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Hi again! The Dusty FH36S and all of their other harps are indeed lever harps. You can play whatever style of music you like on them. Folk Harp and Celtic Harp are other names for harps without pedals. I even play classical music on mine, but it is limited by having to change the levers quickly with your hands, instead of changing pedals with your feet. Most classical music for harp is for the pedal harp, for this reason, but there are many arrangers for lever harp who simplify classical music so that it can be played on the lever harp.
I got to meet the nice folks from Dusty when they were in Asheville, NC in 2015. Do plan to visit them while you still are in Seattle!
Cheers,
BalfourHi Nicbo,
I was reading your older thread here, and wondered if you ever got a lever harp. I also have a Dusty FH36S and love it! Good luck in your new pedal harp adventure!
Best wishes,
BalfourAll good thoughts, Gretchen. I wondered if the harp tech who regulated this Salvi harp put all of that in writing. If so, I think the harp has already passed its “examination.” It was supposed to have been restrung then, too. Were all 46 strings replaced? What was the actual date of the restringing and regulation? I would definitely ask the seller to provide this documentation!
$10,000 would also go a long way toward buying a new harp. I would recommend a Camac Egerie! Camac harps come with a 10-year warranty.
Best wishes,
BalfourThanks, Biagio, for all that wonderful info! You do such a nice job on all those harps you build.
Nicbo, I will try to answer this in regard to the Camac Egerie harp finish choices. I prefer the Natural Maple, since it shows up the high quality of the wood that Camac uses in their harps. In my Atlantide, it is “curly maple,” or “tiger maple,” and is CHOICE wood, extremely beautiful. Maple is used where it shows, and beech is used for strength, like in the neck and body of the harp. Where the wood is laminated together, usually in beech, there is always a layer of choice maple on the outside, and many of the harp’s parts are actually solid maple, carved to perfection. The soundboard is spruce, there again, made of aged wood which has a profound and very resonant tone.
You may prefer the other finishes, and I particularly like the black–it is very elegant! My first Lyon and Healy pedal harp was black, and I cannot really tell whether any of these different finishes affects the tone very much. To each his own, I always say–much of it is a matter of personal taste.
I hope this helps. Others here will have their own personal preferences, of course–that is why there are so many choices in harps out there!
Cheers and best wishes,
Balfour (and Carol Lynn)Nicbo, you are very welcome. We live in western North Carolina, but I have relatives in Montana! Unfortunately, they do not play the harp. Maybe there will be some other harpists there, or in Idaho, that you could connect with. I really feel like you are very wise to go with a Camac harp, and the Egerie, with its already good reputation, should be a wonderful harp to own and enjoy playing. Sylvain Blassel, in his concert on the Egerie, certainly shows what can be done on that harp!
I am going to your new topic on these Forums now, about wood finishes.
Continued best wishes,
Balfour (and Carol Lynn)Hi again, Nicbo!
So good to see and read your post above! Thanks for letting us know that you are interested in the Egerie by Camac. I am one of Camac’s biggest fans, and own a gorgeous Atlantide Prestige. I “grew up” on Lyon and Healy, and owned several nice harps made by them, but I now am a “Camac artist,” ha, ha! At many of my former concerts, L&H harps have been provided for me, but now I take my Camac, or ask for a comparable Camac, if taking my own harp is too inconvenient.
I do love that I can regulate this harp all by myself, even though it is such a fine instrument that it requires very little adjustment. I have owned it since 2017, and it was professionally regulated by Liza Jensen of Camac. The manual of instructions is very good, and if you are good with your hands at this sort of thing, you will be able to regulate the harp yourself. It is very important to study the manual and know that Camacs regulate differently than other brands of harps. You can read about some of the Camac “differences” on the website of Pacific-Atlantic Harps, Carolyn Sykes.
On the main website of Camac, there are wonderful concerts by some very famous harpists, and you can find one by Sylvain Blassel done on an Egerie. It is gorgeous! I have not yet had the pleasure of playing a new Egerie, but I hear from some of my friends that they are very nice! You would have a full-size 47 string concert grand harp which would be capable of playing ALL of the harp repertoire.
