playing wire harp and nylon/flurocarbon

[deb-l]

hello, again I am drawn to the Kortier student Trinity harp. I have been looking at small harps and I like the sound of wire, it’s the type of music I play most often, although very different technique, as I want to grow my nails.. any wire harpers on this forum? I’ve been drawn to wire many times I think I just want to go for it..

I heard that you can grow your nails to the right length where you can play with the fingerpads and with the nails on wire, but whenever my nails get the least bit of length they end up catching the string. Does anyone know if having longer nails for wire is something I can learn to compensate for when I play nylon or fluorocarbon?

thanks in advance for your thoughts..

[Angela Biggs]

Deb, [Sherri Matthew](http://www.harpcolumn.com/users/sherri-matthew) plays wire harp. I’m not sure if she plays with pads, nails, or both.

[Tacye]

If you play gut/nyon with your fingers pointing very classically downward and your thumbs up you can cut your nails at a slope so the inner corners are short, but there is still the point for wire slightly off centre.

[randal]

I’m due to receive my wire harp on Monday (should have been yesterday, but it was diverted…i won’t complain–if it eventually makes it to me!). Wire is natural for me, as I’ve been a guitarist all my life and have always kept right hand nails; so when I play nylon string harp, it’s with my right hand nails–not particularly desirable, but it’s largely unavoidable with decades of nylon-string guitar in my DNA

Unfortunately, the left hand nails interfere with playing fingerboard instruments, so having committed to wire harp, I’ve had to give up my oud and violin playing (I can still play the fretted instruments a little–as the nails don’t totally interfere with those, as they do the fretless instruments). It’s quite a commitment, but the instrument and the music has finally compelled me

Depending on your string spacing, you might manage to employ relatively more pad rather than all-nail approach. I believe some wire harps are spaced wider like nylon harps

[deb-l]

thank you Tacye, that’s a great suggestion and may even help improve my technique!

Randal, I am looking forward to hearing about your harp when it arrives. I think the big draw for me is that I want to play Carolan on wire and your new harp brought that to mind again!

[randal]

Great Deb!

Well it made it to the last town before mine on the UPS line by Friday night…and there it sat all weekend–while a nasty blizzard and cold winter temperatures moved in and dumped half a foot of heavy spring snow…and still coming down. Now if it is to make it to me it must travel the last leg of its journey through ice and snow…I hope the trucks can stay on the road tonight–and it gets to ride around town all day tomorrow in the cold and snow in the back of a truck… (gritting teeth :^|

All this–when it should have just spent the weekend all cozy and snug here in my house!

[deb-l]

I fret the whole time a harp is shipped. That last leg of the journey the clock ticks so slowly.. Once I was waiting for a mandolin to arrive, while I was tracking it the status went to delivered. I called, they said someone signed for it, and they didn’t know where it was. I was a wreck and my husband guessed they delivered to ovation guitars. We took a ride down there and sure enough.. whew!

Where are you that it’s cold and snow! it’s spring here in New England.

[randal]

Western Montana I am. FedEx has always been more effective for us–typically beats UPS by a day or two (woulda had it by the weekend for sure, as FedEx makes Saturday deliveries)…but I’m still waiting for my harp today…as it’s been “out for delivery” for 10 hours now…”

…but I said I wouldn’t complain! :^|| … still keeping my fingers crossed!!

(later) Well it made it! The packaging all looked intact, but the column took a nasty ding somewhere along the way–leaving an inch-long indentation, crack, and half-inch avulsion of splintered wood right on the front corner of the column (not only is it unattractive, but downright dangerous–nearly took a nasty splinter in my hand several times while going over the instrument)

[lyn-boundy]

God, that’s terrible! When you’ve waited a long time the temptation is strong to make the best of a bad job but this is way beyond a minor irritation. Don’t forget this harp should last you for life and you will hate yourself every time you look at that gouge, so a bit more of a wait while they get it fixed isn’t the end of the world (and they certainly should know how their carriers are treating their workmanship). I hope you’ll eventually come over here – http://www.harpcolumn.com/forums/coffee-break/posts/62693 to share pics and tell us all about your new acquisition.

