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Dear Jodi,
I use the Zoom H1. Great and v sensitive. I think all their products are good because H1 is the cheapest. Now it is called H2 I think. It is directional. I only have 40 strings and I realise the lowest strings will be hard for a lot of equipment. Luckily the lowerest notes are often too loud so no harm if it attenuates a bit!
I found directional mic close up,.1 to 2 feet quite good for my liking. One can always experiment with different positions.
cheers
we can tune each string to our liking, no skiding though. in the video the string tension sounds v low. ot is hammer struck, sounding a bit like a harpsichord and not pkucked intimately with fingers.
I think it will be good for non western music with microtones if they can assimilate the instrument. The lowish tension sound is not for everybody though, even though not uncommon in folk instruments.
And I don’t expect hundreds of thousands of youngsters learning this
From guitar background, harp playing is reversing the high versus low sequence amongst the fingers of the right hand. But very soon the music decides where the fingers go. I do play the harp from column most mornings when reluctantly having to leave it and want a last touch / chord / phrase before really leaving. Again the sound determines where the fingers go.
Hello kynkari and all,
I started with a new Crescendo over the altwrnativw of revenna. despite the great retractable foot of the revenna I chose the crescendo because it sounded more resonant of the two. both real word and dusty recordings by sylvia woods were consistently showing that. the crescendo somehow has a stronger structual integrity that shows up in the sound. however after a while I found that I prefer much higher tension and less bright sound. This is the tricky bit. given that the bright celtic sound is a bit of twangy/tinny in nature (lets skips the mechanical rituals of apologising for what one likes), a better made and more resonant harp may actually magnify the elements that I personally do not like. So in the end is the better harp a worse harp when you suddenly decide not to like that style of sound anymore?
I trust if one likes the sound of a harp of that style of construction, the crescendo is a better harp than the revenna despite not having the wonderful retractable foot.
My 2 cents
Merry Xmas
Hello Sarah,
Welcome! I also play by ear. Chances are that u arrange the music yourself and u can build the time needed into the music by changing the left hand pattern judiciously to “free up” the left hand. It may not be the original rythmic pattern but it may still makr musical sense.
Cheers
Another ex classical guitar player, also self taught. Having very small hands has always hampered me but the harp is more lenient to that. Right hand felt strange because ring finger plays higher notes than thumb. Hardest part is cutting of nails which are so useful in daily life!
Knowing harmony and simple arrangement helps!
If one aim at self arranging movie Music, ballads, simplified classical tunes and arias, it is still doable self taught.
I regret that the most lesson dollars I had was on voice and not at all transferrable. Wind instrument background does not help in a big way, like voice u don’t directly deal with harmony and like voice much more portion of lesson dollars are on the production of the basic tone. The direct interaction of the string in guitar playing was immensely helpful.
I am sort of sceptical over the Boulevard. The vibrating length can’t be the same as a large harp from the shorter body. If they use identical strings, does that mean they are forced to lower the tension? It appears they are shorter in stature and thus we have to have shorter vibrating lengths.
Any thoughts and actual comparison?
I believe it is of a very similar size t other 34 stringed models like Ravena or the Crescendo. Would it be representative if the sound and pkaying characteristics of a larger harp? Say if we measure the effective vibrating length of C3, C4 and C5 will they match a large harp?
Dear Cc,
I am sorry to hear that. Repeated vibrations and highly complex mechanisms under constant string tensiondo not mix well.
While I don’t have previous experience, I’d like to suggest there should be nothing nearby that may fall on the instrument. If your floor is wooden, try locating a less bouncy part of the floor. If U already have a rug, try putting it underneath and determine whether it is still stable for the harp. If not remove it! Or there are some soft pads for furniture legs available from household hardware shop, some are made of wooden cork like a sheet. That might help to dampen the vibration. Damping always works only for a certain range of frequencies and usually lower ones are hardest to damp, same as damping string with fingers. So in damping, try to feel and hear the residual thud. And determine how hard it is on the instrument. Do the strings ring? How hard?There are also pads for kids to play on. But soft materials might cause the instrument to topple, esp on a bouncy floor under external induced vibration. So be very careful experimenting with putting soft things underneath.
If bad, I would choose to stop playing for a week and loosen the tuning by one whole tone. Is there a nearby relative to offer refuge for a couple of weeks? In a few days you may be able to estimate the duration from their progress. They usually have to ring the site with stellar least.
Good luck and keep us updated.
Dear Prajna,
Welcome. I started in the tender young age of 50. Yes reality is what you make it. I had been mugging around with music though. I started with the self assuring step of commitment (buying) but trust me ones taste changes once U got started. Renting does NOT mean U are less committed, just that U approach it with agility! Experiencing different instruments, even diff copies of the same model is good. Renting is a good way to start….. from a guy who started by buying!
I hope you will enjoy the wonderful journey!
Amazing! Hydraylics, solenoids and pneumatics! If someone has tried that may be the status quo has stood up to challenge. Thank you!
