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What I mean by dull is the reduced presence of overtones, and the shortened sustaining of the note. Nylons can sound tinny, and it can be frustrating, but a lot of that has to do with how hard the surface of your skin is.
Honestly, Briggsie. Lyon & Healy set the standard for the ideal harp tone many, many decades ago. More so than Wurlitzer. Camacs are made with plastic components or ingredients, and it shows in their tone. What do you know about it? I have no problem with other companies making harps, I have a problem with lowering standards. Something too many people don’t care about. There is no comparison between a 23 and a Camac, based on what I’ve heard live and on recordings. Camacs are fine, up to a point. But they certainly don’t look as good to me, either. Sorry if my entitlement to a considered opinion bugs you. I am a highly trained professional, so I feel I’ve earned it. Or at least was trained for it. Who are you?
It must have been another thread, but I said, use a vaporizer or two. In a large room, their warm vapor won’t have any ill effect, but will humidify without needing expensive supplies or labor. I found Hunter’s to be crap, requiring replacement wicks, extensive cleaning, additional supplies, just ridiculous, and noisy. Vaporizers are nearly silent.
I’m sorry to hear that. The best ones always seem to come to an end. Maria Pinckney once made a brochure for a dolly that was simply a pair of small bicycle wheels connected by a small tray for the rear feet only and a clamp to go over the feet to hold it on. You would simply tilt the harp back and roll it. That is the simplest approach. I have an old dolly made by Wayne Barrington that was similar, but had a wooden tray and was a little heavier. Maria’s husband apparently never made any of them. It was called Harp-On-It. Maybe some of the St. Louis harpists will know more about it.
At the time I had no idea how to play a chord such as e-c-e-a. Now I know to leave out the upper e and use 124. I also couldn’t reach a sixth between 4 and 3 then, now I can.
But Chris, what levels do you set it for? That is the tricky thing, and impossible to do if you are by yourself, because you can’t see the meter.
The types of excerpts I am using or thinking of do cover the range of the harp and thoroughly teach note patterns. Starting practice by playing a piece through has been, for me, a very bad habit. Reading through a piece is not good for the brain or the fingers. It is very simple what I do, take one exercise, as I’ve said before, something like one of Salzedo’s Conditioning Exercises, particuarly numbers 1, 7,8,9,10 and do it in four to six tempi. For note patterns, you can’t really beat LaRiviere for covering nearly all possible patterns. Etudes DO NOT do that. They emphasize the right hand over the left. They result in very uneven development and I suspect over-development of the short muscles and muscle fibers resulting in stiff hands and a lot of mental control but not very good sound. I hear this consistently from most European players. I think you are just wrong on this, Carl, especially in pushing Bochsa so much. His etudes can be re-written to be more useful, but they are really useless as is. So are Dizi. There are far better ways to use one’s time. Parts are far better for developing strength. What is really important is to learn to create comprehensive exercises for one’s self based on what one encounters in a piece or part. For example, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture has a famous solo of descending chords. You can practice that as is endlessly, but you can also do other chords on the same pattern, or other inversions, and all of those in at least four tempi. Etudes will not teach you that.
Symphonie Fantastique is fantastic as a source of exercises. Virtually every phrase suggests (and requires) a new exercise. Eventually, I should be able to share/publish these for your-all’s use. Right now, I have some other huge projects to finish. I accept commissions, however, which go to the top of the pile.
Well, I have entirely given up on humidifiers. What used to be a reliable brand, Bionaire, was bought up and ruined. Anything they put out now requires a ridiculous amount of maintenance and the constant purchasing of additional products to keep it from getting moldy or otherwise contaminated.
My solution has been to use a vaporizer. They require minimal maintenance, and in a large high-ceilinged room like my studio, there is no hazard from warm vapor. After a couple of days, it has raised the humidity enough to help.
Sponges get dirty, so I would prefer to hang up wet towels and let them dry.
What is the price? I’m not too impressed by the tires, they look too small for stairs. I think the Harp Porter may be lighter than six pounds, or is about the same. I like a cart where you hold the harp, mainly.
I don’t know, because, like you say, it is so complicated. That’s why I bought a reel-to-reel tape recorder and fixed my cassette recorder. The only problems with them is finding enough tape.
I mean most of the auditions here since the early 1990s have had enormous repertoire lists plus concerti and solos. Orchestras seem to use audition lists to pump their institutional egos and show how important they are no matter where they may be located. San Diego, for example, had a quite hefty list.
I believe I played the Overture to Colas Breugnon in Avery Fisher Hall, with the Chautauqua Festival Orchestra, but I have pretty much blocked it, because I didn’t get to do Capriccio Espagnol. All I remember is playing a few glisses. Not a nice conductor, that was. Great orchestra, though.
Bucky the Turtle and Sam the Clam
There once were two friends by the names of Bucky and Sam. But they weren’t ordinary friends, being that one was a turtle, and the other a clam. If you can’t figure out which is which, refer to the title of the story. Well, one day Bucky the Turtle and Sam the Clam were doing one of their favorite activities, which is to play in traffic. One can imagine how dangerous this is, considering the locomotive skills of the respective species of turtle and clam. But let’s be honest, that’s why Bucky and Sam loved it! Well, one day Bucky and Sam were playing in traffic, and along came a semi, which has remarkably better locomotion skills than either turtle or clam, so it crushed them. Very sad.
Bucky the Turtle took the express elevator to heaven, being an all around great guy. However, Sam the Clam wasn’t as upstanding of an animal citizen. He could be pretty nasty at times. He had one major character flaw: Sam Clam was a little shellfish (rim shot). So, when Bucky got to the pearly gates of Heaven, he looked around, and he was a little surprised to not see his bud Sam. Ok, he wasn’t that surprised, he knew Sam pretty well, and had to be at least pretend to expect him. On his way in, Bucky confirmed it with Saint Peter, his pal Sam was in the Other Place.
Bucky couldn’t find much to occupy his time in Heaven, having always looked to Sam for such things. So Bucky the Turtle sat around and moped. But not for too long, cuz he’s a positive thinking kind of turtle. Eventually, Bucky the Turtle decided to do what everyone else does in heaven: play the Harp. So, he got himself a beautiful golden harp and began to play it all day, and all night (kind of, this is Heaven after all). Since Bucky couldn’t think of anything else he wanted to do, all he did was play his harp. This went on for eons. Eventually, he got so good at it, he recieved the Command Performance of all command performances: he was asked to play before God.
So Bucky took up his little golden harp and went before the big guy and began to play like he’d never played before (if you don’t appreciate how difficult this is for our hero Bucky, I
