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I know who usually plays for Sting, he’s part of a friend’s ensemble, will check it out, as he said he toured the US with Sting.
I can only suggest taking a proper harp crate, if there’s a lot of gig staging and equipment, there’ll be room on the van and backstage for a harp crate, so you can put the harp away, but you’ll need to think about shade and humidity, or a ventilated area, you won’t want the harp to bake.
you need to isolate which frequency is causing the buzz and whether it’s one particular string or something else resonating, so tune 3 adjacent strings to the same frequency, I’ll leave you to decide which levers are on/off for greater variation, then start to eliminate the cause or particular strings, if they all create the same problem when you are stopping the other 2 then it can’t be a string, it must be a knot or some metal work. So keep plucking as you damp all the other bits and knots you can systematically – stick your ear in the hollow sound board, it could be a long way up or down from the source strings. let us know….
I’ve done a couple of sessions in a junior school taking a small harp which I was happy to let them touch and play (NB: needed a higher stool for them and a low one for myself). Starting with a few opening questions, (they seemed to know what it was called), I introduced the string colours etc, middle C and four fingers. Played Andres’ Charades, Thomsons’ Raindrops (for very young children) and Cuckoo to sing along to, or Hasselmans Petite Berceuse for the older ones. I used the trick of a small ball to show them all how to make a rounded fist, with thumb and finger pointed out, then turnover and tilt forearms with elbows out for the correct approach to the harp and let 2-3 children have a go to play simple notes. I found out that if you ask for ANY questions…. you get just that, questions about ANYTHING !! Older children who were musically accomplished asked intelligent questions including what the strings are made of and since I was in the middle of rural farmland in Devon (yes, near Emma!!) I was able to gently explain about steaks, beefburgers and using the leftover beef gut, the stretching and winding process. When I made a point about harps coming in different sizes… & ‘the right size for you’, a fidgety young boy at the front, desperate to show me that he was ‘tall enough’, jumped up, stretching himself on his tiptoes against the harp until his toes nearly left the ground so eventually I had to ask him to sit down, all very funny/enjoyable…!! Once, when I asked them what you call someone who plays the harp they just started repeating my own name amonsgt themselves……..
you can clout me metaphorically if you want to but are you sure you haven’t selected a string for an octave below, it’s just the way you say it’s still so loose ? If it’s second B or A you’ll need string no 11 or 12 on a concert harp, so not 18/19 ;-)) Just trying to help as we can’t see what you are doing.
AND are you using a piece of 5th octave to tie your knot around ?
reusing an old string – yes it’s tricky so you have to hold the tip with pliers whilst you wind the tuning pin. I usually save old strings for a smaller harp, but it won’t want old dead ones. I understand the need now; that fresh strings will be like new clothes, but not looking forward to using up all my spares.
For road and air shipment, you’ll need a proper concert harp crate and your dust cover, not travel covers, and you should reduce the tension of all the strings before you pack it Advise the shipping company about temperature and humidity ranges- can it wait until the fall? Stick FRAGILE / NO FORK LIFT notices all over it. why not call L&H for proper advice. My box is a Lyon & Healy crate and with my Salvi harp I have to remove the front feet to close it. The crate is massive so too big for a station wagon, it’s on wheels when upright and has runners to slide horzontally into a goods van. I would fly it – road haulage from Chicago is too far, I’d say. (we flew a harp from UK to Salt lake City and back once)
There are two Marguerite pieces, republished by Salvi publications. A) Marguerite au Rouet op19 and B) Marguerite Doulereuse au Rouet (no2) op26 – so she obviously became much sadder when he wrote the 2nd piece !! £7.50 and £9.50 wrong side of the pond. Alison
If you are a guitarist I suspect you might have a tendency to pick at the strings without placing first, like the guy in this video, typical of many self taught players. Watch other harpists on youtube and how they properly articulate the fingers at the knuckles so that they follow thro’ and fold into the palm (NOT knuckles to ceiling), then try to see how they place fingers ahead of playing (like reverse orange peel, I always think); this is really important for anything beyond basic repertoire and I drill my pupils into this habit, no other instrument requires such thinking and placing ahead.
you wrote “pianos are furniture, for pete’s sake”, well, make no mistake, as I don’t want to you to be misinformed, a concert harp is definately a large piece of furniture, huge; heavy, unstable and fragile and you have to move them every time, twice, there and back, wrap and unwrap them – takes 3 trips to get harp and accessories into a venue, you need an MPV or station wagon, can read all about that too here on this forum site….. I think a pianist would get frustrated with a lever harp, and you will probably struggle with your feet on the pedals to begin with on a concert harp, but eventually you’ll take off , so consider taking introductory lessons and renting for 6 months.
Finally, I got my sneak preview on Friday and in my humble opinion would definitely recommend FP’s transcription of the harp part for newcomers to the work; it has ‘done the ironing’: reinstated notes that were confused by enharmonics, put figures together on the same stave, reset the dreaded Animez into naturals and sharps, and throughout the edition the layout & page turns remain the same in all except one place, so familiar to the eye.
Only downside is the small format, the entire set is reduced to A4 which seems to be standard nowadays. Can’t recall if Latin pedal makings were there, annoyingly.
Added to that, the banter which developed between myself and two others pouring over the small print was, well, hilarious really…. sharp, accented, critical, spot on timing, naturally.Now I have reached a point of better security and remarkably greater confidence, I can experiment to find out what the wrong pedalling sounds like, so that I instinctly know, in the places where it happens, how to correct the problem. It won’t eliminate train crashes ( and had one suddenly today practising) but it could get me out of trouble. However the feet do learn what to do, they are the last secure link in the learning process. Ears to feet wiring…!
This is becoming academic now but what’s just occured to me is perhaps Fabrice Pierre’s version was for the Chromatic harp, because I remember reading in Camac’s Harp Seasons about Francette Bartholomee’s concert there in Paris.
See bottom of page 3 in http://www.camac-harps.com/Harpseasons5.pdf
I will find out shortly; the suspense is not killing me like the pedalling and I do not need the distraction. A helpful harpist/composer here has explained that the quintet version by Fabrice Pierre will indeed be different from Debussy’s original score for string orchestra because of course there are places where string parts are divided… so now we have a choice, string orchestra or pure quintet
Apparently Debussy advises to blow your nose before retiring to bed to avoid snoring. (see that book “Remembering Debussy”.The focus of the discussion is about preparation & coping with the specific difficulties of the harp (those peculiar to the harp) when it’s tricky and pedalling mistakes become unrecoverable (everything relies on an extremely precise and coordinated sequence in hands and feet).
I can cover and recover when acting, speaking or playing a different instrument, but the harp is unforgiving and some pieces have nasty pitfalls so the whole piece breaks down. The harshest judge is one’s own ear, having worked so hard to know what each note sounds like, it’s often impossible to ignore or correct pedalling mistakes on the fly.
