Newer student harp vs older larger harp

[MusicMom]

I got to have a good chat with my daughter last night and got a little bit more from her.  Preteens!  I’m learning I have to ask *exactly* the right questions to get the information I really want.  Anyway, she told me about how she played on quite a few concert grands when she did private lessons and master classes, at camp.  Some she felt a little uncomfortable with the size and weight, but she got really excited telling me about a friend’s concert grand.  She said it wasn’t as heavy as her teacher’s harps and it sounded so much better.  Ah ha!  Now she’s giving me something I can work with!  She could only tell me that it was an L & H, but at least it’s a start.  We chatted some more about what is realistic for us and that it might take awhile to figure this all out.  I think she and I are a bit more on the same page now.

After more research how I wish someone was ready to give up a Salvi Arion 44!  I know they were discontinued, but that seems like the perfect harp for her and my budget. A mom can dream, right? 🙂

Again, thank you to all who have replied and shared their opinions.  Even if they are different, I do appreciate all the help.  I’m grateful to have found this community.

Btw, if anyone has a modest pedal harp available for rent for a few months, I’d love to try that before purchasing.  We are in the central Arkansas area.  I’m willing to drive about 4 hours (maybe a little more) to pick it up and return it.

 

[Gretchen Cover]

Sounds like progress:). By chance, I saw Atlanta Harp Center has a 2001 Salvi Sinfonietta harp for sale.  It is the harp replaced by the Arion.  I do not know anything about that particular model but it appears to be in your price range (check to see if the price is firm) and comes with a 3-piece transport cover. A cover set is $600 new.  Not having to restring saves you about $600.00.  It said the harp is due for regulation so if it was done at the store, that is another $300 not to worry about. This semi-grand model weighs 75 pounds as opposed to a concert grand that weighs 85-90 pounds.   Something to think about.

[Elettaria]

This is a bit vague, but here’s what I remember of playing the pedal harp as someone who was probably smaller than your daughter is now.

I took up the harp at the age of twelve for two years.  I was perhaps 4’10 and slightly built.  My school was well off and owned  harps, so I practised at school for perhaps a year, and then my mother rented one.  The school was seriously into classical music, not folk at all, so I initially learned on a Pilgrim Clarsach, which is a lever harp that’s closer to a pedal harp in some ways (spacing, tension), as the idea was always to “move up” to pedal harp.  Which I did, and I think the school harp was a full-size model.  I was perfectly happy playing it and lugging it around the music department on its trolley in search of practice rooms.  This might have been for six months, before my mother rented one which I suspect was on the smaller side, being an Erard.

Twenty-five years later I came to the Edinburgh harp festival to try out harps, and mostly looked at lever harps, having changed as a musician and realised that I want to stay with the lever harp.  I went in my wheelchair and unfortunately everyone was too polite to suggest that I got out of it, which didn’t occur to me either having not touched a harp in quarter of a century, so the lever harps were surprisingly uncomfortable because I was sitting too high for them.  The pedal harp I tried, however, was far more comfortable.  The weight was between my knees far more than it was on my shoulder.  I don’t think I was doing much with the pedals, that’s one thing I’d need to relearn, but I was happily playing away on it and getting on fine.  No one has ever suggested to me that I’m too small for the pedal harp, and I’ve ended up a whopping 4’11.  It’s possible that I was being steered towards smaller harps all the time and never realised, but between my school’s being well off and using that pedal harp in the orchestra, I doubt it was a petite one.

It does sound like your daughter may not be in a place for committing to the purchase of a pedal harp just yet, and that’s fine.  The lever harp is a serious instrument, and you have a good one now.  Maybe defer this decision for a year?  One thing she could possibly try in the meantime is joining the percussion section in the orchestra, if they have space, and getting used to orchestral playing that way.  I did that throughout my school years and loved it.  Basic musicianship will get you started, and then you can more or less learn the rest on the job.  I did have percussion lessons from the ages of 16-18, but I was the only one doing that, and the rest of the percussion section (mostly pianists) were fine.

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