Manly Harps

[unknown-user]

Glad to hear that they consider their harps shine by their own estimation! It’s a striking model though. I know a professional harpist in this part of the world with a Musa model and she has been really happy with it, and its quite old now and been really reliable. And yes, I think being (relatively) near the factory is good – especially

[unknown-user]

Yes, well, I used to worry with the more architectural types of harps that King Kong would come out of the wood work and start scaling the column….but that is appropriate for a manly thread, beat your chest kind of harp and make Tarzan calls. Same with the vine on the column of the Apollan, King of the Apes and all….

Get back to work Pippy Longstocking..whoops, I mean Pippin!

[steven-todd-miller]

Salvi Apollo hands down. I love mine– it is a mahogany that is so dark it’s almost a cherry color. The design is great because it looks classic, yet doesn’t seem out of place when you play jazz. The tension is perfect for “man hands”– when I use my L&H 15 for outdoor gigs, I’ve got to be careful because it seems that I’m going to rip the strings off it! The sound on the Apollo has gotten me into trouble many times (I’m a rebel at heart). Once a mink-wearing socialite asked a waitress to tell me to “turn that thing down,” and when playing for the president of Toyota and his entourage I wound up having to basically swish my fingers on the string to get the volume to their liking. APOLLOS ROCK!

[unknown-user]

Yes, I agree the

[unknown-user]

Charles,

I agree with you on the designs on the soundboard – that’s why I chose
an unadorned soundboard. Has anyone ever had their soundboard custom
painted with something if their own choice?

Alice

[brook-boddie]

Alice,

I’ve often wondered the same thing–is it possible to add a soundboard decoration (not stickers–real paint) on a finished harp?

[barbara-brundage]

It’s not a total no-no, but it’s very hard to get the finish off and replace it to look right. Years ago Natalie from L&H told me that they sometimes would send harps out totally finished except for the board, to people who wanted to have an artist paint the board.

I painted my prelude’s soundboard and it was a tremendously difficult job, first getting down to somewhere near the wood (the finish is very thick) and then rubbing things out when I got the finish put back on. I’m not the world’s greatest artist, either and it was very hard working on the board on the harp (when possible, real artists like to have the board off the harp). The trickiest part was the gold lining, though.

Of course, you would actually pay L&H more for an unfinished board than for a standard harp with a decal, I think.

[barbara-brundage]

I should say that you can just rough up the existing board finish and paint on that, depending on the medium you choose, but there are two problems with that:

1. the design will look like it’s floating, because it is

2. You still need to put something over the painting to protect it (especially if the artist uses gold) and that means that if you don’t subtract some finish before you start, you will have a thicker coat of finish on the board when you are done, which could possibly affect the sound quality somewhat.

[brook-boddie]

Thanks for that info, Barbara…very good to know.

[barbara-brundage]

Well, the risk level varies to some extent on the type of harp, too. I wouldn’t hesitate to jump in on a harpsicle, for instance, but I’d be terrified of a pedal harp, and even for the prelude I sat there with the sandpaper in my had a very long time asking myself, “Are you SURE you want to do this?”

It was fun, though, except that you need really strong back muscles to rub out Deft if you don’t have a spray booth available.

Of course, if you know a good furniture person you trust, they could probably do the finish stuff at the beginning and end for you, but I’d want someone I was very sure was very skilled.

Yes, I like Pamela Bruner’s designs, too.

[barbara-brundage]

in my had = in my hand

[john-strand]

I mentioned somewhere before that my gold Venus Paragon was one of the few with hand painted fleur de lis on the board instead of a decal – David Willimas of Williams Harp Galleries recently

[barbara-brundage]

Yes, I’d totally trust someone like him, since he knows all about harps and finishes adn such. I wish he had more pictures of his soundboard work on his site.

[john-strand]

PS – here’s a little added info – all the harps on the Williams Harp Gallery site are

[john-strand]

I think I have finally figured out how to load the pictures – we’ll see if it works – – – –

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