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The density of fluorocarbon is about 20% higher than gut so it would be inadvisable to use the same diameter on a high tension harp. That’s probably why L&H will not warranty such a replacement: people don’t do the analysis and POP BANG. They also stretch a good deal more so it seems to take forever to hold pitch. I’m with you Candace – go in stages,
Biagio
There is a school of thought that believes, “No need to change strings until they break.” Perhaps your client belongs to this school? From what you have written I think I would just tune it which apparently is what the client wants. Sure, it would be nice of you to check discs, felts, etc. but from the sounds of it the client is not an actual player, so I would not go out on a limb and do something he or she did not request. If one or two break, sure, replace them, but leave a full overhaul to an (insured) tech.
Check the boards and try to estimate the stage of belly, but if they are only 12 years old in a climate controlled place it should be safe to restring completely. Given what you have written about the client though I would not bother.
Biagio
All strings wear out eventually. KF stretches even more than nylon so after twelve years at concert tension I would expect that they are due for a change. Probably overdue. I guess you will know when you have a chance to regulate them though.
Melinda, these are all very good choices and they all are very different one from another. If given a choice only between the Ravenna 34 and Crescendo I would go with the Ravenna; they are basically the same harp and the Ravenna costs less.
I do like the Voyageur though personally I would prefer a custom-designed string band to the standard sets that they offer. I have sent that design to Musicmakers and Jerry Brown told me he wants to try it out – so you might ask him or Matt about it. The Regency is also nice but it is also pretty heavy.
I have not played the Serenade, Melusine or Hermione personally but have friends who like them very much.
I don’t usually like throwing yet another model into the mix but in this case I will. I assume that Phil Boulding (Magical Strings) will be there and if so take a look at his Concert Oladion – either the 36 or the 30. Two fine players had those at a retreat last month and those harps just blew me away.
Good fortune and best wishes,
Biagio
That would be a huge subject and I’d guess very difficult unless you concentrate on only one or a few modern “schools,” which would be extremely limiting. On this forum most seem to be classical pedal harpists and you can research the instrument’s relatively short history and the great names: French school, Salzado style, Lawrence, Chalafoux, and so on. But even there you will run into issues – Salzado was enthusiastic about employing different styles and techniques; Catrin Finch who studied both French and Salzado is also adept on South American; Jocelyn Chang (also Salzado style and my first teacher) was a prominent proponent of the Douglas/Dilling single action harp and an enthusiast of the wire strung; Alfredo Ortiz is best known for South American styles but is an accomplished pedalist and his SA techniques have pervaded the pedal world…you get the picture.
My bias is showing but I would instead research different harp types and designs where there is much more literature and maybe almost as much unknown. Just for one example, many believe that the SA harps were based on the arpa doppia but Andy Lowry believes with some justification that they were originally Tyrolean, brought by German missionaries accompanying the Spanish conquistadors. Pick up the last Fol Hap Journal and you will see illustrations of over 100 distinctly different harp designs over several thousand years.
Quite a tale to tell.
Biagio
John, there are a number of papers on this though I don’t know of any that are complete – in the sense that they cover everything. That would be a life’s work and still not be entirely comprehensive (nor without controversy LOL). So one must dig through various sources.
Chris Waltham has submitted several papers to the ASA/CAA physics conference; only one of them is available online without a subscription and here it is:
http://acoustics.org/pressroom/httpdocs/149th/waltham.html
In another of his papers (which I seem to have lost) he discusses the string access holes and their effect on certain frequency ranges. A little searching would no doubt turn it up and I’ll see if I can find it.
