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How does this arrangement look? I’ve altered a few notes here and there in order to keep the C sharps and naturals where I want them, and also written in the lever changes.
It turned out that getting a stool the right height made all the difference. I picked up a 38cm storage footstool from Amazon, arranged a lamp nicely, and it’s all going much better now with the lever harp. Plus I have something to keep my music and the tuning key in. I found some music that fitted the range, and this got me to the point of realising that yes, I am getting somewhere with this. So a rental Hermine is arriving tomorrow! 34 strings, fluorocarbon. This should give me a chance to learn some proper repertoire and get good enough that when the festival rolls around in April, I can actually make good use of it and figure out which harp will suit me.
I suspect that fluorocarbon strings won’t be for me, they sound like they’re quite bitey on the fingers, and someone here said that they shouldn’t be put onto a harp designed for gut or nylon because the tension’s too high. So if I did get along with fluorocarbon, that would limit me to harps already made with fluorocarbon. Has anyone tried the Camac Telenn Kadiou?
I’ve been chatting to various harpmakers, some of which already use synthetic strings. Jon at Silver Spear, who is a total sweetheart, uses nylon, although he’s recently strung a harp with nylgut (more or less the same as silkgut, we think, though I’m going to have a chat with Aquila some time) and is waiting to see how it settles in. I’d assumed that nylon was the poor relation to fluorocarbon and silkgut, but perhaps not. I’ll be able to compare better once I’m used to the Hermine, so I’ll report back then.
Any ideas about music to buy? So far I’ve picked up:
Deborah Friou, a collection of early music and a collection of baroque music – too easy and not very exciting, but it’s giving me good sightreading practise.
Andres, Epices – more my level, at least the first two. I’m making good progress on the first one, Muscade, which is the only one that fits on a 25 string harp.
(Speaking of the 25 string harp, the tuning settled down, but the rest, not so much. The lowest string was never happy, I believe due to the crack in the soundbox at the bottom, and the lever was already unusable due to all the nasty sounds it would make. One day I noticed that the lever had fallen off. It has never been found. The other levers have a good line in deadening the string, causing buzzing noises, and being slightly off a semitone. Poor baby.)
Anyway, does anyone have suggestions for music, and an idea of what sort of grade level I might be at? A friend of mine who works at Trinity Music has been known to send us the theory books for Grades 1-5 free of charge, which my partner found extremely useful, so I might be able to snag some music off him. I keep forgetting that my idea of being a beginner is with two years’ harp behind me in the past, and more to the point, 33 years of piano, nearly as long singing, seven years of orchestral percussion, and an A-level in music, plus I’m learning as an adult rather than as a child. So I don’t seem to be at what is generally considered a beginner level.
Apparently someone has arranged some Dowland for lever harp, although having looked at it, I think I could probably do it myself if I could be bothered to transcribe the songs I have and add the lever changes (any idea how to put them in in MuseScore?). I managed a decent job of Can She Excuse My Wrongs the other day.
In terms of folk music, I prefer the plaintive sounding ones, Dorian mode and such. Fhir a Bhata, for example, is lovely, and I’d really like to find a good harp version. A lot of the folk music around tends to be the irritatingly chirpy stuff that feels a bit like when you mention you live in Scotland and someone yells OCH AYE THE NOO! Erm, if that makes sense. I’m not up for doing my own arrangements right now, I’m not naturally good at it.
I’m OK on wire harp repertoire, I’m progressing much more slowly on that and have a few books already, including the huge Coupled Hands for Harpers.
Just in case I decide that a lap harp would be a useful thing to have, what do people make of the basic ones George Stevens makes? They start at £250 for 19 strings diatonic, and then you can have £480 for 23 strings and levers on Cs and Fs, with extra levers being £20 each (I was wondering about Bs). He sounds like a reputable harp maker. How much could you do with a harp like that?
