decided that KF is worth a shot, ‘specially as Morley DO sell the stuff, so I got enough for the top 9 notes. If they work out, it’ll only be 3 extra wound strings that I have to order from VT on top of the one that broke, and if they don’t (or more likely, if the bottom few out of those don’t) I’ll know how many more wound ones to get so that I have the minimum amount of wound strings to make it sound decent.

I’m hopeful – I was playing the little bugger yesterday and her top octave on the C side didn’t sound half as bad any more, and what’s more it got better the higher up it went. KF can only be an improvement!

[balfour-knight]

Mae,

How neat! That just proves that “great minds think alike!” 🙂

I know that all of us are looking forward to hearing you play that harp on a video, soon, we hope!

All the best,
Balfour

[mae-mcallister]

Quickie update:

KF is MAGIC MAGIC MAGIC!!!!! The top octave has gone from weird-twangy alien xylophone to decent harp sound flawlessly. It still needs to settle, and obviously doesn’t sound quite as sparkly as the RH side note, but near enough as to be fine. 2nd C to 3rd D is JUST GRAND, and is almost as thin as the RH side. Will make the levers bearable too! Reserving judgement on the 3rd C and B, I suspect the C will be fine but the B will need to be wound. 3rd F, G, A I didn’t even bother getting KF strings for, they will definitely need wound. I’m going to give it a week until i pass final judgement on the B, and then order the extra wound strings (including the broken one) from VT.

Also, I has needle file. 🙂

[mae-mcallister]

Update: wound strings have arrived and been installed. C side of harp finally sounds decent! The final string design is n/n wound from 5th C to 3rd B (14 strings), then KF from 3rd C to 2nd C (8 strings). The G side is nylon the whole way. Hooray!

Next up: Wait for it to settle, then begin The Saga of Installing The Levers, which will allow me to play in keys that are not F.

Video to follow as soon as I practice something in F on the harp enough to the point when I’m not too embarrassed to play it to y’all.

[wil-weten]

Congratulations, Mae, that the ‘C-side’ of your harp sounds decent now. This must be a great relief.

Looking forward to your first video!

[balfour-knight]

That’s great, Mae! Can’t wait for the video, and please do not feel too embarrassed to play for us. We love you!

Have a great day,
Balfour

[Biagio]

Yay! What Balfour said!

Biagio

[Allison Stevick]

That’s wonderful! Can’t wait to hear it!

[Tacye]

Wonderful news! (Will you be at Edinburgh this year?)

I can’t remember if I mentioned the relevance of the strings being developed for tiny bowed strings – 1/32 double bases or cellos. I wonder what titanium windings would do for a harp string?

[Author]

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