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I have both a Dusty Strings and a Blevins in the shop right now with similar problems.
IMO:
the metal plate by itself provides very little extra reinforcement. Essentially, its ultimate added strength is limited by the shear strength of the screws acting in their countersink holes. It is not much compared with a proper joint. And that is not much additional strength compared with the near-concert tension on a Troubadour.Did they only add the plate, or was the neck joint re-glued or otherwise altered at the same time? Did a harp technician do the repair? If the owner doesn’t know, it may help to know that a proper joint repair is _impossible_ to do without restringing. IOW, if it wasn’t restring, then the plate is all that was done.
It absolutely affects the value, regardless of how well it was done. However, if it was done well, by someone who knew what to do, and the strings were off the harp for the repair, it shouldn’t lower the value much, and it should be a substantial long-lasting repair. If that applied plate is all there is to the “repair,” then it affects the value drastically, because it will not hold long-term, and the sooner proper repairs are made, the better.
A better question is “how does the harp sound?” That repair is certainly possible, and not terribly expensive–maybe $1000 plus restringing/regulation. If you like the sound of the harp, and the price is right, I wouldn’t run away from it. But I would find out all the details of the repair, and be sure it is reflected in the price.
A month for a new piece, from start to finish, said piece being more advanced than whatever level you are playing at, sounds really quite fast.
A teacher once told me that “as adults, we are used to picking up most new things and then just doing them relatively quickly. Music doesn’t work that way. You need to re-set your expectations.”
As you move on, especially with a piece that is challenging to you, you may work on it for many months before it comes together. And you may set it aside multiple times, wait for your technique to catch up, and come back to it multiple times.
That does not mean that you will take months on every piece–only on those that are stretching your ability–either your ability to play the notes OR your ability to interpret musically OR your ability to read the notes.
Absolutely agree with Balfour on “be patient”. I would add “Be sure to enjoy the journey, and that includes making sure you thoroughly enjoy the privilege of practicing.” Progress will happen, but in fits and starts. There will be times you hit a wall, then make sudden progress.
@CECIOBOE, so OP is clear, the author is Kathy Bundock Moore. I think you mixed the name with Barbara Brundage, who has arranged Classics by Request among many others.
But, it is most important to trust and work with your teacher if you are making progress.
Ah. Personally I know little about that method, except that I understand it is based on ear training, and is often described as a way to teach children too young to learn to read music.
I don’t think it has made many inroads into the harp world. At least I have rarely heard of it being used for harp.
Harp, like organ, is traditionally taught as a second instrument after some piano.
Celtic music is often also ear based, so it may serve you well.
If you want to start a discussion, start a thread asking about opinions on the Suzuki method for harp. But remember there are a number of distinct methods for harp, each with their proponents.
Learning to read music, and learning harp, and doing both as an adult is a triple play. Be patient with yourself and with your teacher. Until you are easily reading (and placing) 2 or 3 notes in both hands at the same time, you will have some limitations on literature.
But you do have to play music you enjoy playing, else what is the point? That’s one difference with teaching adult beginners–“play this because I say so” is not a very useful approach for adults. One thing that may help both you and your teacher is for him/her to explain with each piece what technical skills you are working on while learning that piece.
If you don’t mind, which book are you using, and where are you in it? That may help some of the people on here be more helpful at suggesting literature that might interest you.
To work properly, any lever mechanism must 1) fully engage the string, locking it to the lever, firmly fretting it at a single point; 2) be firmly fastened to the neck, so that the string energy is not absorbed by the lever itself; and 3) be firmly assembled at all of its points, so that string energy is not absorbed within the lever.
Absorption of the string energy is why pedal forks cause much less “damping” than a light, bent sheet metal lever design.
Your Ogden has a problem with the way the levers engage the strings, or the levers are loose on the neck, or the assembly of the lever needs to be tightened. Performance levers work well when they are adjusted right. I have seen some that are mis-adjusted, and some that had rough castings that would wear strings terribly, but when smoothed, tightened, and adjusted, they sound fine.
Agreed. Talk with your teacher. My first teacher as an adult beginner was used to teaching grammar school girls. I liked her very much then, and now, but as a nearly 40 year old man then, found it difficult to learn any harp.
