Please help. Aziliz or Melusine Concert?

[Elettaria]

Off-topic, but does anyone know why some of us are getting these weird formatting problems?  I am and I’m using Chrome Browser on an Android tablet.  It persists even if I try to edit a post to get rid of the markings about font and such.

I think I was quoting Carl Swanson on saying that nylon-strung harps won’t be safe to restring with fluorocarbon, although I seem to recall quite hot debate on that.  It’s certainly widely said that you shouldn’t put concert gut on a harp designed for nylon, and may or may not be safe to put lever gut on a harp designed for nylon.

It’s possible I was misinformed by the people renting me the Hermine, or that it had problems, yep.  They were dodgy beyond belief, and I later discovered rent out harps in very poor condition, though this one didn’t seem too bad (the next one was).  It only needed to be tuned once a week, and I am picky about playing a harp that’s in tune.  Oh, the iffy batch thing: I was told that since they’re a cheaper-end harp, it’s a bit hit or miss whether you get one of the better ones, though again this was from the dodgy harp rental people so who knows.  I’ve heard the Hermine described as having very low tension by a few other folks, though, including harp shops selling a variety of models.  If nothing else, this shows you that it isn’t particularly easy to describe how a harp feels to play, it’s not standardised, and this is another reason why you need to try as many harps as possible!  “Folk tension” and “folk spacing” means different things to different people, for instance.

Average humidity in Fort William, Scotland, where Starfish is located: 68% – 88% over the year, from squinting at a graph.  (I’m in Edinburgh, which isn’t as humid, and we frequently get humidity up in the 90s.)  They do fine with gut-strung harps.  I’ve managed to find a chart for Auckland rather than Hamilton, and it seems to be within the higher end of that range, but not higher than it overall.  Can anyone explain more about whether gut is suitable for humid climates?  What do you regard as humid?  I’ve heard that you’re better off getting a harp made in a roughly similar climate to your own, rather than, say, buying a harp made in the Scottish Highlands and keeping it in a desert, or vice versa.  Can anyone comment on that?

Good point about its being cheaper per harp to ship them in a bundle.  Although if the harp is twice the price to begin with, that might cancel it out.

As far as I can tell, string type will make a difference to the feel and sound of a harp, but the overall build of the harp will make more difference.  Two harps from the same luthier strung in different materials, or made in different woods, are going to sound more like each other than a harp from another luthier with the same stringing material and/or wood.

By the way, I expected that I’d need low tension as I have muscle pain, low strength and severe fatigue, but to my surprise I don’t get on well with it and prefer, hmm, not sure if it’s considered medium or medium-high-for-a-lever-harp tension, since I still haven’t tried enough harps yet!  So even that isn’t particularly predictable.  I also thought the weight of the harp would be more of a big deal for me than it actually is.  It turned out that being a good fit physically for the harp was what made the difference, and once I’m sitting well, the weight doesn’t bother me.  (I’m not carrying it around, though.)  I got horribly stiff and achy after my first evening with that Starfish student harp, when we were both at the wrong height, I couldn’t relax properly to play as a result, and apart from anything else it kept trying to tip away from me as the balance was wrong. The next day I found it a stand the right height, sorted out a supportive cushion to bring my stool to the right height, wriggled around a bit to get it balanced, and found to my surprise that I can barely feel the weight at all.  This is possibly why some people report that certain harps are really, really heavy, even when they weigh the same as other models.

[wil-weten]

Hi Elettaria, I work with Google Chrome on a Windows laptop and just like in your case, my messages suffer from something funny with the formatting.

I think that some knowledgeable people on this forum said that a nylon harp can’t be restrung with carbon or gut, mean that one can’t use a set of ‘standard’ strings because these may generate too great a tension (yes, Biagio, I am deliberately simplifying now). One does need to calculate the right diameters for the kind of string one wants (and any harp maker can do this for you. Though, frankly, I would like to buy the harp that already has the exact kind of strings that I want. And yes, indeed the harp model determines the sound of the harp for a great deal, but don’t underestimate the kind of strings. Before buying, many moons ago, I thought I wanted a nylon strung harp, but in the shop I heard the same (second hand) harp model strung in nylon and strung in pedal gut, next to each other, played for me by a professional harpist. The difference in richness of tone schocked me and so, I bought the pedal gut strung harp. By the way, maybe the difference in tone has a lot to do with the fact that my 38 string harp is very heavily built. A lighter built harp may sound much better in nylon, perhaps even better than gut…. When you want to get an idea about the difference in the kind of wood used, have a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1MSIaq2YmU 

[Biagio]

OK let’s talk about what affects a harp’s tone, aside from strings and technique.

