Pedal vs Lever dilemma

[eliza-morrison]

I think it really depends on what you want to do with the instrument. Do you love the lever harp repertoire? Do you want to play Irish music, folk music? Do you want to play orchestral parts, Debussy, Ravel? What literature do you want to learn/study/play? This will help you to determine which instrument you need.
Also, how do you see the lever harp….do you view it as a stepping stone to a pedal harp, and will you become frustrated by its limitations? Or do you see it as an instrument in its own right, with its own repertoire and traditions? Either path is perfectly fine, but it is necessary to know which path you are on.

[jessica-wolff]

If I had my druthers, I’d have two or three harps–a small pedal harp, a lever harp and a metal-strung Celtic.

[patricia-jaeger]

Louis, there is still another choice which was not mentioned here. The Douglas Harp, reasonably priced and made in the Sarasota area of Florida ( dharps@juno.com ) has 33 strings, and 7 levers that activate all strings of the same name at once. This makes it a single-action harp with the action built into the harmonic curve of the harp, enabling much more chromatic music to be played. The Tyrolean harps which have 7 pedals for the feet instead. can also produce a larger amount of music with assorted accidentals. Fine pedal harpists Mildred Dilling, DeWayne Fulton, Paul Hurst, Emily Mitchell and others often chose to concertize and even record on the Dilling (now called Douglas) harp especially when transporting the heavier pedal harp would have been a problem. The maker of these harps holds the patents to this technology and you could look into whether it is right for you.

[natalie-wagner–2]

Dear Louis,

Well I think us harpists tend to be pretty serious! But you did mention wanting to play for your enjoyment. If that is the case, then there is far less pressure. I agree that for hard core Debussey and other classical music is usually impractical if not impossible to play on a lever harp. But there are SO many beautiful classical pieces that sound perfect on lever. Lyon and Healy’s Medievil to Modern volumes I and II I’m working on right now. These are pieces chosen for lever!

I’m a lover of both pedal and lever harp, one is not better than the other.

But you also mentioned preferring pedal to lever. I suggest listening. Don’t even open your eyes! Go on youtube and look up harp music. Click on random videos and listen, at the end work out what kind of harp model. Okay you will have to look a little bit to click on the video but you get my point….

Here’s the upside to pedal. Gorgeous pedal sound (lever harps even tightly strung do sound different, which I really like but I completely understand if others don’t) , ready to move to the next level in music once you are, any repertoire you want. There are others but trying to focus on a few here since this can all by overwhelming! The downsides… Very heavy. Even if you get a petite, they’re mostly around 60 pounds. They are huge, so fitting into a hospital room could be potentially dangerous.

But here’s the thing, since you are doing this for you, only you will know just what you want! I love harp column because it gives me the advice of harpists more experienced than I. But no matter how many opinions you hear, if you love pedal, nothing will quite ‘get you’ like a pedal harp! Do NOT EVER EVER EVER settle for an instrument you don’t care about, or know you will outgrow. When I outgrew my little baby lap harp, my family saved up for years, funraiser at the church, my dad sold his Harley, just so I could get a petite pedal harp USED. But guess what? I love it. I love love love my harp! And this summer I saved up all on my own and got a carbon fiber harp for beach weddings. I love it. I love love love that harp too! So listen to your gut (and definitely go for gut strings 😛 )

The harp is amazing, I hope you find yours soon! God bless you!

— Natalie

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