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Aria, I think I can guess the make so that’s all right – G to G would be typical. The problem, as the maker could tell you, is that especially for the low G the percent of tensile strength (%TS) is very low unless the string is wound (as Charles suggested).
You may just have to use a lighter touch, as you mentioned, or even your fingernails down there. You might have your expert look at raising the range one step (A-A) while keeping tension constant instead. New string set but it might mitigate the problem.
Unless you change the composition, just increasing diameter will not change %TS – that’s just how the physics works out. I can give you the physical specs for these that I use:
Density lb/in**3 Tensile strength lb/in**2
Nylon 0.0385 44,000
Nylgut 0.0469 72,000
Fluorocarbon 0.0562 60,000
Good fortune!
Biagio
Hard to say without knowing the model and range, but here are a few thing to consider:
-Nylgut has the same density as regular gut but a higher tensile strength (both are denser and higher TS than nylon).
-Often when the lower strings on a small harp sound poorly it is because they are too loose for the frequency – higher density will help with that.
-Fluorocarbon is higher than density than gut or Nylgut so that could work too. Between the two in tensile strength.
-Whether you like the tone of gut nylon or whatever – that’s rather personal taste all else being equal. So give them a try and see if you like them.
-My guess is that if you are only replacing the last few pairs or two you are not in any danger of breaking the harp but of course have your string design guy take a look.
-Finally, the soundboard might just be too thick. If we knew the model and range that would help.
Biagio
“The pain is in the resistance.” Your topic is apropos – I always encounter this issue after concentrating for several weeks on a new design, or playing the wire harp instead of the lever ones. For me at least the issue is not burn-out but frustration. Where did it all go? Darn, I quit!
Here are a few more suggestions that work for me:
Keep your harp tuned and in place to play – just pulling it out of a corner enforces resistance.
From time to time just sit down and improvise even if only for a few minutes.
Go paperless and keep the harmony simple. Play very slowly, concentrating on producing a beautiful sound rather than a more complex one.
When I start to get frustrated – stop and come back after a while.
As my hands and mind recall the beauty of this instrument the incentive to improve grows again.
Consider signing up for the free “Virtual Harp Summit” at <span id=”yui_3_15_0_1_1488220257261_1636″>http://virtualharpsummit.com/</span>
For a modest fee you may access the previous summit and return later to the current one. Past presenters included the organizer Dr. Diana Rowan, Sunita Stanislow, Harper Tasche, Deborah Henson-Conant, and many others.
With respect to scores and exercises, allow me to suggest Salzedo for warming up, Friou for exercises, and “Tunes to Go” by Shelhart – 400 tunes in lead sheet format. On that latter note (ha ha) just playing around with chord progressions keeps it fun. Well, more fun than trying to get sight reading up to speed.
Some CDs and DVDs for listening – I’m clearly biased but I like “Holy Wood” by Caswell, “Keepsake” by Tasche, and “Celtic Harpestry” a mix of artists from the gathering at Lismore Castle.
Biagio
Sorry I’m not understanding, but curved in which dimension?
Curved across the body serves to have the belly “built in” and by all accounts should produce more projection and resonance than if it were straight.
Curved laterally, toward the player, allows you to have a straighter neck and avoids some of the builder annoyance in the transition range from monofilament to wound strings. The board will also be in static tension before stringing, which should have some effect on better tone, but I cannot say how much.
Ergonomically, it might be easier to play as well.
Biagio
You can do a great deal with only 3 octaves (44 total strings), personally though I’d prefer 3 1/2 or more and with a stand. As with a single, for a beginner it will be easier to learn technique if you are not trying to balance a harp on your lap:-) You and Allison mentioned Laurie Riley – she plays a Rees, I think it’s the Mariposa (68 total). Some of her students the Dusty double FH26, another of our friends the Stoney End Lorraine double (58 total).
Almost all of the additional weight is due to the tuning pegs – about 4 more lbs. if they are through and not zither ones. Some make the sound board thicker and keep the same tension as their single version which might be another pound in weight. Others, like Dusty Strings, make the tension somewhat lighter instead.
Balance should not be an issue.
Biagio
You have put your finger on the issues Wil. In addition, rosewood is rather heavy and relatively brittle compared to other common hardwoods used for harps – sugar maple, cherry, walnut and some “exotics” such as bubinga. Some may be making them entirely in one shop now, but others continue to contract out – as you suggest, not very good quality control. Some have improved levers now as well, but the older ones were worse than useless and that seems to be what Manon has.
It is too bad but a “made in Pakistan” harp still is viewed askance – they have an uphill task to change that perception within the community.
