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It’s rare that I start with a particular rhyming scheme, or any kind of idea at all for how to write a poem.
Mostly I just write the words as they come to me.
This one is “True Love True Loss”:
He may not have meant me to take it the way I did
Robin Williams once said that true loss is only possible if you love something more than you love yourself
Loss is unnatural — as people, we are not to lose
We were never supposed to lose anything
We are to know no feeling of lossWe love and we do so in abundance
In surplus even
And ultimately we are to love ourselves supremelyWe are the apple of our own eye
the object of our own affections
the auto-pursuit of our own searing desiresAs we love ourselves supremely, beyond all measure
beyond reasonable doubt and beyond doubt unreasonable
then how on earth could we ever love anything in excess of this?For you see, true loss is only possible if you love something more than you love yourself
If you truly love yourself, then truly you have nothing to lose
I’ve delved into the mathematics of music before, for example the use of the twelfth root to calculate the distance between frets on a guitar (and how the frets get narrower as you move up).
I read the String Theory article on the Sligo Harps website just now. An interesting read. Unless I’m looking to build my own harp though, I don’t need nearly that much knowledge. More so, I just need basic instructions on any particular harp such as:
This 36-string lever harp is designed for 25 nylon strings (density = 1050 ± 100) and 11 nylon-core-with-nickle-winding strings (density = 1450 ± 135). Any string may be over-tightened by a maximum of 4 semitones (i.e. one third of an octave). If you put heavier or lighter strings on this harp then this figure of 4 semitones can be adjusted according to the string weight.
[quote]I’ve been known to take FC in the lower mid up a full step on a high tension harp. That definitely shortened the time for it to hold tune.[/quote]
Do you mean ‘lengthened’ instead of ‘shortened’ there?
[quote] If I’m replacing one nylon string, I’ll tune it up a major third to try to stretch it out quicker.[/quote]
That’s 4 semitones. That’s 33% tighter.
When I said she doesn’t care, I mean it isn’t of concern to her that I put the new strings on. They’re nylon core.
I’ve attached a photograph of my harp I took about 5mins ago.
[quote]You put metal wound guitar strings on the lowest strings as you did not like the original ones[/quote]
A nylon core with a bright nickel winding. (Designed for lower tension for higher tone).
The originals were all dark coloured and sounded dull. They were so dark I couldn’t tell the C’s and F’s.
[quote]and used permanent marker for the C and F strings[/quote]
Right. The C’s are nice and bright, and it doesn’t come off on my fingers.
[quote]and now you tuned the 5 lowest strings each a semi tone higher than they were meant to be.[/quote]
One semitone is one twelfth more tension. So that’s about 8% tighter.
[Quote]Did you ever wonder whether all this extra tension could harm the harp you rented?[/quote]
You mean putting on nylon-with-nickel-winding strings and making them 8% tighter?
I don’t know how much tighter you have to go before the frame warps or snaps.
[quote]Guess what the owner of the harp you rented will tell you when she finds out what you have been doing?[/quote]
She knows already. She doesn’t care. It wasn’t in great nick when she gave it to me. With that said though, one less person can learn the harp if it breaks — that would be bad.
I use permanent markers to colour my strings. For example, I put new bass strings on my harp about two weeks ago, and so I just bought all white strings, and then I used a red marker to colour the C’s and a black marker to colour the F’s.
If I were you, I would:
(1) Put all white strings on my harp
(2) Use a set of different colour markers to colour the strings