There is much literature out there that does not involve nursery rhymes for beginners. Some of it may not be your favorite, but you should be able to find some you really like, even if it isn’t all Celtic.
If you find your teacher willing to work with other literature, you may need to get recommendations here, and bring them to him/her.
For very early beginners, unless you already read music well, choices will be limited. If you already read, Salzedo has sets of short teaching pieces beginning with Tiny Tales. And the McDonald/Wood Graded Recital Series. And Kathryn Cater’s books make a graded series, though they are not numbered in an order. I also found Kathy Bundock Moore’s Thumbs Up to be good for an adult. And don’t overlook Grossi.
Taking offense is in the hearing of communication, not the sending. If someone finds something offensive, logic and facts will rarely change their mind, at least in my experience.
People find the confederate battle flag offensive, and racist groups have, indeed, used it as a symbol, yet people I know saw and still see it as a symbol of regional pride and remembrance of history — remembrance of both the good and the evil parts of history. Obliterating memory of history is the surest way to end up repeating it.
That reads like a wonderful explanation. I certainly hope some arrangement can be made to publish it all as the original set of music.
Maybe you have thought of this already: if the offensive parts are “Golliwog” and “Cakewalk,” just change the name to something inoffensive like Doll’s Dance.
I doubt anyone seeing that movement on a recital program would know what it used to be called. It is not unknown for a music publisher to retitle a piece for better sales (tongue in cheek).
I suppose we shouldn’t be playing spirituals either. Nor should anyone who does not have forebears from Africa ever touch, let alone actually play, a banjo.
Have you considered publishing only that one piece through Harp Column Music with the rest of the set at your publisher? Debussy would be public domain in the US, isn’t he?
Zoom H4n pro. Just over $200. Can be set up as 4-track simultaneous or a stereo pair plus two other tracks.
Two of the channels have dedicated built-in condenser mics, which are plenty good enough for your purposes. Channels 3 and 4 take separate mic inputs. The controls to do settings are a little fiddly working through the menus, but the basic controls you use all the time (Stop, Play, Record, Pre-amp gain, etc.) have dedicated buttons. It _will_ supply 48VDC phantom power to the external mics. It mounts on a standard camera tripod with a 1/4-20 screw.
If you are talking about layering the recordings, where you record one track at a time by yourself while listening to the other tracks previously recorded, I won’t be able to tell you whether/how to do that. If you are going to record multiple tracks all at once, then it will work fine.
The H6, which is a step up, is a more professional recorder with six independent tracks and six mic inputs, and no built-in mics. Mics good enough to do what you want will probably run $50-100 each on the used market. You will also need a mic stand for each mic.
There are other brands as well. Zoom is just what I’m familiar with. If you’re not going to do this a lot, consider hiring a sound engineer who is familiar with this type of recording to make the recording. It might be more cost effective than getting equipment and learning to use it and learning to mix and edit.
Keep in mind that Audacity is primarily an audio _editor_ not a recorder.
You don’t mention what you want the recordings for, or what quality they need to be.
No software will give you better quality than the microphone and pre-amps you use. The typical laptop has a mic and sound card driven by low price, for use with speech, not music. You will never get a good recording from that, no matter what software you use. But “good” can depend on what you want to use it for.
I would generally not recommend recording straight onto a laptop, but use a dedicated recorder. There are too many places where latency can cause an issue, and laptops are really fiddly to set up and use, especially on location compared with a recorder. If you have to use the laptop, then you need a good USB interface and standard mic, or at the least a good USB mic. With the USB mic, your quality is forever tied to how good the analog to digital conversion and subsequent encoding built within that mic is.
Sorry, I missed the part about microphones. Recording a harp will never work right on the typical laptop mic. They won’t have the required bass frequency response.
If you want a halfway decent recording, you need a quality mic that will go to 40-50 Hz. You won’t be able to plug that into your mic input either, because the sound card preamps rarely would have enough gain, and they are usually not very good either.
There are some USB mics that I’ve heard work decently, but no personal experience here. You can also do pretty well with one of the Zoom recorders, which have the mics built in. (like Zoom H4n).
Or you can get a USB interface that will have preamps and and A/D convertor built in.
Ebay is your friend for finding decent recording equipment at roughly half-price.
