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Let me give you just two examples of idiotic lever harp design that I have seen.
1) Whether the column butts up to the underside of the neck, or the neck butts into the side of the column, there needs to be a gigantic mortise and tenon joining the two. If the column butts up to the underside of the neck for example, the column needs to have a huge tenon (a long section of wood, like a tongue) which will be glued into a mortise (a huge receiving hole) in the underside of the neck. With this, the neck is held securely in place and will not twist. I was brought a lever harp made by a well known maker where the neck and the column were joined by 4 dowels!!! 4 dowels!! Are you kidding? The neck was twisting over and we could see the 4 dowels. Repairing that would have required disassembling the instrument, making two mortises, one in the neck and one in the column, and then making a huge spline that would join them together. It wasn’t worth making the repair, because the cost of that would have exceeded the value of the instrument.
2) Many of these lever harps do not have a kneeblock. On a pedal harp, that’s the big chunk of wood at the upper end of the neck right next to the harpist’s head. On a lever harp, that kneeblock is the principal structure that is holding the column and neck upright, and is therefore under enormous stress. Many of these lever harps don’t have any kneeblock! More often than not, the ones that do just glue the block on and shape it. The result is that the enormous pressure on the kneeblock causes it to split away from the neck itself. These builders don’t seem to understand that, in addition to the kneeblock, there needs to be 2 or 3 very long screws that go, from the back of the neck, completely through the neck itself and most of the way through the kneeblock, down near the bottom of the kneeblock. That gives critical reinforcement to the kneeblock and keeps it from splitting.
What amazes me is that these instruments last as long as they do, often 7, 8, or 9 years before serious problems show up. The harps, new, are pretty, well finished, and sound nice. But no one can see the structural issues that are going to be a huge problem down the road. By contrast, I have seen many L & H Troubadours that are 50 or 60 years old and they’re still in great shape!
My work over almost 50 years has been repairing pedal harps. But in recent years I’ve been asked (many times) to do repairs on lever harps. What I have observed is that very few of the lever harp makers understand the stress on a harp, and the result is sometimes the most harebrained way of designing and assembling them. The good ones, consistently, are the Lyon & Healy lever harps, because they understand how a harp has to be made. I haven’t had any experience with Camac harps, but I’d bet they are also well made. Many other makes and models, particularly the ones that were made by one person and carries that person’s name, look and sound great when brand new. But they will last 6 to 9 years and then start having structural problems which are really not repairable. So my advice is to stick with a lever harp made by a pedal harp maker, because they understand the stress involved and will engineer the instrument correctly.
You said that you and your daughter are interested in playing classical music on the harp. I’ve been publishing harp editions, mostly for pedal harp, with Carl Fischer Music for the last 15 years. My newest edition, which will be released in May, is a collection of 10 classical pieces for lever harp. It will include music by Handel, Ravel, Bochsa, and Tournier. Hopefully I’ve attached the cover here!
Musical instruments should never be put on a homeowner’ policy. Homeowners agents will tell you it’s “fully covered,” but fully covered to them means fire and theft. Full coverage on a musical instrument policy is fire, theft, and ACCIDENTAL DAMAGE, which is the main one any musical instrument owner needs. Also, if it is covered on a homeowner’s policy, and they agree to cover an accident, very likely they will tell you you have to get three estimates and they will pick the one to repair the instrument. So, it’s very important to insure a musical instrument through an agency that specializes in musical instrument insurance. I rent a lot of pedal harps, and have for over 40 years. Insurance companies insist that the renter insure the instrument. “You may own the instrument”they tell me, “but the renter is in possession of it. So that person has to insure it.”
Good Lord! Why is the organ tuned so high? You’re going to have to tune to that pitch at least a week in advance to give the harp time to stabilize at that pitch. If you do it only a day or two in advance, it’s going to keep going down.
I found a note frequency chart on the internet, and if A is tuned to 440, then A sharp is 466. You’d almost be better off transposing everything up a half step and then tuning slightly down to match the organ.
There are lots of method books out there, teaching different methods of playing the harp. But you can’t learn technique with a method book alone. You need a teacher who can explain the method and guide you. I’ve never taught video lessons, but that seems to be quite popular. Given that you are having such a hard time finding a teacher, I would suggest you try video lessons with someone. You should start by lining up a teacher first to teach you, using some sort of video hookup, and then let the teacher suggest the book you should use.
I like base covers and I like column covers. I don’t like the heavy transport covers. I don’t feel they offer any additional protection to the overall instrument, and they are difficult to handle and to store.
My company makes old fashioned canvas covers with ties. Not zippers, not velcro. Ties that are long enough to really tie the cover shut. You can find the information on my web site.
Carl Swanson
You need to read the article I wrote for the Harp Column 20 years ago called A Prescription for Success. You can find it on the Articles page of my web site, http://www.swansonharp.com.
Charles- Do you know if anyone has done any tests to see what the tension is on these carbon strings, as compared to gut and nylon? I would love to see a table where nylon, gut, and carbon strings have been tested to see exactly what the tension is for each one on any particular string. Nylons have the lightest tension, and gut has more tension. But how much more? And how “light” for nylons? And do carbon strings have significantly more tension than gut strings? If they do, then this could cause structural problems over the long term for the neck and soundboard.
I just found out that the Deuxième Fantaisie de Concert has been chosen as one of the required pieces for the next Anne Adams Competition in 2026. For anyone reading this who is planning on entering that competition, the Carl Fischer edition is the only one available. No other company publishes it.
Thanks Balfour,
I’m so glad this piece got rediscovered and is available to the harp community. It’s funny for me to watch Catherine Play this piece. She occasionally uses a fingering here or there that I wouldn’t use. But I learned when she and I were working on editing this piece that she is left handed! She finds certain right hand fingerings to be very awkward (for her) because of this. I’m just dumbfounded that someone who is left handed could become such a great harpist, because the harp is such a right-handed instrument. Another really great left handed harpist is Emily Mitchell. She won Israel in 1979 and had a great career after that.
Hi Jerusha- Thank you so much. Slight correction though. This is not a transcription, but rather an original piece for harp that Tournier wrote in 1900 when he was 21 years old. The piece is 18 pages and about 8 minutes long. Because of the speed, it is high intermediate level technically. It’s a wonderful concert piece.
I have no idea why it was never published. I worked from old photocopies of the manuscript that were found in Germany. The owner of the photocopies couldn’t remember where she got them (many years ago). She very generously sent me photos of all the pages. When I was preparing this for publication we didn’t know where the original manuscript was. We know now! She did some detective work and found it!
Here is a link to a video of Catherine Michel playing the piece.
