New harpmobile- the most expensive accessory-(I hope!!)

[catherine-rogers]

Personally I find it easier to load into a slightly higher vehicle because you aren’t lifting the harp, you’re laying it on a cushion on the lower edge and then lifting the base and sliding. So at least half of the weight is resting on the car and you’re not having to lift the total weight of the harp. (Of course there’s a carpet on the ground under the base of the harp, even using a base cover.) The higher the vehicle, the less you have to bend over to load, which should be better for some people’s backs.

My column fits into a cradle with wheels that roll on a piece of carpeted plywood on the floor of the van. This protects the carpet of the van for resale value and covers any holes in the floor where the removed rear bench seat would latch into place. (Dodge Grand Caravans have seats which fold into the floor but the shorter Dodge minivans don’t; my rear bench seat stays in the basement from the day we buy the van until the day we sell it.)

As mentioned earlier, the crown pokes out of the end of the cradle so there is no pressure on it, either.

Since the kneeblock is up in the air, so to speak, there is no pressure on it. Seems like having no pressure on the neck would be better for it since it’s most vulnerable. Someone once said laying a harp on its side would hasten twisting of the neck; I can’t think of any practical way to test that.

Many people ask me if harpists move their harps in the trunks, but that makes the whole process heavier and more unwieldly, and I’ve never been able to get a trunk in anything smaller than a pick-up truck. Even those old fibreglass trunks, though lighter than wood, were more trouble than they were worth. I could roll one but never lift it even if empty.

[Elizabeth Volpé Bligh]

Donna, do you mean to lie it down on the side with the pegs down? If it goes discs-down, the discs can get damaged or broken, and at the very least cause problems with the regulation.

[Donna Germano]

Please. That was a joke.

[Evangeline Williams]

Minivan is easier to load, at least for me, because when you tilt to lie it down on its back flat, you have less to lean/distance to go…I hope my description makes sense.

[Evangeline Williams]

If she only made two, is she willing to let people use the idea and make their own?

[kimberly-rowe]

Mary Ellen:

I just saw your post. I too and the proud owner of a brand new Honda Odyssey. LOVE it!!!! On our last harpmobile review I picked the Quest as my favorite, but in the end I went with the Odyssey. I was extremely disapointed to enter the minivan phase of life (I don’t even have kids!), but I was tired of cramming a ton of stuff alonog with the harp into my SUV. I just completed my first long distance trip with the Odyssey and it was really great.

I LOVE column loading the harp. It is easy to do yourself if you put down some plastic office chair mats to help the harp slide in easier. I moved my two middle seats together and put the harp down the passenger side, which allows a ton of room for stuff next to the harp. All the technicians I’ve talked to say this is perfectly safe for the harp, and actually better for it since the harp is not resting on the extended soundboard “wing.” (No matter how much padding you use, the harp still rests on the wing if you load it on it’s side.) Regardless of the harp’s safety, I have to say that I am much more concerned with my own personal safety and I feel much more secure knowing that if someone rear-ended me, the column of the harp is not pointed directly at my spine as it was in the old SUV. My assistant here at the HC (Alison Reese) was rear-ended in her SUV a few month’s ago, totalling the car, but fortunately the harp was not in it. It got us both thinking about personal safety and what would have happened to her in the crash in the event her harp was in the car. Alison also now owns an Odyssey!

So, I am a big fan of my Odyssey. I got the one with the navagation system and an added bonus is that on my recent trip to Georgia and back to PA it found me three Starbucks in the middle of nowhere! Yippee!

KIM

[Evangeline Williams]

I’ve always wondered if there was some sort of wall/pad/airbag/cage that could be placed behind the driver’s seat to cushion the blow in a rear-end collision, to protect harp and driver.

[catherine-rogers]

Wasn’t there an article in a past issue of the Harp Column about this? If memory serves, one could have installed a protective cage like those used for equipment or animals. It goes behind the front seats. Pricey, though, and no reaching back to get something.

[HBrock25]

I totally agree with you Kimberly!

[unknown-user]

I have met technicians that think it is okay to load the harp on its column. I don’t. They have not conducted tests that they told me of. What do they care if you have to replace the neck? They’re the ones you pay to replace it. The ones who said so are also fairly young and have not been in the business a very long time, or have not been reliable.

One experience with the harp undergoing torsion in the neck is enough for me. At the very least, it threw off the tuning. If you’re going to load it on the column, I say, figure out a way to provide structural support to its angle and knee-block, with a protective frame. You don’t want a big bump throwing the knee against the roof of the car. With the harp on its side, the pressure is somewhat equalized all the way around, but a lot goes on the column. On the column loading, you have the base protruding into the floor, which seems to me would increase the pressure on the bottom body frame and the sounding board, and transfer more vibrations and bumps there. I’m just old-fashioned, I guess. And no, they would not let copies be made of that tray.

[Alison Reese]

As Kim mentioned, I am also the proud owner of an ’05 Honda Odyssey, and I love it!! The Odyssey is definitely not cheap, but so far I think it has been worth every penny. Before this I had a Chevy Blazer which I really liked, but after getting smashed between two cars on the interstate, I decided to reconsider flat-loading. Had my harp been in the car at the time of the accident, the column would have made a harp skewer out of me. I could not believe how easy column loading was–and how easy it is on your back. Right after I got the minivan, a highly-respected harp technician with years of experience who goes by the nickname “Harp Doc” (I will leave Peter Wiley’s real name out of this so as not to embarrass him), helped me column load my harp in the Odyssey after regulating my harp. I asked him if column loading was detrimental to the harp, and he said it was perfectly fine and was not hard on the harp.

[diane-michaels]

Congrats, Alison!

[Evangeline Williams]

That’s one of the reasons I keep trying to find good ol’ wagons.

[Leigh Griffith]

I must say I do prefer wagons, although what passes for a wagon these
days is pathetic. I saw one they called a wagon that had less than a
foot of space between the back seats and the liftgate. That said, I
also am perturbed by the penchant to make even the trusty Subaru higher
than they used to be. This is a personal thing, since I am only 4 feet
9 inches tall. We have a minivan (so called) that I hate having to
climb into. I also just bought my fifth Subaru wagon (an Outback this
time – the Forester is too high) after giving my last one to my son. I
love it! The floor of the back is a bit high, but I guess I just have
to grin and bear it. I don’t see them getting any lower in the
forseeable future. (The floor of the back is waist high on me which
means if I have to lift something in, I have to practically lift my
hands up to my chin). Tipping things in is much easier than lifting,
but you don’t need a minivan for that, do you? I’ve tipped lots of
things into the Sube, harps included, but I will admit, not a pedal
harp.

Just my 2 cents,

Leigh

[Evangeline Williams]

I went wagon hunting today with little luck.

[Author]

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