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Nicks and scuffs do not get removed by cleaning. You need to have someone who is well versed in wood refinishing to spot finish or rub out those problems. It doesn’t have to be someone knowledgeable about the harp. Just someone who knows refinishing.
In the example you state, a trill on D and E, you would place your thumb on F and then slide your third finger over D and pluck E, followed by sliding your 2nd finger over D and then plucking E, etc. It feels incredibly awkward at first and I haven’t practiced it enough to be able to do it. But Xavier did it at my harp in my living room with me sitting 3 feet from him, and it was even, clear, and fast. I would never have known that he was executing it that way if I hadn’t seen it.
To all of you above- Everything in life starts with a dream. Every invention, every work of art, every new concept(like for example, democratic government) starts with a dream. That doesn’t mean that every dream is feasible. That part, exploring the feasibility of the dream, comes next, and is the hard part.
I think it’s great for all of you to follow that dream. HOWEVER, you also have to explore all of the territory that goes along with that dream. How exactly will you make a living if it pans out? How much money can you expect to make and how much time is it going to take up? Will it be so all-consuming that you have no time for family life or anything else for that matter? What are the skills that you need to pursue this dream and do you have them? I agree that if you don’t at least explore your dream, and perhaps try to follow it now, you will grow old always wondering “what if.” So go ahead and pursue it. But pursue it with eyes wide open and head clear, and be prepared at any moment to change course and go in a different direction. That’s not failure. That’s learning.
The sight-reading piece must be at the Paris Conservatory. In those days, each year for the final exam in each instrument, there was a brand new piece for each instrument that the students got one month in advance of the exam. But there was also a sight reading piece, usually not very long, that each student had to read at the exam. I’m sure there are a bunch of these in the Paris Conservatory archives.
I thought I would give you an update on this. Clinton sent me a copy of his edition of Daphnis to look over. He had done an excellent by-the-book job of writing in pedals and placing pedal diagrams. He had incorporated some ideas from at least two parts that belonged to seasoned orchestra harpists. Still, I ended up moving a lot of stuff around, not to suit my personal taste, but to better suite the needs of the part and the harpist who would be playing it. The experience gave me a better insight into indicating pedal changes in orchestra parts and how that differs from solo parts. I thought I would share my thoughts here.
Orchestra parts in general, and Daphnis… in particular, have passages of playing and then tacets, sometimes only a few measures, sometimes many measures. Daphnis is particularly ornery to edit because the pedals are almost never in a key, and there are lots(and lots) of glisses. So, even though Clinton had many pedal diagrams, I added more. And I moved around existing pedal diagrams so that in all cases they were right next to the beginning of a passage, rather than at the end of the previous passage or in the empty measures in between passages. I felt that in this piece, the harpist would always want to know the pedal settings right at the start of a passage and would not want to have to look frantically around for the diagram or written pedal changes for the passage about to be played.
I also eliminated a couple of lines after a written pedal change(G#- for example)if the next change(-G flat) was in the next passage, with empty measures in between. I felt that the harpist would always begin each passage by checking all of the pedals against the pedal diagram and therefore a line after or before a pedal change would be unnecessary and pointless.
The point here is that because orchestra parts are usually in fragments, rather than constant playing as in solo repertoire, each fragment has to be treated as an independent piece, with it’s own start and finish. Pedal sequences do not carry over well from one passage to another when there are long tacets in between. In Daphnis, very often all 7 pedals have to be moved at the end of one passage to prepare for the next. Writing the pedal changes(G# etc.) tells the harpist how to get to the next pedal arrangement. The pedal diagram tells the harpist the arrangement at a particular point. So these two different ways of indicating pedals give the harpist different information.
Pedal indications in orchestra parts serve two purposes. One is to get the harpist through the performance, indicating clearly all of the pedal changes. But the other, equally important, is to allow the harpist to start at almost any point in the piece in practice or more importantly, in rehearsal. A friend of mine was one of 4 harpists in a recent all Wagner program here in Boston. She had pedal diagrams all over her music. But two of the harpists did not, and in rehearsal made a huge mess once or twice because they could not get the pedals set quickly enough because they didn’t have enough diagrams in their music.
I told Clinton that there are never too many diagrams, and that redundancy is not a crime. Pedal changes should be written out(G# etc.) but then reinforced with a pedal diagram.
Thanks Jerusha. I particularly like the Beau Soir of Debussy. It certainly helped that the recording was made in one of the most extraordinary halls in the world. I hope this inspires them to make another CD that is all harp and violin.
Congratulations Krieg and Deb- You both warm the heart of an old harp repairman. If your humidifiers put out humidified air that is completely invisible(no steam or visible vapor) you can set it right next to the harp without any problem. The humidity is going to be highest nearest the humidifier and will drop very fast the farther away the humidifier is.
Kreig- I have to agree with you. I know from first hand experience of building harps from scratch that many things other than the soundboard have an effect on the tone and projection of the harp. The shape and size of the body(to which the soundboard is attached), the shape and size of the pedal box. The size of the holes on the back of the body. The thickness and weight of the neck, the weight of the column. But I can’t see the surface area or the carving or smooth surface having any effect on the sound.
I know that what people hear, and what they THINK they are hearing can be very different, and in blind tests, where they don’t know what they are listening to, there are many variations in all of the above mentioned factors that in the end the listener can’t hear. I know this from a workshop I led in 1994 at the Boston harp conference. I had four harps of different sizes behind a scrim, so that the audience couldn’t see what they were listening to. I didn’t tell them if they were listening to different size harps, different makes, etc. I had 2 harpists play each instrument in 7 or 8 ‘sound tests.’
What I had behind the scrim was a 1940 concert grand strung completely in nylon, a semi-grand with extended soundboard, a semi-grand with straight board, and a small style 14 with straight board.
Absolutely no one could pick out the harp strung completely in nylon. They couldn’t tell which harp was the concert grand, nor which had a straight board and which an extended board.
My friends at Vanderbilt have run blind tests numerous times trying to figure out if there is an audible difference between silver and tarnish resistant wire strings, and no one has ever been able to tell the difference in a blind test. So in the end, there are too many variables to attribute the sound or projection of a particular harp of model of harp to any one set of factors.
The 4 digit serial numbers started in 1910 and must have started with the number 1000 or 1001. For many years Lyon & Healy averaged about 100 instruments a year. So the first two numbers of the 4 digit serial number tells you within 2 or 3 years on either side when the harp was made. Your instrument can be dated to around 1931 to 1935.
Martin- Your explanation of what to do is just fine. The tuning pins are tapered, with the small end sticking out of the neck on the string side. Sometimes rust can make them get too tight. Sometimes climate changes- expansion and contraction of the wood-can make them too tight. In all cases, if the pin is hard to turn, then back it out the way you describe. You can back it out and then push it in a little to adjust the amount of “hold” the pin has. If it’s in really tight, you may have to take a hammer and hammer the small end of the pin(where the string is) to push the pin back thereby loosening it.
David- I’m in total agreement with you. She was one of the magnificent three that played Hollywood studios for decades. She can be heard on hundreds if not thousands of movie soundtracks. She was also completely down to earth, very funny, and altruistic. What she gave to the American Harp Society and the American harp world cannot be measured.
