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It’s a real tragedy that the Wurlitzer serial numbers have been lost. Many years ago I spoke to a woman who was the last secretary to the President of the North Tonawanda New York Wurlitzer factory, which is where the harps were made. She told me that when the factory was ordered to close down in the late 1930’s, the President of the company ordered several workers to go up to the 5th floor records room and take everything to the dump! She told me that she knew for a fact that some of those workers took some of those records home with them. But she didn’t know exactly what they had taken. Maybe a hunt of Facebook or some other site, looking for descendants of anyone who worked at that factory would turn up something. There is a North Tonawanda Historical Society that I contacted many years ago. But at that time they didn’t have anything. Maybe they do now.
You shouldn’t look at a semi-grand harp as “second best.” They’re great for playing gigs, are easy to move, are more comfortable than a concert grand for a lot of repertoire, especially 19th century repertoire which have technical work right up to the last string on top. As far as getting used to spacing: Get used to it!! Us older harpists have spent a lifetime playing different harps with different spacing. If you have trouble adjusting, then you need to play a variety of harps on a regular basis. You should be able to adjust instantly to whatever harp you are playing.
To my knowledge, the Wurlitzer serial number list is lost. It’s a real tragedy. Because we can’t find the serial number list, we don’t know when any particular serial number was made, we don’t know what the Wurlitzer total harp production was. We don’t know what the year to year production was. We don’t know how many of each model they made. I tried years ago to find the Wurlitzer serial number list, without success.
Hi Elizabeth,
Thank you for your kind words. Your book is going out this afternoon. I hope you try some of the other pieces in that edition too. I think you’ll really enjoy them.
Hi Balfour,
It’s a long complicated story. I’m in the process right now of writing an article that I hope will be published in the American Harp Journal. That will explain all of this. In addition to these pieces, I found about 10 more by Tournier that were never published and are not on any inventory of his music. Emmanuel Ceysson just recorded a whole Tournier CD that will be released next year. A lot of the pieces that are on that CD are ones that I found, including 5 songs that Tournier set. I’m really looking forward to that.
The Children’s corner is a long complicated story too. It was going to be published last year, but there was a complication that I can’t go into here now.
Unfortunately David Williams is no longer working on harps. If you want to ship it to Boston, I can repair it for you.
Thank you Jerusha. Such kind words! These pieces are something that I stumbled on while trying to find some other pieces by Tournier that I did know existed. These will be published in 3 volumes, so this is the first volume right now, with 8 pieces in it. The next volume, with 9 pieces in it, I’m hoping will be released next March, and the last one, with 10 pieces in it, I’m hoping for a year from now.
They are all charming short pieces, 3 to 4 pages long, and in the late romantic style that Tournier learned at the Paris Conservatory in the 1890’s.
There’s a piece by Daniel Pinkham, in 7 movements, called Company at the Cresche. It’s for two part treble voices(Soprano and alto) with harp, organ, and handbells. It’s a lovely small piece, I think less than 10 minutes. Maybe you could get some adult women to sing with them, and add a little electronic keyboard. I think the bell part can be played on glockenspiel.
I just got a call from someone else who has a broken rod on her Venus harp. She had contacted a number of technicians and was told there was nothing they could do. I told her she would need to send me the broken rod with the coupler so that I could probably make her a replacement rod. I need to know the diameter of the rod, the length, the threadings at both ends, and I need to be able to extract the broken piece of rod from the coupler so that I can re-use it. Any technician should be able to do that for you.
Lily,
If you can use a digital download of the book, go to the Carl Fischer web site and type in my name, Carl Swanson, in the search bar. That will bring up all of my publications. There, you can by a printed copy OR a digital download of any of my editions.
Hi Lily,
Your description what you are looking for is EXACTLY what Bochsa Revisited is. Bochsa’s original 40 Easy Etudes is a wonderful set of simple etudes with a different pattern in each one. By the time you have learned that etude, you will have committed to muscle-memory that pattern. Once you have learned 20 of these etudes, you will have a very solid technique at that level. It will enable you to learn pieces easily and quickly, because you will have already learned the technique.
The problem with many sets of etudes is that 1) they often use the same patterns over and over again in the set, and 2) they are very right hand oriented, with little or nothing for the left hand. That is why I published Bochsa Revisited. It has all of the first 20 Bochsa etudes, printed in an easy-to-read format, with pedals, fingerings, etc. But then there is a left hand version of the same etude. So both hands get the same workout.
Hi Elizabeth,
I used dance or theatrical shoes. They have a very soft leather sole and can be fit very snug to the contours of the feet, without a pointy toe that sticks out way too far. I noticed when I saw Alexander Boldachev in concert a while back that he uses the same kind of shoe. When I say dance shoes, I mean shoes that ballet dancers use for modern dance.
Harry,
If the harp is still available, it is about a 2 hour drive from me. I could inspect it and make sure that it is in good structural condition. If you decided to buy it, I can pick up the harp, crate it, and arrange shipping to Australia. I can’t deal with Australian authorities for import duties. You’d have to do that.
Harry,
There may be a used Aoyama harp, in excellent condition, available in the United States. The owner was willing to sell it very inexpensively. If you are interested, and the harp is still available, it would be an excellent buy. I believe it is a Monarch in a natural finish (not gilded). If you are interested, email me privately and I’ll see if it is still available. Carl Swanson: swansonharp@gmail.com
When you are playing, all of the strings, particularly the lower strings and particularly those in the overtone sequence for the note you are playing, will be vibrating to one degree or another. On a lever or pedal harp, there will always be a slight “shadowing” of the note that the lever or disc is closing on, whether you are playing or not. So all you can do is camouflage the sound by moving the lever or pedal at exactly the same moment that another string is being played. We do the same thing when we muffle or place a finger on a vibrating string. We do those things at exactly the moment that we play another note. Playing the harp involves a lot of camouflage and slight-of-hand!