Turning from the pedal to the “folk” instruments Rick Kemper (Sligo harps) has a detailed analysis of how he makes his harps and other data that are very useful:
Most of the available discussions focus on the strings since that is one of the two most critical elements to design (the other being the sound board). An outstanding discussion by Michael Billinge appears on the wire strung harp website:
http://www.wirestrungharp.com/materiality.html
On the subject of the board, discussion (mostly polite) have raged for years over the best wood to use for folk harps with increasingly frequent heretics advocating for aircraft grade laminate over the traditional spruce, while others suggest composite boards: Dusty Strings for example uses spruce and mahogany, Rees poplar, Heartland Harps (before they went to carbon fiber) used basswood.
It is perhaps interesting to note that at least one concert grade harp (the Oranmore by Phil Boulding) uses a/c laminate, and so do a few others. I doubt that the discussion will ever be entirely settled. I will not delve further except to say that a harp maker first determines his or her string band and then selects the board to match the desired tone and other characteristics. Side note: a/c laminate has the virtue of being less sensitive to temperature and humidity for instance, so that is a good choice for playing outdoors. Sitka spruce is the generally preferred choice for a concert pedal harp. And so it goes…..
While Michael’s discussion deals (obviously) with metal strungs the principles are applicable to any instrument. If you really want to dig deeply you can order a CD from Music Makers – The Science of Harp Making – which consists of articles that have appeared in The Folk Harp Journal:
https://www.harpkit.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Session_ID=99d46ffbb8c6ffd97239bdf5ad8634a1&Screen=SRCH
Again, many of the principles are applicable to all harps.
Hope that helps,
Biagio
BJ, you are not alone! Many others have encountered this issue. Once in great while we have been lucky enough to find a broken Clark but that is difficult on our own. I think you will have more luck asking well known harp restorers if they have any (rather than players). They may have some they will be willing to sell – the down side there of course is that they may want to keep them for the future. Some folks to ask who I know have repaired Clarks are David Kolacny, Rick Kemper, and Craig Pierpont – and perhaps Howard Bryan.
You may however find it necessary make them or have them made for you, as several of us have done. If you have the tools – at simplest a Dremel with metal cutting wheels and several files – you can cut them from brass and stainless steel stock available in most good hardware and hobby stores. Painfully slow but not too difficult.
You could of course simply replace them with modern levers, but many would consider that sacrilege. Although frankly it would make the harp better for performance (and I’d bet that Meredith Clark would have done that himself ha ha).
Best of fortune,
Biagio
Saul brings up another interesting (and fairly important) “secret”: viz. how wood is aged and for how long. The best harps are made from wood that has been air dried to about 12-15% moisture content and then very slowly kiln dried to 8%. Indeed, “kiln dried” in this case is a misnomer as it is typically done in a box with a 200W light bulb!
Wood that has been industrially kiln dried – which is what you will find in big box stores- is entirely unsuitable: the wood is stacked in a kiln at over 50 degrees C for only a week or so to reach 15% MC- there is little “life” left in it after that.
Of course the long careful air drying takes much longer – a year or more per 2cm of thickness. Another reason why high quality harps cost what they do.
Biagio
I’m happy if that was useful Rachael. I’m curious to know if your Grand Harpsicle has the new Rees levers, and if so how you like them?
Thanks!
Biagio
Sudden changes in temperature and humidity are not good for any harp – it is the shrinking or swelling of wood that has the major effect on breaking strings. That said, nylon is more elastic than gut so you may have less of a problem but you will still be tuning frequently. Obviously the higher the tension the more likely tuning and breakage issues will be, no matter where you are.
If you (that’s a general “you” folks) want a small harp to regularly play in challenging conditions such as the beach, camping, etc. choose a nylon strung with high density ply laminate sound board (or a carbon fiber body if you can afford it). Go for practical over pretty.
Biagio
Wil, some things in luthery are science and others more trial and error or if you like “art”. I’d have to say that one can apply engineering load bearing principles to how strong the neck and pillar must be but given the variability of wood even for one and the same tree that remains something of a guess. I suppose one could also experiment by subjectively comparing the tone with and without a heavy weight clamped to a deliberately light neck – indeed a friend in Italy is dong this at the moment. If the harp is any size at all the neck and pillar will be strengthened: hidden splines, a strip of metal underneath the neck, and a fore pillar, thicker or heavier wood and etc. Dusty Strings for example will not use walnut on their double 26 because they believe it is not strong enough.
