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>This old harp has some cracks
I would not buy it in that case. You’ve already indicated that it’s not very suitable for where your student wants to go (jazz/blues), and it’s got to be pretty frail at best, even without the cracks. For what you’re looking at in repairs to this, you could get a decent second hand modern harp that would be much more sturdy, if not as cute.
Hardly anybody anywhere has harp repair available locally. Sending it away is almost always the necessary choice, whether you’re talking lever or pedal, unless you live in a very areas with local harp makers (not luthiers, who usually don’t understand harps at all if they don’t make them) who are willing to repair instruments they didn’t build).
Sorry, but this just doesn’t sound like a wise buy, even if it’s temptingly cheap.
You might be able to use robinson levers, but I don’t know that they’d be all that much of an improvement over the blades, really. Definitely not loveland or camac, probably not truitts either. Possibly those strange blade levers of cunningham’s might work. But I wouldn’t do any of the above, if it were mine.
I don’t think you can put regular levers on those. The strings lie too close to the neck. That must be one of their earliest harps, because for most of the time they used a lever where the string ran through a square eyelet. In either case I don’t believe it’s a simple thing to swap them out and definitely not worth the expense on that harp.
Robinson’s in California should have the info on the string gauges and probably strings for that harp. Walton’s was one of the first to get into commercial lever harp production back in the 1970s. Always had big ads in early editions of the folk harp journal when Robbie Robinson was publishing it. Very pretty little harps, but not strongly constructed, so be very careful about which strings you put on. I think Walton’s still sells harps, but now they carry Pakis instead of their own line.
If you’re near an academic library that would have a full set of FHJ or know someone who has a complete set, it’s interesting to see their ads in the older issues.
Also, Sarajane Williams has planetharp.com. I don’t know if they have a retail location, but they’re near Macungie.
Hi, Kay. Don’t try to rely just on muscle memory. That’s what causes problems because if anything throws you, you’re sunk, especially if you’re at that stage where it’s in your fingers but you’ve lost contact with where it is on the page.
You need to really learn the music in your mind, too. Solfege it and practice it in your head while you’re stuck in traffic. Create repair points throughout the piece. Start from the very last phrase and play to the end. Start from the phrase before that, and so on. Practice randomly stopping and then pointing to just where you are in the score. Tell yourself, “Now I’m going to start HERE,” and pick a random spot and do it. The more places you can pick up again, the better.
The more your brain knows it knows, the more confident your performance will be.
Hi, Kathy. Small photo on Camac’s lever page:
I see they also have a dark nickel finish now, too.
Hi, Sherry.
For others, just a warning about microfiber. It comes in many different ‘strengths’ from gentle enough to use on a camera lens to able to scratch the finish on your harp with one good swipe, so be careful when choosing. Not all microfiber is the same.
Well, I wasn’t thinking so much of buying one right then as that that would be the place to try a bunch of dustys to see what you like.
If you can wait and just do a rental for now, I would guess they might be coming to WHC this summer, too–you could email them and ask.
Ah, good, then. As for Sylvia’s books, yes, you can just move things up an octave if you need to do that, or leave out the lower notes. I haven’t seen Pamela’s DVD but I would imagine it’s the same for that.
The only real problem with starting out with fewer strings is that you have to learn to play with your hands close together much earlier than you would on a larger harp. It’s easier for most beginners if there’s a little space between their hands and they aren’t having to overlap, just at first, but you can certainly do it.
But do you want wire, Liesl? The wire strung harp has very different kind of sound than a nylon strung harp like a harpsicle, and it calls for a different technique, if that’s what you’re after. Are you aware of the differences? Just making sure.
Yes, what Tony said. I think most harpists are, or at least used to be, taught to favor being a wee bit sharp in the treble and flat in the bass, but that’s not the same as stretched tuning.