Hello again, folks. Here’s where things are at the moment:
The wire harp may take more tuning than I can keep up with. I just had a chat with Bill Taylor, and he recommended tuning four times a day to start with, and by the sound of it at least daily once it’s settled. He did talk me through fine tuning it, so that at least it can get to a point where I can play a harp that’s in tune. Right now it won’t really hold its tune long enough for me to play it, but I’ll try the tuning method he recommended.
In general, both harps are holding their tuning a lot better by now, and the nylon harp is behaving well. I’ve figured out a seat and a box to stand it on. It’s still not the greatest to play, the range is small and it’s hard to reach in to get to the top few strings, but I’m starting to enjoy it.
I’m chatting to a local teacher who is going to give me a lesson on Tuesday so that we can get some feel for whether this is practical, and may be able to lend me a harp short-term. She has one or two with KF strings, including a Camac Hermine, though not with her right now. She’s got students who currently have harps, so I may be able to try a Starfish through them.
In terms of buying a harp, I am eyeing up the Starfish student or the Teifi Boncaff. Teifi say they know a teacher in Edinburgh with a Teifi or two I should be able to try, although I’m still waiting for them to pass on the details. The Teifi Siff Saff is cheaper, but beech laminate just makes me think of kitchen cupboards, and you know what it’s like with falling in love with woods.
Speaking of woods, any thoughts on walnut vs cherry, in terms of both sound and appearance? My partner now has a dulcimer with walnut sides and fingerboard (cedar soundboard, mahogany back; it’s a Ron Ewing aorell dulcimer, a beautiful instrument), so I can look thoughtfully at the woods on that. We can now play duets, too, since this one has the frets correctly positioned and we’re no longer running into tuning problems when he’s got the the capo on.
Any more thoughts on silkgut vs. KF? Practically no one seems to have heard of silkgut. I’ve noticed that Salvi are using it a lot. What are Salvi lever harps like, what sort of sound do they produce, what are they like to play? Not that I’m planning to get a Salvi, just to give me some idea about what they like in a string.
Marco mentioned silkgut strings a couple of times on this forum, I gather he really likes them. He mentioned that they are similar to the Concedo strings in that they are a fairly visible white, which helps with telling all the notes apart. This might be useful for me with my visual problems. My peripheral vision is not what it once was. Does anyone know more about this?
The wire harp now has all its strings! My attempts to sort this out were pure bunglement, but a friend dropped by who makes chain mail jewellery, so she did a fabulous job of getting the wire onto the toggles and I eventually worked out how loose it should be before starting to turn the tuning key (four attempts, including one broken string, resulting in two strings done). Then we got out the paint markers, which were red and royal blue, rather than pink and light blue, on my optometrist’s recommendations. Bless him, when I asked which would be more visible he asked if the strings would be vibrating and advised me based on that. We have enough wire left to do one more string, if need be, at least in the 0.44 gauge which covers more than half the harp. For some reason, the friend who loaned it to me has wire in gauges too thick for the harp, as well as the gauges it needs.
So now I just need to get back into playing it. The top strings are going way out of tune in quite an uneven way, does anyone know what that’s about? Could it be because I was only really playing the lower strings at first, between the book covering those strings and also not really being able to play the top range with two strings missing?
We had a go at playing with my partner on the dulcimer the other day. The lever harp works better, with me playing the tune in both hands an octave apart so that you really hear it. It seems rather basic, after years of playing far more complicated stuff in piano duets, but it does suit my current skill level, and it’s great to be able to play together, after nearly two years together as a couple. The wire harp wasn’t too playable, this was before we sorted out the strings, but actually it was more because a) it sounded too like the dulcimer (steel strings) to stand out, and b) it was out of tune compared to the dulcimer. We’d both tuned using the same app, but he had a capo on to put it into E minor, and it seems that the first fret is slightly out, so he’s in tune with himself but a bit off. It’s a mystery why the lever harp didn’t sound out of tune with it.
One of my old duet partners is still in town, I think, and I saw on Facebook that he’s just married a lovely-looking chap, so I should dig him out and find if he has time to come and molest my piano again.
