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How can you tell if it’s worth fixing? You usually can’t. Even seasoned harp restorers will warn you that a zillion hidden problems can lurk in the pedal mechanism, especially if the harp is an antique. It needs someone with a professional experienced eye to look inside the pedal box underneath, and even then most of them will only chance a cautious estimate. You usually don’t know for sure until you begin working on it what you’re going to encounter.
Also woodworm can do a lot more damage than is immediately apparent. Those tiny little holes can be masking a whole rabbit warren of tunnels beneath the surface, which means the neck or affected part can be considerably weaker than it looks. I once saw an old harmonic curve in cross section and it was so porous it resembled a piece of French bread! But all that was visible from outside was one or two tiny holes.
If you’re looking at something in an antique shop for a knockdown price, NO ONE is likely to know the true state of it, or where it’s been. Take a qualified harp restorer with you, and even then don’t expect anyone to commit him/herself.
If the pedals are FULLY working then you may be in with a chance. But how likely is that??!!
Hire them out to beginners?
Donate them to schools or youth orchestras?
Take them apart and cannibalise the useful bits?
Lots of constructive things can be done with a working pedal harp, even if it doesn’t have wonderful tone.
It sounds as though the problems started AFTER the student was poached! “Reverting” to bad habits which were presumably being addressed by the abandoned teacher.
Re payment: The thread I was thinking of was something on the theme of charging for missed lessons, or how to handle that situation, but it expanded to include a lot of useful related input. It may have been a thread in the Yahoo harplist rather than here – I follow both, so am not really sure, but apologies for any confusion I’ve caused.
Re a standard charter or agreement: I think it’s a great idea, but tend to feel as Barbara does that it’s probably a daydream to expect everyone to follow it. Those who most NEED to be controlled would probably run a mile.
That’s really awful – can you tell us what sort of damage was done to this student so that he/she cannot play at all now? Not trying to be gossipy, just that it would be useful to keep on mental file as part of one’s professional knowledge. I’m assuming some sort of repetitive tendon damage or back strain? I can’t imagine that simply switching from Salzedo to Reni��/Grandjany (or vice versa) techniques would inflict that amount of harm, unless there are bad muscle/posture habits & tension to go along with it. Or was the injury psychological?
Poaching students is utterly reprehensible, but I don’t have any solution to it either. The problem doesn’t tend to crop up with me, not because I’m so wonderful but because no one else anywhere near my area is teaching harp. The only thing I can think of is to charge in advance by term or something similar (good discussion of this in a recent thread); and to point out to any student being lured away that if this new teacher is such a revered master, why is she/he having to scrounge for pupils at all – even without the dishonourable tactics? But I can’t come up with any suggestions except the normal common sense ones (explaining before they take on harp study that results require TIME to build, therefore not to expect that some new direction is going to work magic.)
Let us know if there’s any further followup to this sad story. It could be instructive.
Just saw this thread, and I share Carl’s and Mark’s feelings. The soundboard pulled up “5 times in 9 years”???? This is an abnormal occurrence for a concert harp of any brand, so there is obviously more to the story than Andrea is telling us. (Why?) NO modern-made soundboard just “pulls off” of its own accord unless it has been subjected to abuse. It GETS pulled off by some sort of damage or abnormal stress. What did this friend string the harp with – guy wires from the Titanic?
The manufacturers (who are well known for their helpfulness & backup support) were clearly never contacted, which is very strange. Was it because the friend was afraid they’d see what had been done to their harp to cause the problem?
For the record: my Venus Prodigy, one of their smaller instruments, has a huge sound and projection, as well as great depth of resonance. I sold my Lyon & Healy (itself a lovely harp which I liked very much), a choice I have never regretted.
It’s evil-minded to publicly make such allegations while leaving the company whose name is being slandered in ignorance. It just sounds like exaggerated, half-baked grapevine-gossip, irresponsibly and mindlessly repeated – while remaining quite unburdened by any hard facts.
Sorry about the question marks – they’re meant to be punctuation (thought I’d learned how to deal with the HTML but obviously not). That last Italian word is “pieta”, S?? is Si – etc etc etc. Apologies –
How does one avoid this problem?
It’s an aria from Gianni Schicchi, one of the one-act operas in Puccini’s Il Triticco, and here are two translations below, though neither of them really seems to fit the music too well. If you know anyone who speaks Italian, you might get them to do a literal line-by-line translation for you, and then put something together yourself that’s more poetic. What a great idea to sing while playing it! More info below (courtesy of Google):
O MIO BABBINO CARO
O mio babbino caro
mi piace �� bello, bello
vo’andare in Porta Rossa
a comperar l’nello!
S��, s�� ci voglio andare!
E se l’amas si indarno,
andrei sul Ponte Vecchio,
ma per butarmi in Arno!
Mi strugo e mi tormento!
O Dio vorei morir!
Babbo piet��, piet��!
Babbo piet��, piet��!Oh my beloved Papa!
He’s pleasing, he’s beautiful.
I want to go to Porta Rossa, to buy the ring.
Yes, yes I want to go.
And if I love in vain.
I’ll go to Ponte Vecchio to throw myself in the Arno.
I struggle and I’m tormented!
Oh God I want to die!
Daddy please please!
Daddy please please!Oh my dear daddy
I love him, he is so handsome
I want to go to Porta Rossa
to buy the ring!
Yes, yes, I mean it
And if my love were in vain
I would go to Ponte Vecchio
and throw myself in the Arno!
I fret and suffer torments!
Oh God, I would rather die!
Daddy, have pity, have pity!
Daddy, have pity, have pity!Gianni Schicchi is the third and final installment of Il Trittico, Giacomo Puccini’s trilogy of one-act operas. Though the trilogy itself is not often performed, Schicchi has remained a perennial favorite ��� well-loved for its lyrical concision and ensemble humor ��� and is often cited as a masterpiece of Italian comedy.
The story, which comes from an apparently true-to-life passage in Dante’s Inferno, was adapted for the stage by the librettist Giovecchino Forzano. A wealthy miser has died, and the greedy members of his family are horrified to find that he has written all of them out of his will. In a scheme to steal back their inheritance, they enlist the help of the morally ambiguous title character, who then succeeds in bilking them out of the money. A side plot involves the young romance between Schicchi’s daughter, Lauretta, and a member of the “grieving” (none of them cared a whit for the old man!) family, Rinuccio.
[Another summary] The Comedy Gianni Schicchi is set in Florence in the year 1299 in the house of Buoso Donati, recently deceased. His relatives have waited patiently by his death-bed, anxiously hoping for the reading of the wealthy Donati’s will. They are outraged to discover that they have been left nothing, and that the entire estate has been donated to charity. Rincuccio, nephew to the dead Donati, is in love with Schicchi’s daughter Lauretta, but he is forbidden by the family matriarch to marry her because she has no dowry. Gianni Schicchi, has a reputation around the city for his cleverness and cunning. Hoping that the family will come to approve of Schicchi and Lauretta, Rinuccio persuades his elders to allow Schicchi to come and try his hand at helping them find a way to negate Donati’s will. Schicchi arrives, but is offended by the family’s greed and snobbery. Just as he is about to go, Lauretta hoping for approval from Rinnucio’s clan, pleads with her father in this aria to stay and lend his help. Lauretta successfully convinces her father to help the Donati family. He devises a brilliant scheme, and with the proper legal officials summoned, Schicchi, disguised as an ailing Buoso Donati, proceeds to leave the entire estate to himself, much to the outrage of the family. He chases them out of what is now his house, and Lauretta and Rinuccio rejoice because now she has the dowry needed for the marriage.