I think the most useful thing that makers could do would be to fully disclose the string design and relevant parameters: tension, percent of tensile strength, tension-to-length ratio for the entire band. But they don’t so one must guess or just try one out.
One may assume that the established professionals have done all of this experimenting on prototypes before releasing the design. Recognize that if you want a light weight the tension will also be light, longer strings will provide more sustain and resonance all else being equal, a wider board more volume than a narrower one, and so on.
Someone really should write a book on this stuff but I don’t know of any written for the player! Since I don’t know of any comprehensive one the next best thing to suggest is to study what successful harp makers have done – why a Dusty FH36 in bubinga will sound different from one in walnut (heavier wood in that case) and how both will sound different from a Troubadour or Salvi Egan (maple pin block for the neck, longer higher tension gut strings).
Or read the Harpmaker group archives….another readily available source would be The Science of Harp Making, a CD of relevant extracts from the early Folk Harp Journal issues (available from Music Makers). You would need to wade through a lot of esoteria however. More readable but less comprehensive would be to read Rick Kemper’s discussion (Sligo harps).
Biagio
Tacye I was also surprised by some of them. I had always assumed that the gilt and carvings were solely decorative. Certainly, it is difficult for me to get my head around the idea that a metallic paint would have any acoustic value – and you cannot electro-plate wood so I assumed the crown carvings and pillar were painted. Indeed, I would have thought that if carving had any value it would be negative compared to a smooth surface.
Live and learn though…..
Biagio
Gold is one of the few metals that does not tarnish and yet is easy to elector-plate. That is why for example, Truitt levers are gold plated – very effective if one has metal contacts. I am interested to know what Saul has available in the way of quantifiable analysis wrt to the crown (and it’s carvings); I’ve never given much consideration to the acoustic qualities +/- other than the knowledge that the heavier the neck and pillar the better, acoustically. So his comment is a revelation, if he would share his sources.
Here’s another weight related “secret”: there is a trade off to be considered when designing a lever harp. In an ideal world strings will double in length as the frequencies are halved i.e. if the A 440 string is a fairly typical 36 cm in vibrating length and 0.80mm the next A down (220 Hz) would be ideally 72 cm and so on; some of the highest treble will be too short to play. This obviously gets ridiculous if the harp is to be of any size and still manageable; so harp makers will use heavier strings lower down than they will in the treble and upper mid. But that sets up another “issue”: if the neck and pillar are too light they will absorb some of the string vibrations rather than releasing those as sound. Pedal harps are already quite heavy so the point for them is somewhat moot. Next problem – how about that sound board? It will have to be tapered top to bottom and side to side – but how much?
For a seemingly simple instrument it can get pretty interesting!
Biagio
Well, no, you can’t clip the Snark to an access hole if you also want to see it, ha ha. Another disadvantage: the pixels can be hard to see if it is on the wrench, so best to get a large clip that attaches to the neck.
Most lower priced tuners assume equal temperament, some can be calibrated to alternative reference tones (A 442 vs 440 for instance). I like to keep my life simple and usually tune the middle octave first with the tuner, the rest by ear using “stretch tuning.” Much faster than constantly glancing at the tuner peg by peg. There was a long discussion on stretch tuning here a while ago.
Biagio
I don’t know about the Android app; however for the County Kerry (for instance) you can clip a pickup to one of the string access holes or one of the tuning pegs. If the tuner is sensitive enough any string will register sharp when first plucked. I like an analog Korg for lever regulation and a digital Snark for daily tuning – nether is very expensive. You can clip some Snarks right to the neck; with others to a peg or even your tuning wrench. Strobes are nice but expensive relative to the other two.
Biagio
