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Yes, Rick’s plans are great, I’ve been studying them carefully. The Waldorf is far bigger and heavier than I want, but it’s also designed to have a lower range and higher tension. The construction advice is still really useful.
The bit that confuses me is how the soundboard works, if you can call it that, for cardboard harps. Is the heavy string rib acting as the soundboard as well? The double Waring simply has two of them side by side, but while that’s sensible when you are making all your kits from 3/4″ x 1 1/2″ timber, I don’t have to follow that and I don’t know what the best size of wood would be for that spot on mine. A friend has just given me the string lengths for the Fireside and they are actually slightly better suited than the Brittany lengths, shorter at both ends and with a gentler harmonic curve, so I’ll try drawing it with those ones on Monday.
Quick question: I keep dithering over a cardboard vs. a wooden soundbox, and checking the likely weight is making me lean back towards cardboard, especially after a friend made a video of her new Fireside harp. If I were to do so, what’s a good way of doing the soundboard side of things? Could I still use a birch plywood soundboard for the whole top of the soundbox, pair of good sturdy string ribs on the underside (partly running under the neck and pillar in order to help support them), and then glue that onto the cardboard with the odd bit of bracing? The current sketch looks like this, if you ignore the error where I’ve written the dimensions for the soundbox back. I’m guessing that would give a better sound that the usual method of a very thick string rib that doubles as a soundboard, but I’m only guessing.
Interesting point. I’d expect an orchestra to be in black, and a choir to be in something colour-coordinated. I saw the percussionist Evelyn Glennie perform in the nineties, and she was wearing a fabulous colourful outfit that felt like an addition to the experience. Perhaps since she has to perform barefoot, due to being profoundly deaf, and was the only virtuoso percussionist around when she began her career (percussion doesn’t really have the same conventions as, say, performing a Mozart piano concerto – and these days there are a few women flouting those dress codes too), she decided she may as well sod convention and go for it?
By the way, what kind of gigs do you play? It occurs to me that it might be useful to have a professional photo of you with your hair that colour on your website/generally available, in a nicely coordinating dress etc., just in case anyone is likely to complain afterwards that you didn’t match their flower arrangements, or whatever it is that stressed out brides complain about. I’ve heard stories. My guess would be that it would put some people off if they’re more conservative, attract others, and generally be memorable.
I have never played the harp professionally in my life, but I’m wondering if you can incorporate it into a fairly formal look. Is it long? If so, how about a fancy-looking updo, coordinated with a dress and accessories for perhaps a sort of fairy-tale princess look?
The fancy-looking ones aren’t necessarily difficult to do, I used to get loads of compliments on updos that took under a minute. I’ve put “pink hair updo” into Google Image, and while some of them are the sort of thin that probably requires a professional hairdresser, others aren’t. You can get a lot of mileage out of a pretty hair fork, for instance, plus there are fake flowers and such.
I have a gorgeous collection of wooden hair forks for when my hair is long, and dichroic glass hair barrettes for when my hair was shorter. Something like this deep blue barrette could look lovely with both pink and purple hair, if you’re wearing blue. This was when my hair (medium-thick) was around shoulder length. I’d just braid it, flip up the braid, secure it with the barrette halfway up the back of my hair, and let the ends curl around above it.
Even shortish hair can be dressed up quite a bit. And if you can manage some braiding, contrasting roots look amazing in French and Dutch braids.
I’m meeting my friend’s new girlfriend tomorrow, and apparently she’s really looking forward to talking harps with me. She recently acquired a 12 string rosewood harp, is smitten but not quite sure what to do with it, and I suspect may be looking for a cheap and cheerful harp at some point that’s a more useful size. So I’m wondering about the Mikel Harps being sold as Heritage Harps by the Early Music Shop, as that seems to be a strong contender in that department. Say the 22 or 29, depending on space, budget and so forth. The Student models have the (prettier, in my view) beaky shape at the top, plastic levers rather than metal ones, a square back, have the neck laminated with layers of ash where the more expensive harps have a layer of mahogany in the middle, weigh less, are half the price, and according to the EMS I briefly spoke to, are a bit less resonant. The 22 string goes down to the A below middle C, and the 29 string goes down to tenor C. Or if she’s interested but would rather have something more portable, there are the Callan 26 string harps in Ireland, which are our local(ish) equivalent to the Harpsicle, a bit nicer I think.
