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It simply is not worth renting out an instrument for any period of time for less than the full month’s rental, and frankly I usually charge more. A lot of times these short term rentals also involve me doing all of the moving, and that charge can be more than the actual rental. Sometimes people think that if the cost of renting for a month is say $200, then a few days would be a fraction of that. But it just wouldn’t be worth it for the owner of the harp. The monthly rental fee on a long term rental is actually lower BECAUSE it is going to be rented for a number of months.
Make sure you know the vocal parts very well. Especially the solo vocal parts. And make sure the soloists are near you in the performance. Also, be prepared to play the Introit(I think that’s what it’s called). You never know when the conductor is going to ask for it. Also, and this is maybe the most important one, Have pedal changes marked at the end of each carol which will set you up for the next carol. I can’t tell you how many times the conductor has wanted to go, with no break, from one carol to the next. I’ve had to tell them each time that I need a couple of seconds to set the pedals and turn the page. In those cases, the conductor watches me at the end of a carol, with his hands up and ready to go, until I give him the signal that I’m ready. I’m always ready in less than 5 seconds. Lastly, be very flexible on tempos. Practice each carol at a variety of tempos and train yourself to look up and away from the harp and music enough so that you can watch the conductor at critical moments.
I have to say I agree. Just scanning the forums is confusing. I don’t find it nearly as user friendly as the old format.
I’m not a lawyer, but I think in any incident where a minor damages someone’s property, the law says that the parents are responsible. How would this play out? I’m guessing that your insurance company would pay for the damages and then they would go after the parents. But of course the best solution is to prevent something like this from happening in the first place. So placing the harp somewhere where people(and children) simply can’t get to the instrument is probably the best solution.
Extreme dryness for several months at a time(New England winters) does the most damage to anything made of wood. As soon as the furnace goes on in the fall, the relative humidity indoors can drop to 5%. The damage will show up at the end of the winter. High humidity during the summer won’t do as much damage as a long spell of dryness in the winter. So as soon as the furnace is turned on, turn on the humidifier as well, and keep it running until the furnace is turned off in the spring.
Temperature fluctuations, within reason, are much less important to the wellbeing of a harp than long term fluctuations in relative humidity. In practical terms, this means that keeping the relative humidity between 40% and 60% year round, regardless of the temperature, is the most important thing you can do. Even if you move your harp all the time for gigs, if you bring it back to a 40% to 60% environment between jobs, that will be enough to keep damage from happening. By contrast, if you don’t humidify at all during the dry winter months, or not enough, by the end of the winter the wood will have shrunk and problems can then start to happen. Glue joints can open up, the baseboard(the board the column is sitting on) can slip down, cracks can appear in the soundboard, the finish can craze, and on gilded harps the gesso can start to loosen or crack. There are two things you can do to keep your harp healthy. Keep a humidifier on during the dry months, and keep the temperature in the harp room as low as you can stand it, because that will raise the relative humidity.
A piano technician friend of mine used to go up to Mt. Desert Island in Maine every spring to tune the pianos in the Rockefeller summer homes before they arrived. The homes were unheated all winter. Bill said that the pianos barely had to be touched and that he never found any damage due to the cold temperatures. So cold by itself, unless the temperature drops to the 20’s or lower, won’t damage objects made of wood.
Sarah-I’m glad I’m not alone. Even on local NPR I hear confusing information. Ther’es a Rockport Massachusetts and a Rockport Maine, and they both have music festivals in the summer. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard announcements for a concert in Rockport, and I don’t know which one they are referring to.
Jean-Michel Damas is very knowledgable about French Erard serial numbers. Jakez Francois may be able to help you too. There is a French harp technician named Francis Darrigrand who has his own hand copied list of serial numbers and he can probably tell you to the day when your harp came out of the factory. Sylvan Blassel may be able to help you as well, or to put you in touch with M. Darrigrand. Hope that helps.
You’ve all made the assumption that she is in the United States. I contacted her privately and she’s in Indonesia! I put up a post on the new HC site about the fact that when people email me, they never NEVER tell me where they are.
“How much will it cost to ship my harp to you?” Where are you??
“Would you consider buying my harp?” Where are you and the harp?
“Can you regulate my harp?” Where are you?
These are the kind of questions I get all the time, and the response I have to send back to them. It baffles me that no one ever thinks to tell me where they are. With the internet, they could be in a Boston suburb or Japan, and I have no way of knowing if they don’t tell me. UGH!!
Sylvia- working without a contract is not a good idea. Aside from the issue of getting your money, a contract spells out what you have agreed to do, how much time you have agreed to play, the hours you have agreed to start and stop, etc. In other words, all of the details of the job. Sooner or later you’re going to have the client from hell who says that you were supposed to do this that or the other thing and you have nothing written down.
Don’t get into the habit of improvising like this. Once you put a guitar string on the harp you’ll leave it there and do the same thing again. This is why harpists keep an extra set of strings on hand. If you call a place like Vanderbilt, you’ll have the replacement string in 2 days.
I still want to know the source of this. It’s obvious that the writer knows a lot about the harp world. Also, the English is perfect. So it must be someone who is either American or English.
If they are anything like progressive bifocal eyeglasses I would hate them. I tried the progressive eyeglasses last year when I needed new glasses. I went back to the optical shop 2 hours after getting them and insisted they give me old fashioned bifocals, with a line between the two prescriptions. With the progressive eyeglasses, you can only look straight forward and basically have to move your head around to get the different distances in focus. So they severely restrict your eye movement. If the progressive contacts operate the same way, I would think that would be awful for playing the harp.
