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Harp Amplification

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  • #72454
    lisa-kikol
    Participant

    Can anyone give me the brief over view of what I need to buy

    #72455
    barbara-brundage
    Participant

    Hi, Lisa.

    Well, that’s sort of like asking, “How big is a house and how much does one cost?”. There are a lot of different answers, depending on a lot of different variables. Are you talking about amplification for background music, and if so, for how large a crowd? Do you mean stage performance, church services, solo, ensemble, etc?

    The least you can get away with is some kind of mic or pickup plus an amplifier and it can get a lot more complicated than that, depending.

    #72456
    lisa-kikol
    Participant

    Barbara – I have played at weddings in a large 150 person convention type room and it would have been nice to add a microphone to increase the level of sound or I have played for an outdoor cafe type setting and I could like my sound to carry further to attract people to listen.

    #72457
    tony-morosco
    Participant

    If you want a good overview of amplification, the options available, with tons of pointers and definitions and explanations of how things work so that you can best figure out the correct solutions to your playing situations then I highly recommend Deborah Henson-Conant’s The Gurls Guide to Amplification.

    It isn’t an overly technical or in depth explanation. It is a basic overview, but that will give you a good basic understanding of what different pieces of equipment you might want, what they do and how they are used. You will be able to walk into a music store and know what to ask and be able to understand what the people trying to help you are talking about.

    There are more in depth books out there, but the thing about this one is that it deals specifically with harp amplification and so includes some of Deborah’s explanations of harp specific problems she has faced and how she and her sound people have overcome them.

    #72458
    barbara-brundage
    Participant

    Yes, that’s a very good resource, but I think the best one would be to just ask the other harpists in your area (you’re still in S FL?) to show you what they use.

    One small caveat about Deborah’s book–it’s a lot of info, and in the real world you can get by not understanding everything it covers. I know plenty of harpists with successful gigging careers who manage without understanding almost anything it covers, but if you want to go into this knowing what you’re doing it’s a good place to start.

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