-Sound board material and how it is tapered (assuming that it is).  Folk harp makers commonly use a number of different woods – Sitka spruce, Engelmann spruce, cedar, redwood, Spanish pine, Honduras mahogany, Eastern basswood just to name a few, and some use two kinds in the same harp.  All have different resonances and different strengths.  Some prefer aircraft grade 5-ply birch laminate which is stronger gram for gram than any of the above but will be shaped and tuned differently from any of these solid wood materials.  Some people sneer at a/c ply as “cheap.”  That is foolish IMHO. It does cost less to buy the material and costs less to make into a board – but some excellent harpers love it.  Unlike strings though, this is not something that is easily quantified.

-Hardwood veneer or external rib?  Some put a thin veneer on top of a solid wood board and forgo the rib (the veneer will keep the softer wood from splitting).  Intuitively that will sound different unless the underlying wood is shaped differently and even then somewhat.  With a rib but no veneer small cracks will be visible in a solid wood board.  That is not bad but makers got tired of explaining this.

-Vibrating surface; it should be intuitively obviously that greater vibrating surface will give more volume and richer tone but there is a practical limit to how wide you can make it.

-Sound box depth and shape: there is a good argument to be made acoustically for a square shape but that can be awkward to play. If the box is too deep it will echo annoyingly; too shallow and sound is muffled.

-Wood for the box: does not make much difference if it is thick.  Most make it fairly thin in which case denser woods will (usually) produce a brighter tone.

-Angle at which the strings meet the board.  We can hypothesize that a 90 degree angle will drive the board the most but that will also rip the board off!  Makers usually choose an angle between 45 and 25 degrees, 30-35 being pretty common.  The angle will also dictate the height of the harp and therefore the string length.

-How heavy is that neck and pillar? A heavier neck will absorb fewer vibrations than a lighter one.

All of these and more can only be judged by trying the individual harp – even two of the same model and wood may sound different depending on the tree.

A conscientious builder will dry the wood thoroughly before putting the parts together: typically to 8% moisture content or lower. That allows the wood to expand safely if the harp is moved to a humid climate and shrink safely in a more drier one.  Sudden changes of course are anathema.

Isn’t it fun?

Biagio

 

[Elettaria]

Wil  – I do know of an English luthier who builds lightweight harps strung lightly with gut, Tim Hampson, though I’ve not tried his harps. The 34 string model weighs only 6kg/13lb.  The main serious luthier I know of in the UK who uses nylon is Jon Letcher, although he does offer gut as an option on one model.  He really likes it, including in terms of sound.  Generally, everyone here uses gut, and I was thrilled to find Mark Norris offering fluorocarbon as a standard option, as I’m happier with a luthier who uses that type of stringing a lot and has got it working optimally for them. Jon also uses birch laminate soundboards for his (more popular) nylon-strung Camlad range, thinks very highly of it, finds it has excellent stability in terms of tuning and such, and these harps have a solid reputation.  So while people, over here at least, are often sniffy about departing from the standard gut-strings-and-spruce-soundboard approach, perhaps because the alternatives are associated with the lower end of the harp market, there are definitely respected luthiers doing good things with alternatives. And there are different fashions in harp-building in different countries, with nylon being far more popular in the US for example.

Things I’ve been told about woods by various luthiers  and harp shop folk: some people believe that the type of wood really doesn’t make a substantial difference to the sound, not considering that there’s a different wood used for the soundboard, and reckon that you may as well pick based on what you like the look of.  Others think there’s a difference, but everyone has different opinions on which wood creates which sound, they may change with age (someone told me that maple develops more), and bear in mind that something called “walnut” or “maple” won’t be the same wood all over the world.  I spoke to a lovely woman at a harp shop in the Netherlands who preferred different woods for different luthiers.  She preferred cherry for the Silver Spear harps, and I think it may have been walnut for the Starfishes, or was it cherry for the Starfishes and walnut for the Teifis?  If you are choosing based on looks, not only is it possible that different luthiers are using slightly different species, but they may also be using different finishes, so a cherry model from one luthier may look very different from a cherry model from another.  Cherry darkens a lot, by the way, some say it ends up darker than walnut.

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