Paraguayan harp owners

[nancy-glickman]

I have a couple of questions. Yesterday I looked at a Paraguayan harp and wondered how you would change a string if one broke. I plan on buying one of these harps eventually, I hope they come with some instructions on that since I wasn’t sure how that would be done. Any info would be helpful. also do the taquitos take the place of sharping levers? thanks for any responses.

[Sherri Matthew]

Hi Nancy,
Don’t know if this will be much help to you, as mine doesn’t have a specific make or model on it and I don’t know much about its history (my husband got it a few years ago at a church fundraiser for an organ restoration) but anyway…

Mine has an opening on the bottom, no convenient access ports on the back like my wire harp does, so changing the strings was a bit of a challenge. What I did was, I loosened the old strings a bit but didn’t remove them completely. I got a bit of tape and attached the new string to the old, so I could pull it through the soundboard hole. Once I got it that far, I removed the old string and its wooden toggle as well, and then attached the toggle to the new string. Then I pulled the string up all the way and inserted it into the tuning pegs at the top. This is probably not standard procedure, but it worked for me.

I had to change ALL the strings on mine because they were hardened with age (nylon) and quite a few were broken, so I ordered a complete new set from Vermont Strings. Took me two days to get them on all there because I had never done this before and it was a little tricky at first.

No experience with taquitos. Aaron Walden here on the HarpColumn knows a lot of stuff about sharping rings and taquitos, so he’s probably your best bet to ask for advice in that area.

[nancy-glickman]

thanks for your reply it is very helpful, now I just need to see about getting the harp.

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