Biaigo
The Delta is made by Salvi; here’s the rather splashy introduction. Purchasing info is at the bottom:
Biagio
Dear Manon,
If it helps, you are not the first nor will be the last with this sort of unfortunate experience. But the thing is probably not totally useless in the long run, after you have had some experience playing a well made instrument. Some people in your situation have simply removed the levers, changed to better strings, and used these things for camping, travel etc. where they would not want to take a more expensive harp. Check with a professional string maker about upgrading those – in the US Robinson’ Harp Shop or Markwood Strings, in Europe Salopian Strings.
Most harp makers (including me) will regretfully decline working on these things because we know that they will never be worth what we would charge. A complete overhaul (new sound board, tuning pegs, decent levers) will cost more than a brand new instrument and still not be all that great. So, Wil and Jacque, have suggested you should consider acquiring a better harp on which to learn technique and I would agree with Wil about looking at rentals for now. Alternatively, if you are handy and can afford it, consider a kit harp from Musicmakers: the Jolie or Voyageur for example.
Also, do not neglect the used harp market if you do consider buying a better harp – players change their harps all the time. I’d also encourage you to join the International Society of Folk Harpers and Craftsmen and the Yahoo! group Virtual Harp Circle. The latter was organized specifically for beginners.
For a beginner, I strongly feel that the range (and of course, quality) are much more important than how many levers are on that first harp. Most beginner instruction assumes C tuning (no levers required) and additional levers can be added later if you wish. I’d also suggest that 26 strings is the minimum and preferably a “floor harp” – learning to play is difficult with a lap harp. Even more important: if at all possible find a teacher, even if only via on-line lessons. He or she can guide you in your harp selection as well, and many have student rentals available.
Best wishes,
Biagio
Balfour, I recently decided to switch those (formerly) SFB strings to BFN, after really listening to Phil Boulding’s Oranmore (same strings as your Dusty). The transition sounds much smoother and the bronze core (heavier than steel) give the harp a lot more “oomph” with shorter decay. Downsides are that they cost more and are more prone to breaking if you’re not careful when tuning.
Some people prefer SFB or SFC especially if overall tension is pretty high: BFN gets really “fat” if you want to keep the tension transition as smooth as possible. When people listen to sound samples it is worth the trouble to think about what strings are used when there may be several options. Dusty, and most other “folk” harp makers will be happy to consider alternative designs if one wishes.
One example: I wrote an article for the FHJ about alternatives to the Musicmakers Voyageur (which we decided was too esoteric to publish). The central point though was just that – to encourage people to consider alternatives rather than just buying a whole new harp:-)
Happy harping,
Biagio
Silver has the highest density of the metals commonly used for harp strings (not counting gold on a few ancient Gaelic reproductions). That is why silver may sometimes be used with fiber core strings for older harps and silver-fiber wound steel core on some modern ones. Usually though the metal wrap will be copper or bronze. Sometimes those are tinned so may look like silver. Howard Bryan says he uses fiber core silver wrap as the best transition from gut if that will work with the other strings for tension and feel.
Biagio
The fiber bedding over a steel core will most likely be rayon; it has approximately the same density and tensile strength as gut. The metal wrap varies depending on the harp – usually copper or a copper alloy as Tacye suggests. Some older lighter tension harps such as the Grecian are fiber core (no steel) wound with silver in the bass.
Biagio
OK, let’s try to look at this intuitively and ignore little details like pi and the gravity constant; the spreadsheet I gave you does all the computation so you just need to consider the Length for any note (frequency), the string diameter and composition (more or less equivalent to the Mass). Here is the Taylor formula again, what is it saying?
Tension=Mass(2xLengthxFrequency)squared
Pretty simple if you are a geek like me, maybe not for normal people but intuitively it says that for any string (roll of drums):
1) If you increase the Mass, either with a larger diameter or a heavier material (gut, fluorocarbon, steel, whatever) or both at once you increase Tension
2) Holding Mass constant, increasing Length increases Tension
3) Holding Mass and Length constant, tuning to a higher note (Frequency) increase Tension
or go in the other direction and decrease Mass, Length and/or Frequency to lower Tension. We will assume that for any given string the Frequency (note) is fixed (4th octave C for example). We can start out flying blind or we can use a string design from someone else (yours truly) and tweak it to our desire.
From here you are on your own, tweak-wise. Want lower tension? Make the vibrating length shorter. If that did not do the trick, use a smaller diameter. Or use a lighter material (replace gut with nylon). And so on. In general we want things to end up like this:
String diameter increases from treble to bass
Tension increases from treble to bass
Tension divided by length decrease from treble to bass
Percent of tensile strength (breaking point) between about 70% and 30%
There are no big jumps in tension
Those are all parameters built into the spreadsheet and you can check them visually against the charts that are also built in.
