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-If the person is not educated about attending deeper, more thoughtful performances, then they will mirror back by assuming the person asking them to be quiet was the rude one-
That hasn’t been my experience. When I’m forced into the position of having to tell someone to be quiet, they don’t make another sound, and they don’t talk back to me, because they know they are wrong. Making noise or disruptive behavior at performances(talking, whispering, opening candy, even arriving late, including getting seated again after intermission!) is nothing more than thoughtless self-centered behavior, and my experience is that they will continue to do whatever thoughtless behavior they are doing until someone tells them to stop. So I can either tell them on the first or second offense that they are out of line, or I can wait 20 or 30 minutes to tell them and the result is the same. They will do their behavior until I or someone else tells them to stop, and then they stop. If many more people would speak up when someone is behaving badly, then word would eventually spread that certain behaviors are unacceptable at performances.
Karen- If Peter’s information is correct- and I have no reason to question it-then the harps with this problem would fall into that 2 year window. The harp I mentioned on my original post was bought by the Cunard line-I’m presuming they bought it brand new)- to put on the Queen Mary II. I believe that was 7 years ago. It’s possible the harp was built a year or more earlier and took that long to sell. I have not seen more recent instruments so don’t know if they have this rivet problem or not. But since I had seen it on a 7 year old instrument, I assumed it was on everything built since then. My mistake.
-Around 2002 it was found to be slightly less reliable-
Slightly less reliable???? As post number 34 explains, as well as my original post that started this thread, there is nothing ‘slight’ about this problem. It can happen without warning, anywhere and anytime and is not easy to fix in a hurry, and it renders the instrument unplayable from one moment to the next.
Did Lyon & Healy try to contact owners of these harps once they discovered there was a problem? Did they issue a recall and offer to fix this problem BEFORE the harp malfunctioned?
Eizabeth- This is EXACTLY what I was talking about, and EXACTLY the kind of crisis that an unnecessary problem like this can cause. I hope you will read the riot act to the company who made your harp. This is unconscionable.
It seems unbelievable to me that people have to be taught consideration, but they do. So back to my original advice: If someone is making noise or behaving badly, they are going to continue to do so until someone tells them to stop. What I always resent about this is that these people force ME to set the limits on THEIR behavior, and for that reason I’m purposely as obnoxious as the situation permits when I tell them off. I don’t ask them to be quiet. I tell them, loudly, to SHUT UP!!! And trust me, it works.
I wish that audiences would be more proactive when it comes to rude behavior. If more people spoke up, then it would become known that rude behavior is not tolerated. I also wish that all programs had a page that told people, in no uncertain terms, how to behave and how not to behave in a theater. Again, until people and management demand considerate behavior it is not going to happen.
It’s just as bad in museums. I was in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston recently and there were three high school girls that were rubbing their hands all over a large painting. I barked like a drill sargent from across the gallery for them to stop. They looked at me like I had no business telling them what to do and did it again to another painting. At that point I went to the front desk and told the people there what was happening. Three guards ran with me to the gallery and the guards talked to them. They should have been thrown out.
You’d be surprised how much of a difference a quarter inch can make. 1 3/4″ is not too bad. But it could be more. I could probably increase it to 2 1/8″ without having to worry about breaking strings.
I thought of one more thing. I have a 92 year old aunt who went to the Metropolitan Opera every week from 1939 to 1967. She told me that when the opera being performed was Italian or French, there was the usual noise in the audience. When the opera was German, you could hear a pin drop in the hall. The audience for German opera was infinitely more respectful than for other performances. So I think that much of it is cultural.
I don’t know if this is true in other states, but in Massachusetts, starting maybe 5 or 6 years ago, all performances start with an announcement about exits and emergencies, but also an announcement to turn off all cell phones and to not text or talk during the performance. It’s helped some. But for that reason, when someone does talk anyway, I go ballistic.