Oh, I was only growling at the situation where people assume that you must automatically “move up” to pedal harp. Aspiring pedal harpists starting out on lever harps does indeed make sense. Maybe “moving across” would be a better term?
Heartland harps look very tempting but cost a bomb, alas.
Myrrh is sound stuff, I might source a tincture and give that a try.
Thanks, that’s very kind.
I’ve seen Tim Hampson’s harps mentioned elsewhere on this forum. Does anyone know more about them, and in particular the cost of a student model? They look beautiful and are very lightweight.
Both harps are now here! I was feeling a bit low about the lever harp at first, I was tired and it was going out of tune faster than I could tune it, but I am keeping on tuning both harps and they are settling down nicely. The Ardival is scrumptious, though it needs to have a couple of strings replaced and the colour put back on the strings. I have some beginner wire harp books which I am starting to work on.
The lever harp may well be that one, yes. Here it is. It’s a bit darker than it shows in the photo. I think it might be beech, it looks darker and pinker than maple. The bottom E is trouble, because unless I play it really softly, it buzzes against the lever. You can see the crack in the soundbox, and the other crack is the same on the other side. I suspect the soundboard may be pine, judging by the colour.
I was playing a bit last night and my hands were getting rather painful, so I think I really need to sort out my posture. At 4’11, the dining chair I was using is probably a bit too tall for me, my feet weren’t firmly planted on the floor. I’ll try the sofa, and that means working out a different thing to stand the harp on (previously it was the cat carrier). Hopefully, once I can get the posture right, my hands will find it easier, and I’ll find that I’m resting my arms on the harp less. I am starting to mess around with music and see what I can play. Can anyone recommend some music books in the UK that will fit this range (bottom note is an E)? I don’t need them to be really basic, I’m not at the Three Blind Mice stage. I’m interested in getting more into folk music, and as all my experience is of classical and I can’t improvise or play by ear to save my life, some books which walk you through traditional celtic ornamentation and such would be great.
I’m wondering if and when I should consider getting a decent quality 34 string harp. Part of it is down to finances, part down to my relationship (we’ve been together nearly two years, and his flat has the space for a floor harp whereas mine doesn’t), but mainly it’s about whether I am going to continue the harp. I just tried playing briefly while seated on the sofa and with the harp on a games box covered with a folded blanket, and that felt better than the dining chair and cat carrier setup. Unfortunately I’ve got sore finger pads at the moment. Is there any solution to that, or do I just play a small amount a day until they toughen up?
In terms of getting a floor harp, if I do, if at all possible I should hold out until the next Edinburgh festival, which is the best part of a year, so that I can try them out properly once I am playing better and know more about what I need. I could focus more on the wire harp to begin with, in the meantime. Of course, there’s something to be said for learning on a good quality harp with a good range, and it seems that if it turned out harping wasn’t for me, selling it on wouldn’t be difficult. So if I wanted one sooner, Edinburgh seems to have a thriving harp community, so I could possibly try out local folks’ harps if they don’t mind. I’ve just been chatting with some lovely people at Telynau Teifi, who say that I could have one of their harps strung with silkgut or another synthetic string, and that they’ve done it for other vegetarian harpists before. Their Siff Saff looks rather lovely. I think I’d prefer a round back or stave back harp, the square boxy ones are uncomfortable, so that seems to rule out Dusty Strings. I’d also have a look at Starfish and Pilgrim, though Pilgrim seem to be more about making lever harps that are really close to pedal harps for people who want to “move up” (grr). I could be wrong about that, though. I don’t know how those harp makers would feel about stringing a harp with anything other than gut. How do people here find that silkgut and fluorocarbon feel and behave? I wasn’t wildly struck by the Camac harps, though that could have been due to poor posture (I was in my wheelchair, which probably meant the heights were all wrong), getting double vision, sensory overload from the crowd and so forth.
Yes, I use Musescore already.