When we plot the result we want to see a nice smooth curve to the pins (or pegs if we leave bridge pins off). That’s where it all gets annoying: we might come up with a perfectly beautiful design in terms of those parameters, and then see that the result has pins (or pegs) out of line with each other. We can ignore that or we can make some adjustments in length or string diameter (usually pretty small ones) and see how that looks, tension-wise.
It is best probably to start with an existing design and just play around until you get a feel for what is going on. Ignore all that stuff about pi and the gravity constant that Rick discusses – the spreadsheet does those computations for you.
Biagio
:Harumph” said the professor LOL How can I put this and still avoid eye-rolling?
Well. I can’t so once more dear friends into the breech (as King Harry said just before getting his head chopped off):
Here’s the deal…a vibrating string sounds best when it is at about 1.5 steps below it’s ultimate tensile strength (breaking point). Which translates to around 90% of tensile strength. Different compositions have different properties. Wonder why gut strung concert harps and brass strung clasrseachs break a lot of string in the treble?
Now you know.
Those strings are short and thin. To sound good they must be pretty close to ultimate tensile strength. We can get away with bigger and badder strings lower down but when doing a design we want to keep how the strings FEEL fairly consistent.
I trust that I make myself obscure.
B
We must always be aware of the things we love, right? I have repaired harps where it was evident that the owners just cranked them up when it suited, and some when they were tuned often but the owner took then out for a gig fin reezing cold.
Here’s a tip: take care of your harp no more nor less as you do yourself, tune it daily, and it will probably be played by your grand kids.
Hi Elletaria,
The reason harps have that curve is because the frequencies of the occidental diatonic scale is an exponential one, there is not getting around that fact. Think about it this way: going from low A to high A for instance it goes from 55 Hz to 110 to 220 to 440 to 880 to 1760. What that implies in terms of string acoustics and physics is that for a given diameter the length would double in length going in the opposite direction. That makes a pretty tall harp! We get around that by making lower range strings heavier and therefor shorter, but except on a very small and lightly tensioned harp the the neck will not be straight and look pretty. You are stuck with a harmonic curve. You could use a straight board of say 8″ wide but the pegs are still going to curve up from treble to bass. Or if the pegs are in a straight line, the lower you go the lighter the tension of them will be – which is exactly the opposite of what we want in a harp that sounds good.
That leads to fretting against the neck. The strings must be close enough to the neck to be able to do it and it is not easy even if they are. James is a friend and I respect him, but when he suggests no bridge pins he is talking from a wire harp perspective. It is rather pointless to leave them off a nylon strung harp unless you intend to play it like a wire strung.
With that out of the way LOL let’s address spacing. A half inch (1.27 cm) is a very typical spacing in the mid to treble which is the range you are looking at in this endeavor. The issue is: how do you lay it out given your string lengths? You can buy a work sheet from Musicmakers or make your own. Here’s how:
Get a large sheet of drafting paper, say 1 meter by .60 meters, preferably graph paper laid out in 1/4″ or millimeters. If you cannot find graph paper – draw 19 or more parallel lines on the long direction. The draw a sloping line at the angle you have selected. That represents the sound board; measure up from that for each of your string lengths. Voila! You have now located where to place the bridge pins (or tuning pegs if you cant to leave bridge pins off).
Let’s assume bridge pins for the sake of completeness though. Harp strings seem to be happiest when they slope from 15-25 degrees back from the pin to the peg at a distance of 1″-1.5″ (2.5-3.8cm). Draw those lines and now you know where to put the pegs.
To answer our question about the range: the lower you go the longer the string or the heavier. That F you mention would have to be fairly long or else wound to sound any good. The G above it would be 0.060 diameter Tynex which is as big as it gets. You could go to Nylgut or Savarez Allliance for that F however but to repeat:
Do the string design first.
I tried to post the design for a little 23 but it looks all goofy, so email me offlist an I’ll send it to you, along with instructions for using the analysis program it is in. You really do need to understand string theory to make a harp; read Rick Kemper’s String Theory discussion and go from there:http://www.sligoharps.com/string.html
These harps were about 28″ high and 15″ wide at a 35 degree string angle but remember what I said about the angle? If you changed that to 40 degrees it would be shorter and wider. I suggest that you get the grid or drafting paper and play around with this to get a “feel” for the process when I’ve sent you the analysis.
The Rosemarkie is a very light tension medieval harp and if that’s what you want, go for it. Although the neck is straight you will notice that the strings themselves still follow a geometric curve, and in fact splay in the treble. I think you would be setting yourselves up to a lot of work trying something like that. And you will still need to do a analysis if you want decent tone. I’d really suggest doing something simpler first go.
Cheers,
Biagio
