Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Gretchen,
Funny you should mention that. I just found out that Carl Fischer DOES offer all of my stuff in a pdf format as a download onto an IPAD. If you go to this web site-https://www.carlfischer.com/newzik- you should be able to find it there.
Carl
Jerusha,
I’m sure many people own some or most of the pieces that I included in this edition. But Each of these pieces has been edited to show the player how it is actually played. So I’ve removed the heavy burden of having to figure out all of that. I think when you start working on these pieces in this edition you’ll be surprised at how easy they actually are.
I’m glad you had a good experience with both the Caravan and the Pacifica. When I was car shopping, I asked my mechanic about the Pacifica and he told me not to go near it. He felt they were having a lot of problems, so I didn’t really look at them. When I bought the car I have now, a 2018 high end Caravan, I didn’t really shop around all that much. I tried 2 Caravans on one Saturday, both the high end model, only because that was all that was available locally at that time, and I bought the second one. I’ve had it almost 2 years and I still really love it. I bought it at 16,000 miles and it is now around 38,000 miles. I haven’t had a single repair yet. It’s really comfortable to drive, and I’ve gotten to really like the GPS. It took a while to learn how to use it, meaning, if I’m headed to a place say 100 miles away, I start by looking at mapquest or googlemaps to figure out how I want to get to the general area, AND THEN turn it on. If I turn it on as I leave my house, it will take me on the most hairbrained route you could imagine. But it’s been a great car, and I can get 4 harps in it!
Balfour- I’ve heard a chromatic harp in person several times. Because of the high tension, it has a metal “fin” like a boat keel behind the soundboard. For this reason, the chromatic harp has a rather “tubby” sound, without a clear, full attack when the string is released. Chromatic harps sound different from all 20th century harps, but they sound really different from an Erard, which has the most beautiful full sound when the string is released.
Debussy initially had no issue with the chromatic harp when he wrote the Danses. He had met with Gustave Lyon, the president of Pleyel, who showed him what the chromatic harp could do. The result was the most chromatic music Debussy ever wrote for harp. But over the years he grew to detest the chromatic harp, because he heard its shortcommings.
I heard Sylvain play something on Chromatic harp(not Girl with the flaxen hair) 3 years ago at a concert he participated in at Gargilesse. It was gorgeous. He is one of the most musical harpists I have ever heard. And the technique necessary to play chromatic harp is so different from pedal harp(it has to be much shallower articulation) that I’m amazed he was able to play it. On the same program he also played a double or triple strung harp- I can’t remember which-and also pedal harp!
They’re not called rivets. They’re called bass wire dots. They’re made of nylon, and if they get loose, the wire string can rotate the dot around so the string is digging into the center strip(the strip of wood that all of the strings exit the soundboard from). This can be fixed, but there should be dots on all of the wire string holes in the center strip.
That crack, in and of itself, does not appear to be a big deal. However, I would recommend to anyone looking to buy any kind of used harp, that they have it checked out by a technician first. And for someone in your position, who is a rank beginner, I would focus my attention on finding a teacher first, before you buy a harp. The teacher should be able to advise you on any number of things: Buying versus renting, makes and models of harps and what could be advantages/disadvantages of each, etc. Your teacher is going to be your best adviser for everything related to the harp.
Alison- Here’s an update. The lawyer for Carl Fischer told me this morning that the license we bought to publish the Tournier edition is worldwide, and good in all countries. So the person I dealt with was misinformed. It can easily be sold in the UK.
Here’s where the holdup is. All European music stores have to buy their Carl Fischer inventory through a music wholesaler(in Europe) and the wholesaler doesn’t yet have the stock in. The Carl Fischer lawyer contacted Presto Music and dealt with someone other than the person I dealt with. That person told him that as soon as the wholesaler had it in, it would be immediately available in his store. The Carl Fischer lawyer told me he was going to contact the European wholesaler to make sure they had all of my publications.
There is a big music store in Holland called Broekmans & Van Poppel. If you go to their web site, (hit the English button on the home page!) and then type in my name, all of my publications come up. The postage from Holland shouldn’t be too bad.
Alison- I sent emails about this last night to the lawyer for Carl Fischer, the President of Carl Fischer, and the person in charge of marketing and sales. I’m hoping they can give me an answer sometime today. I can’t imagine that the licensing fee that I paid allowed the music to be sold only in the U.S. In the mean time, a big music store in Holland, Broekmans & Van Poppel, are listing the Tournier on their web site. So if you can’t buy it in England, you can get it from a Dutch store. You can of course order it from my web site, but the postage will be very high. I’m sure it would be cheaper from Holland.
Alison,
I paid a licensing fee for the right to publish the Tournier edition. So it doesn’t matter whether it is in the public domaine or not. It can be legally sold in the UK.
Alison-Thank you for mentioning Presto Classical in the UK. I didn’t know about them. I just sent them an email letting them know about the Tournier edition. If you can think of any other stores that sell harp music, both in the UK and on the continent, please let me know. I’d like to be able to reach as many harpists as possible to let them know about these editions.
Philippa- Can you combine an order with several other people? That would bring the shipping way down for each book. I don’t think that Carl Fischer is interested in doing downloads. Please understand, they own the copyright, they make all the decisions on the publication.
Thank you all for your kind comments.
Alison- If you go to my web site, then click on the “store”, you can click on a “free sample” tab that allows you to down load the first two lines of every piece in the edition. So you can see what’s there, see how you like them, and see what the level of difficulty of each piece is.
Phillipa-It would be up to the people at Carl Fischer to decide whether or not to do digital copies, and for the moment they don’t. I don’t know where you live, but if it is within the U.S. the shipping charge is so cheap! With media mail, shipping one copy of the Tournier anywhere in the 50 states is $2.85!!! And today I shipped a package to someone who had ordered 4 items, and the shipping charge was $3.30!!!! If you live outside of the U.S. then the shipping cost goes up substantially. But if you order several things at once, like 3 or 4 items, then the cost per item really drops down.
Carl Fischer always decides the price of my editions, not me. I was really amazed that they could do 67 pages of music for $33.00. That’s $3.30 per piece in the edition! Where can you buy any music for $3.30??
I’ve rarely worked on non-pedal harps for major repairs. I just never had the time with so many pedal harps to repair. But I’m training a young apprentice to do what I did for a living, and someone just gave him an old L & H troubadour with the board split open along the center strip(where the strings exit the soundboard) from bottom to top. So he took the “soundboard” off, and low and behold, it was plywood. The plywood consisted of a center core with the grain running from the bottom to the top of the harp(instead of side to side as it does on all soundboards), and had a thin veneer running side to side under the center core, and over it. It’s no wonder it split open. The plywood looks like maple to me. It’s the same thickness at the top end as at the bottom. It had a spruce veneer on it, so you could not tell it was plywood. My apprentice (who is an incredible woodworker by the way, and loves working on harps!) is going to put a real spruce soundboard on it.
Michael- That looks to me like plywood, as I suspected. So my guess is that the crack you are seeing on the top side is the beginning of the “soundboard” staring to crack straight through. My advice would be to just keep playing it for as long as it is playable, since there is really nothing you can do to stop it once it has started. Once it fails completely, then either have a “real” soundboard installed, or try to sell it in as-is condition to someone who can repair it.
It’s possible that the soundboard on this harp is actually made of plywood, not a standard spruce board. It would still be veneered with spruce, to make it look like a spruce soundboard. If that is the case, then the principal layer of wood runs top to bottom, not side to side as it would with a real soundboard. If this is the case, then this could be the beginning of the soundboard ripping open. A technician might be able to tell you what is going on.