Enjoy your harp journey, my new friend. The harp is the most beautiful instrument in existence!
Kind regards,
BalfourP. S. to what I wrote above:
Nicbo, I do hope you will indeed let us know more about the harp you intend to purchase, like Biagio said. In the USA, I can heartily recommend Pacific-Atlantic Harps in CA, The Virginia Harp Center, and the Atlanta Harp Center. The individual lever harp makers, like Dusty Strings, Thormahlen Harps, Musicmakers Harps, Rees Harps, Pratt Harps, and several others are also very nice folks to work with, and they are all very talented harp makers. I recommend three pedal harp makers, Camac, Lyon and Healy, and Salvi. You can get on-line to compare prices of new harps and used harps. Harp Column also advertises pre-owned harps in the Classified section, and occasionally, new harps.
I hope we have been of some help to you, and please continue to post here.
Cheers and best regards,
BalfourHi, Nicbo,
Yes, don’t feel bad. I think I understand better now, where you were coming from. If this were a used car, or maybe even a new one, it would pay to be very careful about the dealer’s price, and you could do a great deal of research to find out if it were a good price. With harps, it is different, as you will learn. There is no “Blue Book” of used harp prices! If dealing with purchasing a used harp, it is a very good idea to get a professional harp technician, like Carl Swanson, or just a knowledgeable person you trust, to look over the harp to make sure everything is okay. It is like getting a good car mechanic to do the same thing for a used car. If it is a new harp, it should come with a nice warranty. You will come to understand this better as you go along in your harp journey. All of us here had to learn the same things!
Again, best wishes in your harp purchase,
BalfourI will add my two cents here, ha, ha! Carl is correct, and I too am surprised that a harp dealer would offer you any discount. I expected to pay the full listed price for all of my harps over the years, and sometimes a nice dealer would include something like an accessory or shipping for free. Other times, when I was trading in a used harp for a new one, the dealer would give me a good, generous price on the trade-in. But remember, the harp dealers need to make enough money to stay in business, and it is not like some of the other instruments, guitars, violins, or pianos, where there is a larger market for those kinds of instruments. Also, harps are almost entirely hand-made, so that fact explains their greater expense, compared to factory-made instruments.
I wish you the best in your harp purchase,
BalfourI agree with Gretchen. And, you get what you pay for–I generally would rather pay more and get something better, which will last, than to go “cheap” and have it fail soon after purchasing it.
I did not look closely enough at the title page, ha, ha! It does say “harp or piano,” but I would hate to have to play this on the harp. Notice all the rapid octaves in the low bass and the staccato notes. That would work much better and have much more clarity on the piano. Once again, I am so glad to be retired and not have to face and prepare music like this, my friends!
Best wishes,
BalfourI checked the score on the IMSLP link, and it says “Piano,” not harp. It looks difficult enough for piano!
I haven’t looked yet, but does Stoney End even make a cross-strung harp? Perhaps they will know more to tell you about yours, and whether this is possible. I would assume that it is probably not feasible, and that you would just have to buy a cross-strung.
Harp Hugs,
Balfour (and Carol Lynn)Another nightmare I have had is not being able to find the venue for a harp gig! A few years ago, I was engaged to play for a wedding at “Inspiration Point,” a place I had done weddings before. When we got there, no one was around setting up. It was weird, so finally my sweet wife went “hunting” for the wedding party. She finally found them in time, at a local Inn which had its own “Inspiration Point!” Who would have known that there were two places called the same thing? That has caused the “nightmares,” but we have always found the gig place, in real life!
Hoping to have no more harp nightmares, hugs,
Balfour (and Carol Lynn)Update everyone! Carol Lynn and I got our sleigh ride in West Virginia, at Snowshoe Mountain Resort. The whole experience was so enjoyable that we recommend this location to any of you who would like a Winter adventure! It is located only 386 miles away from where we live in western North Carolina, so it was very convenient.
Winter harp hugs to you all,
Balfour and Carol Lynn