What would other folks recommend for a cheap and cheerful harp in the UK? Harpsicles and cardboard harps get a huge mark-up from import costs, alas, and I know to stay away from Derwent harps.
Also not an app, but this online course is excellent. My partner and his sister have both done it and learned a huge amount. They say its really accessible for beginners, too.
Well, if you switched to harps that are played with the nails (wire harp, Paraguayan harp) you’d be sorted with nails like that!
Bow Brand went through a notoriously bad phase the other year, and I don’t know if any of those strings are still being sold, considering import delays. I think they even ceased production for a while. There were jokes at the 2016 Edinburgh Harp Festival that if you wanted a room to yourself, you could say, “I think I saw Bow Brand over there,” and an angry mob would chase after them. (They didn’t show up to the festival that year.) Some problem with the cows, I was given to understand? The strings are meant to be OK now, last I heard, and the few I’ve needed have been fine. They admitted the problem openly, so the retailer should know what’s going on. Maybe you got older strings from the bad batch?
I’ve tried the Teifi levers briefly, they’re excellent, and I’m getting them when my harp is built. The Siff-Saff is their student model, but still a very good harp from what I understand, they’re a top luthier. Teifi do go for a richer sound in their lever harps, now you mention it, with concert harp spacing and I think concert string gauge for all of the harps. I didn’t realise they were exported. Although they’d still need to be imported from the US to Canada, but that’s a lot closer than Wales!
The other well known lighter British harp is the Starfish Glenelle, but I think that’s more of a celtic sound. Or one of the Norris harps with carbon core option, with a warmer sound than a Starfish, but both of those have long waits and higher prices than the Siff-Saff.
Aha, you’re in Canada. If you did decide to go the two-harp route, the Bourget Feather looks like it might make a good gigging harp, and presumably exams are rare enough that you could manage to get your bigger harp there for special occasions. I don’t have any easy way to get my harp outside my home at all, but it’s rented out on the understanding that I return it for a week once a year for them to use at the Edinburgh Festival, so my partner wrangles it into a taxi for those occasions.
http://www.westcoastharps.com/used-harps.html
12lb, so significantly lighter than your current Triplett, goes down to the bottom F so you’d need to work around that for repertoire, but the idea would be to use that as a gigging harp and have a nice big classical-sounding harp at home the rest of the time. And at least it goes down a string lower than your Sierra. Then that would free you up to buy whatever you liked for your main harp, giving you more options on the second-hand market too. I have no idea what it sounds like or what it’s like to play, but that’s a good price, Truitts are good levers and lightweight, and that’s a seriously impressive weight for a harp that size. It says light-medium tension and a bell-like voice, and you wanted something more classical sounding, but it can be nice having two harps with different voices. What sort of gigging do you do? If you do decide to get a separate gigging harp, a lot depends on the style of music you’ll be wanting to play.
One thing to bear in mind about the bigger, more classical-style lever harps, is that if you want to be making lots of rapid lever changes, and you are not particularly tall, check you can reach the bass levers comfortably. Admittedly I’m disabled with shoulder problems and am only 4’11, plus I have a taste for ridiculously chromatic music such as Bach lute suites, so this problem seems to affect me disproportionately, but it’s worth bearing in mind just in case.
Would another option be to keep your current Triplett as the gigging harp?
Could you tell us more about the situations where you are needing to transport the harp, what weight you want, and your budget? The 30 string Sierra is 17lb, and I notice only goes down to a bass G, which will be what’s holding you back. You are realistically not going to find anything lighter than that in a harp with 34 strings or more for less weight. 34 strings are standard in the UK, you may well be fine with that, because they all go down to that bottom C which you don’t have right now. It’s not the extra few notes at the top you miss, they’re barely used, it’s the bass strings. The Salvi Titan is 27lb. Carbon fibre harps are lighter but out of your budget range, which is fair.
That Musicmakers Jolie with 33 strings and carbon fibre reinforcement weighs 15lb, which might be a good compromise for you if you like the sound. That top A is rarely used, I doubt you’ll miss it.
Another possibility I’m wondering about is to have a home harp that is big and many-stringed and built heavily enough to produce the sound you want, and a lighter harp for taking around and about. What’s the secondhand harp market like where you are?
Thanks, that’s interesting. Did you replace more strings than that with KF and then change them back to nylon?
