Eye Glasses

[harpist123]

Hello all ye with vision problems!!!! I just got my eye exam yesterday and need a new pair of single-vision corrective glasses for playing my harp. The optician was able to get me 12″ of clarity, beginning with middle C on my 36 string harp. Not bad!!!! However, I am not able to find “interesting” frames (preferably frameless glasses) to put my script into…That are “top-to-bottom” of the lens high enough so I’m not looking underneath the lens!!! Does anyone have a similar issue, and can you forward me pictures of what you use, with the name / design / # of the glasses that you have found to work? Thank you!

[Briggsie B. Peawiggle]

Have you looked at Zenni.com? I buy all my glasses from there. You upload a picture of your face and try on all the frames you want. You need to get the prescription from your eye doctor and the pupillary distance (which is part of your prescription). You will be amazed at the prices there — and they are quite good.

[billooms]

For me, the biggest issue was reading the music on the stand which was between the near point (the reading spot of the bifocals) and the far point (long distance) of my bifocals. I measured the distance from my eyes to the music stand and had the eye doctor write a prescription specifically for that distance. Rather than bifocals, my music glasses are only this specific prescription. I got mine made at Costco at a reasonable price. They have reasonable selection of frames to choose from.

[harpist123]

Thank you for your reply, and interesting option…It was fun to try, but I’m the kind of person who needs to actually try them on…Finally found a workable pair 🙂

[harpist123]

Thanks, Bill! Yes, after needing specific “harp” glasses over 2 years ago I, too, needed to get a specific script for harp only (not a bifocal). I also have a script for distance (driving and general every day outdoors). My first experience did not give me the results I needed, though when I went to the optician, I brought my harp and we tried to get a satisfactory distance to the music AND to my harp strings from middle C out (up and down). My vision has changed for various reasons, and now, after bringing my harp to a different optician, he was able to gain this approximate 12″ of clarity on the strings as well as a comfortable reading distance to the music. Yesterday I stopped in at an eyeglass/optician office in a town I go to every week, and found a pair that finally seems to fit closely to my face (so I’m not looking underneath the lens and finding myself having to tip my head to view through the lens) and they will make it for me to pick up next week. It is also a rather curved / wrap style, so that the lens doesn’t stick out away from my face so far, thus allowing me to view off to the left and the right without (hopefully) distortion. They think they can alleviate distortion using a high index material for the lens allowing it to be thinner. I tell ya, on top of it all, I have 2 congenital (born with) very small cataracts, and very small regular cataracts, causing it to be very difficult to get a really clear and crisp edge of notation OR strings, regardless of script. And they aren’t ready to remove yet. I have astigmatism as well, which is constantly changing, more often recently, which forces me to get a new script now probably every year. Insurance (I don’t like even saying that word…) won’t cover cataract surgery until your vision deteriorates to a certain point. Bet they can’t possibly understand what this means to a musician!!!! Anyway, thanks for your input. I will just continue forward as you do, with my separate harp script, and try harder to place fingers on my strings more than I do, to help offset the vision issues…and try to remember those “blind harpists” who play (and played) even better than I currently do 🙂

[carl-swanson]

Back when I was giving recitals, always without music(i.e., from memory) I was frustrated that all of the strings, from 7th octave C to 00G, were not in focus. The ones in the middle octaves were clear, but everything else was fuzzy. So I too brought my harp in to the optician’s office. He fitted me with a pair of glasses in which the left lens was for the lower part of the instrument and the right lens was for the upper part. It worked perfectly, and I could see all of the strings clearly with those glasses. They worked for reading music as well, since the left lens was for seeing the lower strings that were about the same distance away as the music stand. It may sound unworkable to have two different distances in one pair of glasses. But your brain reads whichever image is in focus and ignores the out of focus eye. That’s the whole premise of a monocle. You only need one eye in focus to see.

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