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Okay, friends, most of you know that I name my harps and other musical instruments! My pedal harp is a L&H 85GP–what a poor name for a beautiful harp!!! So, I named her “Eglantine Rose,” the Sweetbriar species rose, since this harp is so sweet in tone. As soon as I discovered my Dusty Strings FH 36 S in figured cherry wood, I named her “Cherie.” (This also means “dear one,” and she indeed is a dear one!) Now I no longer drink cherry Cokes, I drink Cherie cokes, ha, ha!
Best wishes to all of you,
BalfourAmy, I also am truly delighted that all this has worked out, as Biagio said. I hope your daughter really enjoys learning to play this beautiful instrument, the harp. It is my very favorite of the three instruments I play professionally (the others are the piano and organ) and I feel that it is the most beautiful instrument ever invented! I started on the piano, and always played it like a harp, and got to the harp as quickly as I could and I have never regretted it.
Best wishes, and we hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday season!
Balfour (and Carol Lynn)
I agree, Andelin! Sylvia, what did you notice? You can let us know privately if you do not want to post it here. Wishing all of you the best Christmas Eve–I am playing my new Dusty FH36 S (in cherry) for two church services today, so wish me luck! This harp is so beautiful, I know the congregations will love her (I named her “Cherie,” wouldn’t you know it?)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
BalfourYes, Alyson, I do! But my sweet wife says that she would let them have me for a week and then they would bring me back in a hurry, ha, ha!
Sylvia, I loved the Star Wars on harp video that you posted! I once had to play that for a wedding and “winged” it, ha, ha! This brought back many happy memories, so thanks!
Well, I probably should not post my opinion on the order of the pedals, but here goes, for what it is worth!
Please take a good look at the strings of your harp. It is obvious that from the red string, C, and up two notes, there is a group of three notes, C-D-E. Now look at the black (or blue) string, F. Here is another group, this time four notes, F-G-A-B. Why are the pedals not in this obvious order?????? C-D-E for the left foot, then F-G-A-B for the right foot just makes sense, like the levers on a lever harp. Even the Dilling harp uses this sensible order for the “ditals” or combination levers which affect all the notes of one pitch, like on a pedal harp!
Imagine this pedal order, since the harp is a diatonic instrument which is based on the Key of C. The order of the sharps ascending would be F-C-G-D-A-E-B. Right foot on F, left foot on C, right foot on G, left foot on D, and so on, back and forth, ending with the right foot on B. The order of the flats is the exact reverse of this! Wouldn’t this be convenient and make so much more sense than the order we have to work with? Also, to modulate a step, as has been suggested, this alternation of the feet would be very nice! Diminished chords could be made up instantly just by looking at the strings and pedals, without having to transpose into the pedal order that is standard now.
I have played the pedal and lever harps for years professionally. But if I could have had this nice C order of the pedals, life would have been so much sweeter! I also play by ear, in addition to having a Masters degree in music, think in C, before thinking in all the other keys, and it just makes sense, like on the lever harp, to have the C order for the pedals. I even believe I am beginning to prefer the lever harp over the pedal harp now that I have my new FH 36S from Dusty Strings!
Wishing all of you a wonderful holiday season,
BalfourUpdate to this “old” thread, ha, ha! At the Southeastern Harp Weekend in Asheville, NC, Dusty Strings did bring some gut-strung harps. They were very nice, as many have said, but the nylon-strung ones are still my favorite, even though I love gut on my pedal harp. To each his/her own, I always say!
Best wishes to everyone,
BalfourAmy, please update us on this situation. I hope that things are going well for your daughter, if she is still with that teacher, or if you have made a change.
Best wishes,
BalfourWe bought a 2015 Subaru Forester to replace our 2002 Honda CRV. The new CRV’s do not have as much linear room in them for the harp, but the new Foresters do. The rear seats fold down flat, which makes loading the pedal harp a breeze. Of course, my pedal harp is an 85 GP, about 70 inches tall, so it is not as large as a full-size concert grand. I believe yours is a L&H 15, so I think it would fit well in the Forester. Be sure to take the transport cover of the harp with you when you shop for a new car, to make sure the harp will fit without having to lug the actual heavy harp around!
Gas mileage in the Forester has been averaging about 35 miles to the gallon, so we are very pleased with it!
Best wishes,
BalfourThanks, Biagio! I LOVE my MusicMakers Large Gothic 36 string harp. Jerry Brown, the maker, also copied the Gothic shape and made this into a gorgeous modern harp, with medium-firm string tension. Of my three harps, my audiences respond to the sound of the Gothic the BEST! “Bella” is one nice-sounding Gothic harp. If she had pedals, she would be PERFECT, ha, ha!
Best wishes to you all,
BalfourHa, ha, Gretchen! My C flats are doing great–I am getting my head around them, you know! Thanks everyone, for all your great posts. I will have to try out the ab workout on “The Pink Panther,” ha, ha!
You all have a great day,
BalfourI assume that all of you are talking about playing a full-sized 47-string concert grand? That makes me so glad that I play the 44-string medium-sized 85GP Lyon & Healy. I can sit comfortably on a regular 18″ high harp bench with my feet flat on the floor until I pedal, and never lose my balance even when using both feet at the same time! I am only 5′ 6″ tall, so this harp is the perfect size for me. I feel exactly what you all feel when I have to play a huge concert grand, like I am going to lose control, fall, overbalance, etc. I think this modern craze for a large harp is very difficult for some people, and if you look at the history of harp building, most harps were medium-size in 1900. And, they were considered to be full concert grands!
Thanks for all the suggestions for dealing with this problem. I may need them the next time I have to play a big 47-string harp!
Best wishes,
BalfourThanks, everyone, for all your posts. This seems like a very sensitive matter, and I am hoping for the best outcome. Amy, please let us know how the teacher and your daughter are doing.
Best regards,
BalfourOf course, I own a Ravenna 34 and love her! Mine is nylon strung, but I would love to play a gut-strung one to compare. I love the gut strings on my Lyon & Healy pedal harp, and I have one octave of lever gut strings on my Large Gothic 36 Music Makers harp. This harp stands five feet, six inches tall! (Starting from the bottom, the first five strings are wire, CDEFG, then the next eight are lever gut, ABCDEFGA. The rest of the strings are nylon.) To me, this makes a real difference in the warmth and beautiful tone of this harp. Biagio could tell you what you can and cannot substitute on your particular harp. I found by experimenting that I could not go any higher with gut because they broke very soon on the Large Gothic. I suppose they are too long and have to be pulled up too tight to be at pitch. And yes, they are expensive, especially when the experimental ones broke!
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
BalfourThe “Little Fountain” on pedal harp is a dream piece! At several points in the piece, I put the pedals in the F6 positions, D-C-B#-E#-F-G-A, and utilize the entire range of the harp for the glissandos. I sometimes do what is instructed in the music by damping the strings near the end of the piece, then do the full glissandos on the F6 pedal setting to end on–it brings the audience to their feet!
By the way, Gretchen, I cannot play this piece on my lever harps tuned in the Key of C–it must have B flats! It would be worth tuning the B flats just for “The Little Fountain” if I have occasion to play it in concert on the lever harp.
My pedal harp concert went well this evening! There were enough people there that late-comers had to be seated up in the choir area, so I had people all around me! The ones behind me did not know how much pedal work goes into a concert like that, and were amazed. The audience loved the Tournier pieces, and most of them had not ever heard of him. Thanks, Carl, for steering us back to the beautiful music of this neglected composer!
Best wishes to all of you,
Balfour