[randal]

Thanks Lyn

Well, I admit that the gouge really was a disappointment. But for a number of reasons, I’m seeing it as something I must look past: I’m feeling fortunate that the harp made it to me structurally sound–it’s possible that if i subjected the harp to another round of cross-country shipping, the harp would suffer more. While certainly not optimal, the gouge is a cosmetic issue that I can address myself–it will always be there, but I’ll have to treat it somehow to mitigate the splinter jutting out so I don’t spear my hand! (unfortunately, i’m unable to simply glue it back–as the wood has been crushed beneath the avulsion)

So, I guess it’s a case of accepting the imperfections–as I must everywhere, everyday ; )

I will inform the seller, but frankly I can’t be certain how or when the harp was damaged: it was well-packed and the crate appeared well intact when it arrived

[jennifer-buehler]

Randal,

I really, really recommend that you speak with the harp builder. often they work with a preferred shipping company and they need to know that your harp was damaged in transit so they don’t work with this company again or so they can take steps to prevent such damage occurring in the future.

[randal]

Thanks Jennifer. This was a used harp purchased from a retailer. (But still…it would have been nice to not have this problem). I did inform the retailer

[Sherri Matthew]

Hi Angela and Deb,

I’ve been offline for a while – both sick and overwhelmed with work and a ton of stuff going on, so now it’s time to play catch up ball! Anyway, for your question about nails: yes, mine tend to break once in a while and it’s a pain, but they do grow back in a few days, quickly enough for me. I don’t grow them very long, just enough so they’re not liable to breakage and they make a nice sound on the wire. Mine tend to curve on the ends for some reason and that causes some catching when I play, so I don’t let them get to that point. Eating yogurt daily and calcium-based foods helps to strengthen my nails. I don’t use any nail polishes or anything that would tend to weaken them.

I kind of modified my playing technique so that it departed from historic methods, since my wire harp arrangements are more contemporary: https://soundcloud.com/sherrimatthew. I found that rotating my hand slightly when playing alters the sound somewhat, because the nail makes contact with the wire at a different angle. Mostly I play with the tip of the nail, occasionally brushing the wire with the pads if I want to soften the sound slightly at a point. Also I don’t tend to play with much force either, and I don’t have very long nails. Mostly just lightly tapping the wire and it gets me the sound I want. I have very little experience with nylon or gut-strung instruments outside of the nylon-strung Paraguayan harp I learned on for two years. I think the tension is somewhat higher on nylon Celtic harps and the spacing is different too, but I’m not an expert on that.

I think the wire harps don’t really have standardization as far as string spacing goes, so it just boils down to spending a lot of time with your own instrument and getting familiar with the distance between the strings so you don’t have to think about it too much.

Hope this helps. 🙂 I don’t think it would be that difficult to find the right nail length/technique to play both instruments.

[deb-l]

randal – so sorry for the trouble you had with shipping. Is there anything VHC can do to file an insurance claim? What if you sent them pictures? It’s too bad the box didn’t show signs of damage, that seems really odd. It seems as though they should be able to advise you on next steps?

[randal]

Yes, I sent them pics. But yes, i think the first thing a carrier will do is examine the packaging–and there’s no ostensible sign of any impact there

The good news: I don’t see it nor feel it while playing. Until i can obtain a new string set, I’ve installed a couple of mandolin strings to fill the gaps of missing strings–which of course sound terrible–but allowed me to tune her up and play tunes all day

Another thing: this is one big reason why i Iike to buy used gear. If this happened to a new piece–or a particularly nice piece, would be that much more difficult to tolerate. I pretty much take the attitude: I don’t have to be as careful–going up/down stairs! And as disappointing as a major gouge in the front of one’s column, is–after an epic cross-country journey, I’m so thankful to finally have this wonderful instrument. I’ll have to remove the avulsion, sand the rough divot , and move on!

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