The lever harp is here! It has 25 strings, going down to E below middle C, and is on the bigger side for a harp of that range. Definitely not a lap harp. I think it may have been quite cheap originally, and it’s been sitting in a sunny window. The levers are plastic and very bleached from the sun, and a bit iffy here and there. There’s a crack on each side of the soundbox, near the bottom. It’s a light wood, and the soundboard is sort of horizontally striped medium/dark. I tuned the whole harp using an app, and five minutes later had to tune it all over again. Bit worried about that. Is it likely to settle down?
Biagio – yes, the first thing Bill did was to get me to wiggle the wheelchair about until I was getting the best possible light from the window shining on the strings on the left side. I need light coming over my left shoulder for quilting too, so I should be able to do this that at home, at least if I can quilt with my feet up on the sofa. Failing that, you can usually smuggle in a clip-on spotlight somewhere.
Fied – interesting. I can’t remember my astigmatism, but generally I’m about -8, so I think it’s reasonably substantial. My partner said he was getting that effect a bit as well, and while he’s only just started wearing specs a few months ago, he said he was getting the double vision thing a bit as well. I was seeing two rows of strings at, hmm, perhaps a 40 degree angle to each other? Very confusing. Bear in mind that the Ardival only has 19 strings, so most of them are pretty high up. The double vision thing was coming and going. I do have a tendency for my vision to go funny when I’m on heavy pain meds, maybe it’s just a thing that I’m prone to. I also have been concerned about my peripheral vision in the past, although it came out OK in the standard test the local optician ran.
Anyway, I would hopefully learn to play by feel. Bill had me learning one piece where your fingers stayed parked on the same strings. I didn’t look at the strings at all for that, just at the music, and it was much easier. He also pointed out that there’s a long tradition of blind harpers, so evidently a lot of people have learned to work around this. I will definitely need to compartmentalise when it comes to the string spacing for the different harps, but I think that’s the kind of thing I’ll be OK at. The string spacing is certainly very close! Even with my small fingers, I was finding it tricky. Practice, I suppose. Just how long do your nails have to be to use them for wire harp? Long enough to clack on piano keys and generally get in the way?
I should probably mention that I am fairly broke, and getting TWO harps on loan from friends means that I am not planning to buy anything.
So, we’re back from the harp festival, cold, tired and happy! My partner exclaimed, “DULCIMER!” within seconds of getting to the exhibition. He wasn’t impressed once he tried it, but then fell in love with a bowed psaltery, bless him.
I really need to think about sensory overload and factor that in when I am guessing how exhausting a trip will be. It was noisy, crowded and the lighting was harsh. So that made it harder to get a feel for things. But generally I think I will be able to pick the lever harp up again, provided I get my positioning right. The lesson with Bill was an absolute delight, and it’s such a small wire harp that the weight and size were no problem. (Though I kept on hefting various lap harps people were selling which were allegedly 3kg, and saying, “No way is this as light as the cat!” Ah well, cats are mysterious creatures. I mean, it is theorised that they are actually liquids.) Bigger lap harps would probably not be the best for me, apart from possibly the 20 string “therapy harp” Morley are selling. But by that point I will already have a wire harp that size, so there’s no point, really. The wheelchair turned out to be ideal with the Ardival Kilcoy, I’m going to have trouble finding something as comfortable to play in at home. Bear in mind that I don’t use the wheelchair around my flat, just sometimes for trips outdoors.
I found my shoulder was aching when I was having a go on some 34 string lever harps at Camac, but I didn’t get that problem when trying pedal harps at Pilgrim, so I suspect that was a simple positioning issue.