Dear Biagio,
Joe is very prolific in animations movies. Princess Mononoke is a very powerful work with gut wrenching music.
I’d highly recommend that.
Best regards
Biagio, I believe someone in U tube attempted the harp for that piece. Beautiful movie!
I want all cinema pieces with modulation! I almost want to bunch up levers with dental floss and pull them all in one go!!!
Cheers
Dear Clinton,
My other thought would be, I don’t believe in skipping the knowledge of reading music, theory on intervals, harmony, forms, counterpoints and what not. In fact it sets the bar higher to skip having a written piece and wing it on the fly.
where I am coming from is that, before you have reached your intended goal, some partial taste of success can be sampled with not much efforts at all. just like any teenager with an old guitar can experience. The value of this is to chip away the idea that it is mysteriously too hard to try and provide motivation to make enjoyable progress along the journey.
to be mechanically fair, to play by ear and make it up as u go requiresbyou to be capsble to arrange melodies, rythmic patterns, harmonic progressions and preplan the Drams/contrast of the piece in the fly. You need to he an instant compoder and arranger. It required solid knowledge so well internalised that one can at least thing a few bars ahead at the time of playing.
But again, the good news is that fun can be attained early, even at the cost of chopping up music into short discontinuous sections just to experience the “it works” moments. This joy will fuel your motivation…. may be to browse a few web pages for music theory….
When fumbling around, having fun is most important. Your posts have show a lot of (too much??) respect for music. Lets fool around to pick up some fun and energy to go on.
If you have a chance, get the black & what DVD on late cellist Jacqueline du Pre. It ends with a short scene of her plugging the cello and singing on s train in a carefree manner. Lets have that sort of fun!
Dear Clinton,
From your reply, I’m able to pinpoint something. It appears you need 4 steps (yes this is a 4-step procedure to attain what you want):
1. Develop the ability to realise and call out (sing out) the so-fa names of every note when you hear music (or work it out when it lingers in your mind). Best thing to do is to step through Julie Andrew’s Sound Of Music Theme Song (Doh a deer a female deer). Get printed music (or web equivalent) for this please. E.g. Doh-re-mi-doh-mi-do-mi Re-mi-fa-fa-mi-re-fa Mi-fa-soh-mi-so-mi-so Fa-soh-la-la-so-fa-la……)
2. Learn basic chords so that if you can work out C and Am you will know what it is notes of C+E+C and A+C+E and also that the so far names (assume Key of C will be Do-Mi-So and La-Doh-Mi). Keep this step VERY SHORT (1 hour at most) and jump to the next step. Accumulate your knowledge of chord during Step3.
3. Get a guitar song book (or web page), those with nothing but lyrics + cords only. Get any Peter, Paul and Mary songs you already know (because they tend not to have semitones/accidentals nor blues notes and also because they are conservative + predicable + methodical (I will never use the word boring because they are great!) in harmony). Try to work out the melody line and then try to jam in the cords. Never mind rhythm. Just put in the 3 or 4 notes per cord, let them ring and them slow try to play that bit of melody line. Just try it verse by verse. With this you will attain the sense of “direction” that harmony is giving to the melody line. Every change of chord is equivalent a “3 D car” turning left or right or up or down or left sideways or backwards….. (trust me it really turns upwards and downwards and backwards!) …. as long you got the feeling that the “car” is turning, you are getting it!
4. Finally, get a book (or self realise) how to deduce cords from melody lines. In Harp, diatonic harmony is so easy that you only need to try seven times to get the right one even if you don’t have a clue (let’s do either major or minor keys first but both can be tackled similarily and they are just cousins once your are in the game). Usually it is based on what notes are there, what to emphasise (those notes in the suspected candidate cord) what to ignore (passing notes, non-harmonically significant notes or obstinato notes). Then you are done!
5. PS: there is no absolutely correct harmony (unless you want to mimic a particular recording or unless you want to play classical music by ear). Alternate arrangement gives a different “direction” to the melody line, sometimes to great effect, sometimes really off-putting, mostly of the time a matter of taste. If you get 5 copies of greensleeves played my amateur players you’ll realise they are all using slightly different harmony. When you have got to step 4, very soon you will realise some common tricks (e.g. swapping I with IV for emphasis at times or the harmony deliberately ahead of the melody or basso obstinato or deliberate clash because the tonic needs to be well established even when the melody has not reached that point (another case of harmony deliberately ahead of melody)…. It helps a lot if you can detect major vs minor keys early in the process. If the song often goes to “La” then it is a minor key. If it’s gravitates towards Doh or Mi or So then it is a major key. The above approach will help you in the farther future when you want to put in more notes than just the melody (e.g. adding intervals and chords to thicken the melody depends on know what chords are at work). The limitation to the above approach is you can’t do complex textured music (e.g. tone painting is out of the question) but there is much fun to be had before we reach there.
Trust me, fun starts during Step 1! When I was a kid I had nothing and that’s how I got started by myself. Now we have the Internet and so many kind souls here with you.
Good luck!
