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Sarah- The price, particularly on a harp at auction, is going to be what someone is willing to pay. People often ask me to evaluate an instrument, either because they are the owner and want to sell it, or they are the potential buyer and are thinking of purchasing it. In both cases the people ask me what the instrument is worth. I never give a fixed, single price. Ever. I always say, “It’s worth between X and X.” Between say $10,000 and $12,000 or $13,000. I always explain that, in the end what the instrument is worth is what someone else is willing to pay. I tell a potential seller, “You can ask any price you want. But I can’t promise you’ll find a willing buyer at the price you ask.” I also explain that, the higher the asking price, the smaller the pool of potential buyers. So trying to put a price on any harp on ebay, particularly when I can’t examine it first hand, is almost impossible.
Why are you trying to avoid a minivan? I’m on my 4th Dodge Grand Caravan and I love it. I often have to move multiple harps, and I can get 4 concert grand instruments in this car. I get 23 or 24 miles per gallon, and they are virtually maintenance free if you take care of them and don’t drive like a teenage boy.
I’ve never bought a new car in my life. I usually buy a used one with 30 or 40 thousand miles on it, drive it to around 140,000+ miles and get rid of it. I’ve never had a single repair on any of them. I get rid of them when they are still working well because I don’t want to start putting big bucks into repairs at that point. The most recent one that I bought had 16,000 miles on it. I’m at 53,000 now and again, no repairs at all. I find them to be very cost effective, comfortable, dependable, and easy to load and unload. The newer ones have seat configurations that allow you to keep a single back seat up and fold the others down into the floor. I would strongly suggest you look into the Dodge Caravan. BTW, I always get the grand caravan because it is about a foot longer and I need that extra length to nest multiple instruments in the car. If you are only moving one harp, you can probably look into the shorter version. But I would check out both models anyway.
Patricia- What wonderful ideas. First, the idea of the auction to raise necessary funds for the school. I had never heard of that. But secondly, the idea of a package of lessons to be auctioned off. It may not only provide you or any teacher who does this with students who otherwise would not have started lessons at all, but it puts your name and profession right up in front of the people most likely to be interested in lessons. I would think that a teacher who did this a couple of years in a row would increase their name recognition in the community enormously. Great Work!
I love all of the responses here. It’s more important then ever to interact with the audience and to talk about the pieces in particular, no matter what type of concert or what type of audience you are dealing with. As an audience member, i also go to the pre-concert lectures whenever they’re available.
I’ve given about 14 or 15 solo recitals(of classical music) over the past 12 years or so. Whether the audience was a harp chapter or a general audience with no knowledge of classical music, I always talked between pieces, mostly about the piece coming up. I try to follow a couple of simple rules.
1) Keep it short. No more than 2 or 3 minutes maximum, and more often than not, about a minute long.
2) Keep it light. Try to be funny if you can(don’t force humor. If you are not naturally funny, then skip this one).
3) Whatever you say should be relevant to the next piece coming up. Don’t get off on tangents and turn the whole thing into a shaggy dog story.
4) Practice what you plan to say so it sounds natural but is also clear and concise. I often write out the whole spiel that I want to say, putting the information into the best order for the audience. Then I read it over and over again aloud so that I’m very familiar with it. I don’t memorize it, but it’s close to memorized.
5) Tell the audience something that they can listen for. If you’re playing Au Matin, tell them that the melody is often at the bottom, in the left hand. Same with the Prokofief Prelude. I usually play 3 movements from Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, and I tell them that each movement tells a little story, and show them how Ravel does that. There’s a Renie transcription from a Bach Suite in which the left hand plays a melody above the harmony and a counter melody below. I tell them that Bach does a little slight of hand in this movement because he makes you think that there are two melodies going on with chords in the middle, when in fact, from the first note of the piece to the last, you are never hearing more than one note at a time. That’s enough to make them sit up and actively listen.
The greatest compliments I get are when people come up to me at the reception and tell me the specific piece or pieces they liked. Without the talk, the whole thing would have been a pleasant wash of harp sounds and not a single note would have stood out.
So yes, talking is extremely important.
It doesn’t matter which one you use. The important thing to remember is to use a string as close to the missing one as possible. I’ve seen harps where the harpist was missing a 1st octave A for example, and they replaced it with 2nd octave A, thinking it was better to stick to an ‘A’ string.
The tension will be marginally lighter if you use the next string up as a replacement, and marginally higher if you use the next string down. But I doubt in either case that you can feel it.
I don’t know why, but this thread reminds me of a story Eleanor Fell told me years ago. Some woman called Vanderbilt and Eleanor picked up the phone. The woman said to Eleanor “I’ve been studying harp now for a few months and I think it’s time for me to get real harp strings for my harp.” Totally perplexed, Eleanor asked her what she currently had her harp strung with. “I’ve just got training strings on there now.” Doubly perplexed, Eleanor asked her what ‘training strings” were. “Well,” the woman explained, “The C’s are red and the F’s are blue.” “That’s the way they’re supposed to be,” Eleanor explained. The woman was surprised. Eleanor swears this really happened!
Julietta- You could try something else. Go to one or two of the harp circle meetings and play. When the people in the group see that you can play circles around them-and they will probably bombard you with questions during the meeting-tell them(with a big smile on your face) that you teach harp and would love to have any of them as a student.
Julietta- Go to her harp circle with a handout that lays out what you offer and the advantages of having a teacher. Don’t ask her for permission to do this. Just walk in and give them out and announce whatever you want. She may complain to you or she may steam in silence. If she complains, just tell her that she opened the door to this by showing up unannounced at your event without asking permission and did the same thing.
I just looked at the site again and the seller ended the auction. I suspect that someone approached them privately and bought it that way.
I don’t. I was wondering myself, given the location, who it might be that is selling it. The problem with photographs is that I can’t get the technical information I need to make an accurate assessment of it’s condition. Who knows for example how worn the action is, or even if it moves at all? And I can’t see inside the pedestal to see if the baseboard is cracked, or if the baseframe is having any problems. There’s a crack in the center strip, which they show in a photograph. But how deep is it? Is there anything else wrong with the soundboard?
If I get a chance this weekend I’ll email Marie-Claire and see what she has to say about that indication.
Isn’t Ebay an auction site? Do they have a ‘buy=it-now’ price on the harps? What are they asking? I wouldn’t offer a cent on any instrument I could not examine in person. Photographs simply do not convey the technical information I need to set a price.
I’ve only bought one instrument on ebay, and I bid on it only because I was able to examine it first hand. I’ve never bought a harp at a live auction, but have occasionally gone to an auction where one or more harps were being sold just to see what would happen.
What I’ve noticed in general is that harps in very poor condition tend to go for way more than they are realistically worth. I’m guessing that people who know nothing about harps get caught up in the gold and carving and are unaware of anything else. But what’s interesting is that on those rare occasions that a playable harp in really good condition goes up(I’m talking mainly here about a Lyon & Healy harp) they tend to go for significantly less than their market value. The price that most harps go for at auction, regardless of their condition, is $10,000 to $13,000. That includes the 20% buyers premium.
I’m less familiar with ebay. I understand that Erards come up regularly their and also the occasional L & H or Wurlitzer. In most instances, the Erards are worm eaten wrecks that are unsalvagable, and the L & H and Wurlitzer harps tend to be in need of major restoration. In as-is condition they would be worth maybe $1,000. They tend to go for $4,000 to $10,000. So auctions and ebay are not the places to look for bargains.
That must be something she invented herself. I’ve studied lots of French music and have never encountered it. It’s also not something that her father, Pierre Jamet, ever mentioned to me in lessons.