Don’t even get me started on this one. My partner is a critic in Boston, and we go to live performances 4 or 5 times a week during the season. The number of times I have had to tell someone to shut up I couldn’t even count. At one performance a woman behind me, maybe in her 50’s or 60’s talked to her husband, in a normal voice, through the whole first half of the performance. As soon as the lights went up at intermission I let her have it. I blasted her for more than a minute while everyone within 100 feet stood there and watched. The theater was a quiet as a morgue for the second half.
At a Dawn Upshaw concert 2 years ago, an old bag in a designer suit(she must have been 80) made a call to her driver during the second encore to tell him to come pick them up. When the encore was over I turned around to let her have it. Before I could say anything the woman directly behind me(the offender was 2 rows behind me) said,”How much will you pay me to slug her in the face?”
I’ve learned a few things about rude people at concerts. 1) They won’t shut up until someone tells them to shut up. 2) If you’re going to tell them to be quiet, do it in the loudest and rudest way you can, so that everyone around can hear you. The person you are addressing will either get very belligerent
(rarely), or not say anything back. In both cases though, they will not make another sound for the rest of the evening. Neither will anyone else in the audience. Depending on the situation, I usually tell them loudly and as long as possible that they are misbehaving. With the woman on the cell phone, I chewed her out for as long as the applause lasted.
If anyone is going to force me to put limits on their offensive behavior, I want them to know that there is a heavy price to pay. In the case you stated, someone-an usher, someone from the performance, whoever- should have gone right up to them and, in a voice that the whole audience could hear, tell them that they were rude and offensive.
I heard years ago of a famous pianist stopping his concert because someone was talking in one of the front rows. The pianist just sat at the piano and starred at the person. When the person finally realized he was being singled out and stopped talking, the pianist said to him, in a voice that the whole audience could hear “Either you leave or I leave.” The person got up and left.
Mike- 2 1/4″ is a lot of room. I can’t make it any bigger than that or you won’t be able to keep strings on it. They’ll just keep breaking. Did you have the ruler pressed up against that brass strip at the top of the soundboard?
It’s complicated. Maybe somebody could question the Salvi AND the Lyon & Healy people and ask them specific questions about where things are made. I know I have a specific list of questions I’d like answers to.
Mike- You may have one of those instruments(and there are many of them) where the action is practically laying on the soundboard in the first octave. Try measuring the distance between the soundboard and the underside of the action plate in the following way: Take a ruler(6 inch ruler is enough, but any length will do, either wood or steel) and place it butt end flat on the soundboard with the edge pressed against the brass kneeplate that separates the top of the soundboard from the neck. The ruler will be at a right angle to the soundboard surface and will be sticking up in front of the action and neck. Now eyeball the position of the lower edge of the action against the ruler. Ideally it should be a distance of about 2 inches from the surface of the soundboard. But it may be as little as 1.5 inches or less. This measurement will not be parellel to any of the strings. The ruler is at a completely different angle from the strings. If the distance is much less than 2 inches, then it becomes very difficult to use any of those 1st octave strings, especially if you have large hands. When I replace a neck, that 2 inch distance is the standard I aim for. If it’s much less than that, then playing up there is difficult. If it’s much more than 2 inches, then strings start breaking.
Then there’s the one about the cafeteria in Heaven. All the angels are standing in line, tray in hand, waiting patiently to get their food when a very old man with a long white beard pushes, shoves, and elbows his way to the front of the line. One of the younger angels says to an older one “Who the heck is that??” The older angel responds, “Him? Oh, that’s God. He thinks he’s a conductor.”
Without being able to examine your harp first hand, I would agree with the Salvi people. There is a nylon washer that takes up the space between the underside of the fulcrum and the top of the brass plate the fulcrum is screwed into. The washer has probably flattened out some or may be breaking down. Replacing it should take care of the problem. But if this is in fact the problem, it should not prevent your harp from functioning until the repairman can look at it.
