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To add to what Kathleen says, it’s import not to pick a comfortable speed always. You also need sometimes to pick a speed that is *slower* than you can comfortably play it. Then you can’t rely on muscle memory to scoot you over the parts you don’t really know.
I have the old Royal Harp Cart made by Roy McLaughlin of Phoenix, who invented the three wheel thing. It works very well with his cart (although I would carry for a full flight because of the bumping), but I’m not so sure about some of the more modern interpretations of his idea. But my cart is just swell for curbs and a few stairs, like getting up into the altar area of a church.
The dolly was originally invented for one of his wife’s students who lived in a second floor walk up. She hauled the harp up and down all the stairs on the dolly every time she took a harp out for a job.
>a GOOD harp in a pawn shop, for, oh, say $500
If you ever find a harp from a maker currently in business for that price, your first course of action should be to call the manufacturer and ask about the serial number. The odds are it is stolen.
A friend of mine had a harp of his that was stolen turn up almost ten years later in the back room of a pawn shop. Someone was going to buy it, but had the sense to call L&H first. Otherwise she would have lost her money and the harp.
Erards, lindemanns, etc are another story, but also much more difficult to get put into working order.
Well as far as carbon fiber goes, I’m a hidebound old traditionalist, but even I can see that the day is fast approaching when synthetic materials are going to be the only real option for musical instruments.
America’s current lust for fancy kitchen cabinets is rapidly depleting our last stands of old growth maple and other woods are also disappearing. Managed wood is not the same, as any woodworker can tell you. So I guess we should all salute the forward looking folks who are out there already investigating the alternatives.
>taken playing a pedal harp underwater?
Hmm this is the only one I can remember:
http://www.harpworld.com/ima.html
There were also pictures long ago of one of the Vito sisters–Elaine, I think–playing a fiberglass Linrud under water. The caption was something like “it has a lovely liquid tone.”
>Check the exclusions in your policy. You may need a magnifying glass.
Hmm, I’ve been through the Goodman policy pretty darned thoroughly several years ago and through the current AHS policy and neither has such an exclusion in it that I can find. Merz Huber had lots of exclusions, including leaving instrument in car unattended, which is why I never had insurance through them.
>Could any of this happen?
It probably wouldn’t hurt the nylon strings, but I wouldn’t risk it on gut or wire.
>My real love was film, and I sort of was in the right place at the right time to break into the biz.
Hmm, why do I think you’re probably being modest here? I suspect that the only time that just being in the right place at the right time worked was when LA was mostly orange groves and talkies hadn’t been invented yet. 🙂
Dorothy Ashby–wow. I love her recordings.
>maybe some of the coastal harpists have some experience with what goes bad from the salt air that might be amenable to replacement with carbon fiber or some other material –
Well, for more than 20 years I’ve never lived farther than a mile from the ocean and usually much closer (although I don’t take pedal harps to beach gigs when given a choice). And I have to say that I have never ever had a mechanical problem from the salt. Of course, most of my pedal harps have been old enough to have brass plates and discs, which helps.
Oddly the one problem I did have was during the years when I lived on high floors in Miami Beach and didn’t use the air conditioning much at all. The salty (Saharan and construction) dust that blew in was almost impossible to remove from the carving on gigging harps. If you take a harp to an outdoor gig in the summer in FL, it’s brutal enough out there that the finish goes a tad soft for a while, and the dust sinks in. I was living on the 16th floor on the west side of South Beach when all the renovations to transform the world’s retirement capital into SoBe were going on, and had huge windows which were almost always open. The side of my 23’s base that faced the east window got dust in the carving (despite frequent washing and polishing and scouring with cotton swabs) that even L&H said could only be removed by a refinish.
Gold can also be a problem–in coastal FL, a gold harp isn’t just a harp, it’s a lifestyle decision. But I currently live across the street from the beach on a very narrow island and every room in the house except the bathroom has sliding doors. I keep them open from October through the first part of June (just closed up for the summer) and with west and south facing windows (as opposed to getting the straight from Africa winds) have had no problems with my 11.
I won’t do beach weddings up here where I am now, but there are certainly other harpists who will come up here from South Florida and lug a pedal harp onto or over the dune crossover for gigs I wouldn’t take a prelude out for. Go figure. But their harps continue to function, for sure.
Christian, I’m curious about this:
>I also have noticed that the instrument insurance policies exclude intruments within a certain distance from the ocean.
What insurance company is that?
(BTW, David, you sure have done a lot of different things in your life!)
Another good resource is Alfred Music’s Essentials of Music Theory software. It’s really good interactive software, including ear training, and the best thing about it is that you can do as much drill as you want for any of the exercises. You can get it from Sylvia Woods or from any educational music store site (where it’s probably cheaper if you qualify).
Well said, Tacye.
Becky, I totally agree with Tacye that it’s at the very beginning when you most need regular lessons. Once you’ve got a basic technique it’s okay to go less frequently. But you can get into a lot of technical trouble in even a week at the beginning, especially coming in as someone who can play other instruments where you aren’t slowed down by notes and such and will want to push ahead.