The problem I didn’t expect is that I was getting double vision, worse with the wire harp. He’d put a bit of paint on the Cs and Fs, but it’s still not the same as the really visible ones on a nylon or gut harp, where the problem was less. I’m due for an eye test in a couple of weeks, I’ll ask my optometrist what’s up with getting double vision in my peripheral vision, and maybe email or ring my wonderful-but-retired eye specialist. I was seeing the strings crossed at a narrow angle, I think a bit like a cross-strung harp. I’m hoping it won’t be as bad at home, since the exhaustion and sensory overload will have probably been making my visual problems worse. ME eye problems are thought to be a blend of neurological and muscular. Anyway, that was rather a shock. Has anyone else experienced it? My partner said he was getting it a bit with some harps. He was having fun picking out the Jurassic Park theme!
So much for being notified of replies by email, I had no idea there were any! Thanks for the welcome, folks.
I don’t use the wheelchair indoors, just sometimes when I’m out.
Since writing this, two friends have offered to lend me their harps as they’re not playing them! Friend A has had three wrist fractures due to roller derby, so she has a 19 string Ardival wire-strung harp (the Kilcoy) sitting unused which she’s offering on long-term loan. Friends B and C have just had their second baby, and I’m guessing it’s their umpteenth instrument as C is a musician, so their harp is sitting unused at C’s parents’ house, not far away. This one is a 34 string nylon-strung lever harp. Right now the plan is to take that one first, see how I get on with it, and if I think I’ll be able to play the little wire harp, get that next time A’s parents (who live near me) are visiting her down south. (And then put the wire harp in my flat and the lever harp in my partner’s flat, as we split the week between our two flats.)
I’m booking myself a lesson in wire harping with Bill Taylor of Ardival at the festival, so that will hopefully give me more of an idea what you can do with it. Obviously I’d have to fit the repertoire to the harp, but hey, it sounds like an exciting challenge, and Ardival tell me there’s plenty of music. I’ve prepared a couple of songs to take along, and Bill tells me it’s fine to retune the Fs to F#s, so that puts them into a better key for my voice. Purcell’s A Prince of Glorious Race in E minor (bass line playable once it’s been moved up a bit, vocal line too chromatic for an unlevered harp but I’ll be singing that), which is seriously gorgeous and which I urge you to listen to, and the folk song The Water is Wide (just the melody, I have very vague recollections of a choral version at school) in D mixolydian. I’ll bring some other stuff too, I’d love to have a go at Fhir a Bhata and have that in E minor in one of my Scottish songbooks. Incidentally, my best friend is from the Western Isles, so if I take up the wire harp I will get her to teach me to sing in Gaelic!
In some ways this gives me the perfect combination, a bigger lever harp for a wider repertoire at home, and a really portable harp which I can play on the sofa or at the park or what have you. That said, Zan at Ardival cautioned against learning both at once since the technique is so different. I’ve a feeling I could cope, I remember learning C and F recorders at once some years ago and not being thrown, but I’ll see.
One issue with wire harp is that it’s traditionally played with the fingernails, and I have no intention of growing mine out. I can’t stand having long nails. Plus I am primarily a pianist and don’t want nails clicking on the keys. Some wire harpers use their fingerpads, I’ve read various discussions and it seems perfectly allowable. Indeed, someone compared it to using either a wooden mallet head or a wool-wrapped mallet head on a marimba, and having played the marimba for years, I definitely prefer the latter! (Actually, I don’t think people use hard mallets on marimba, that’s xylophone.) But I gather that if you play wire harp with your finger pads, you need regular, disciplined practice to get the calluses nicely built up and maintained, rather than sore or even blistered fingers, and I’m not going to be doing that sort of practice, I’m too ill. Are finger picks an option? If so, what sort? I’ll try to catch Ardival before they leave tomorrow and ask, since I have a music shop over the road. Being small will limit me there.
I’m going to have a look at various harps while I’m there anyway, you never know, but hopefully I can now save oodles of money and get TWO harps! And then see if I can find a teacher who won’t mind giving me sporadic lessons at my home with a pupil who won’t be practising much and will probably have to cancel quite a bit. Failing that, there are tutor books around.
Incidentally, how hard is it to find your way around a wire harp with unmarked Cs or Fs? I presume it clicks sooner or later, just like adjusting to a different string spacing?
