looking to buy a harp…

[Audrey Nickel]

I think he was able to back out of buying the EMS harp.

Audrey

[unknown-user]

yup. I was able to back out

[renate-kvalsvik]

Yes, full set of levers means that all of the strings have levers. You should listen to the sound clip and decide whether it’s the sound you want before buying, although I’m sure you’ve already done that. Maybe compare it with the sounds of other harps. I bought a harp almost a year ago, and have realised later that what I really want is a warmer, fuller sound. So even though I love my harp, I have to save up for a more expensive lever harp, which will take me a long time.

[Rachel]

Don’t get too caught up on having 38 strings versus 36 strings. Make sure the string tension is what you want and that the sound is what you want.

[unknown-user]

what purpose does string tension serve?

[Liam M]

The style of the harp and the luthier’s design will establish the tension. If you plan on migrating to another style or design, you want to develop your technique on an instrument with a similar tension.

Harps are quite sensitive to the way the strings are struck and the resulting sound from a bad strike is not always pleasant, so you develop and approach and exit to the string which provides the most pleasing tone. The exit in particular is affected by string tension.

There also is a different movement of the string depending on the tension, which along with length and mass per length determines the note or frequency at which the string vibrates when struck.

As to full levers…. I am truly curious why would anyone want an E# or a B#?

[barbara-brundage]

>I am truly curious why would anyone want an E# or a B#

You don’t have those unless you tune in C, Liam. Full levers means the ability to raise each note one half step by raising the lever, or to lower it by lowering a raised lever. That means you would have Bb/B natural and Eb/E natural.

[barbara-brundage]

if you tune in E-flat, that is.

[Donna O]

Liam,
I am currently working on a piece by Susan McDonald that requires exactly what Barbara is talking about.

[barbara-brundage]

Donna, for future reference, it’s going to be easier in the long run to transpose the piece to a key you can play in in E-flat.

[barbara-brundage]

I meant a key you can play in with the harp tuned in E-flat. If you want to play several pieces later on, are you going to stop and retune the whole harp in-between? If you have a teacher, she should be able to figure out what to do, if you don’t know how. Remember you can substitute a glissando with G# and D#, for example.

[Rachel]

Back to string tension, if you really like the sound of the pedal harp, that might be related to string tension, which is often higher in pedal harps than some levers harp.

[Donna O]

Barb,

Thanks for the suggestion.

[barbara-brundage]

Is this one of the pieces from Harp Olympics? Which one?

[Donna O]

It’s actually from Harp Solos (graded)

[Author]

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