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Briggsie- The harp cover page has been up since before I left for Europe. There are several pictures and you can also order right there. Let me know if you have any problem getting to that page or if something doesn’t come up correctly. Go to http://www.swansonharp.com to find it.
Mike- You don’t have to leave any slack with nylon strings. In fact, you will probably at some point soon have to unwind the string, take up all the slack, and then rewind it again. Nylon stretches and stretches and stretches, and you have to be careful you don’t get so many windings on the tuning pin that the windings push up against the neck. The only strings that you have to leave slack for are the wires. My repair and maintenance book, A GUIDE FOR HARPISTS, available from Vanderbilt Music Company, has all of that information in there.
Gut is higher tension than nylon. Quite a bit higher. You should string the instrument in nylon or gut within an octave and not mix and match gut and nylon within the range that you choose to use one or the other. It will feel and sound odd, but will not hurt the instrument. It could possibly cause minor regulation problems or buzzes to change from gut to nylon or visa versa after it’s been regulated.
You should have a good technician look at it and tell you exactly what condition it is in. The technician can also tell you the best way to take care of it if you are going to keep it. Lastly, the technician can give you a rough estimate of its resale value, and also what the current cost of putting it into good working order would be. Wurlitzer’s were good instruments and it should be kept in a way that it doesn’t deteriorate.
HI Alison- Thanks for the kind words. I’m doing just great. I live in a typical half timbered Norman farm house about 3/4 mile from the village of Cormeilles. The nearest big town in Liceaux, about 14 miles away. I have to come down to the village to get internet access, and I do that 3 or 4 times a day. I have to stay in touch.
There are no houses near my house. It’s all farmland. I drove to Pont l’Eveque(yes, the cheese Pont l’Eveque!) last week, which is about 12 miles away. the road was paved, but barely wider than the car. I’m not kidding. In 12 miles of driving I didn’t encounter a single car! There were a few houses along the road that looked like they belonged to weekenders. Many houses have thatched roofs, with Irises planted in the peak of the roof. It must look wonderful when they are in bloom.
I started a BIG writing project that I’ve been thinking about for years. I’m writing down, in fine detail, all of the procedures that I use to rebuild harps. Someday, after I’m completely retired(if that ever happens) or after I’m dead and gone, this will see the light of day. It will be my last will and testament to the harp world. I don’t want what i know to get lost. There are some real surprises in there. But everyone will have to wait a long time to read it. Anyway, it has been consuming most of my day every day. I did read a book on the French revolution. I’ve had a few visitors in the past week, and the owner of the house is showing up tomorrow for a week. I’m really looking forward to that.
I visited an incredible Chateau in the area last week. It’s called Champ de Bataille and it’s spectacular. I haven’t been able to find any good photos of it on the internet though.
I’ll keep you all posted on how things progress. Bye for now.
30 years ago there were harpists playing in restaurants and hotels all over the place. These were virtually full time jobs. Some hotels in New York City had harp 7 nights a week, with the job held by one harpist who used subs a lot so she didn’t kill herself at the job. That lasted maybe into the mid-1990’s and then disappeared fast. Maybe it’s time for harpists to start pushing for those kinds of jobs again. The thing is, if it is a regular gig, it doesn’t pay at the same rate as a one-off background music job, like a wedding. it pays much less per hour. But sometimes this is offset by the fact that you get a lot of exposure which leads to teaching, wedding gigs, and heaven knows what else.
There was a woman in the Boston area for years who frankly couldn’t play for &*%^$(you get the idea). But she knew how to promote herself and schmooze with people, and she played a couple nights a week in two different supermarkets in high end neighborhoods! and she got lots of wedding jobs from that. Ask the hotel to give you a try, and maybe give them a one shot bargain rate just to let them know what you add to the dining experience.
I would suggest that both the American Harp Society and the World Harp Congress, at their conferences, have a booth where people with music they don’t want can donate it to those organizations and that they in turn make it available to anyone who wants it, either free or pay by the pound, the money going to the organization. This could also be done at the regional or chapter level.
Carol- What you and everybody here have described exactly is narcissistic behavior. This is known in psychiatry as a BPD, a borderline personality disorder. There is no treatment, no medication, and they are able to get through life holding a job and more or less functioning. But they leave a path of destruction everywhere they go: broken relationships, hurt feelings,etc. And in their eyes it is always someone else’s fault.
Read a book about narcisssism and see how many of the symptoms apply to him. The thing about narcissists is that, when they want something, like a marriage, they are very manipulative, and can behave, for a time, like the perfect spouse. But once they have what they want, they revert to their real self and become impossible to live with. Their good behavior is an act. If in fact he is really a narcissist, the most he can do is put the brakes, for a short time, on his behavior. He can’t or won’t change it because in his eyes, he didn’t do anything wrong. You can’t do anything to make the marriage better(in spite of what he tells you) because you are not the one who is the source of the problem. As long as you stay in this marriage, you will become the peacekeeper. Your whole life will revolve about keeping him calm and not setting him off(which is impossible to do). You will totally loose yourself in the process.
I’m probably going to include with each cover an instruction sheet on how to take care of them. John Escosa gave me the great idea, many years ago, to always cut the wire strings flush with the tuning pin, with no string end sticking out. It works fine on wire strings and saves the cover from snagging on that sharp end. Another way is to take a pair of needle nose pliers and bend the wire string end, which you leave maybe 1 inch or less long, around so the end is facing in towards the neck, again, so there is nothing to snag on the cover.
Well the first part of this adventure is over. I’m here in Belgium. Arrived this morning. My friend Dirk and I just spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out why my computer couldn’t go on his wireless network. After a call to my computer guru in the United States, we solved the problem by hooking my computer to his wireless box with a cable. By some miracle, there was a cable already hooked up to his wireless box and the other end of the cable fit my computer! I’m telling you all this just in case someone else runs into this problem bringing an American computer to Europe or a European computer to the U.S. Just forget the wireless connection and use a cable! More later.
Thank you all. I leave in less than 24 hours and I have to say I’m sitting here thinking “What have I done?” I feel like I’m moving away. But I’m sure it will be a great trip no matter how it turns out. I just called some friends in England(former client) and they are going to come to Normandy to visit for a few days, and I’m really looking forward to that. The last week of the trip is going to be in Rome. I’ve never been there and I’m really looking forward to that.
Mike- What an interesting idea. When I think back on my school years, the scariest time was when I got my Master’s degree and was finished with my schooling. Completely! I had spent the previous 12 years studying the harp and going for degrees, preparing for auditions, final exams, etc. But when I got my master’s, it was over and I had to face the rest of my life without the academic structure of the previous 12 years. It was very scary.
it took me a long time to realize that different people take to practicing differently. For me, practicing was always my refuge from a very difficult childhood. When I was practicing, I was in my own world where I could control everything. I have always loved practicing, much more than performing. When I’m in a practicing mood, I can practice for hours on end and never get tired of it. When I get up from the harp after 4 or 5 hours of practicing, I’m already thinking about what I need to do next to advance the piece.
