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Who you study with is going to be the most-critical factor in your future as a harpist. How old are you, and are you trying to become professional, or just play for pleasure? Unless you plan on playing rock music, I would never consider an electric harp.
It’s more important to learn healthy technique on strings that are not over-resistant. I had to practice for a week on a harp with Savarez strings, and by the end of the week, my hands felt very strained by it. They are noticeably tighter. They sound well enough, but don’t ring as much. I have tried gut and nylon, and much prefer nylon, though it is far from perfect.
I’m sure you can find many examples looking through published music. Again, inconsistent placement is distracting, messy and in my eyes, unprofessional. Stick with one or the other. Point size varies with different fonts so you might look for a font where 12-point is more legible and suggest a font change instead of point-size change. Other harpists have published with Carl Fischer.
Nylon strings are by far the softest and most flexible, and most apropos in your condition. You should avoid carbon-fiber type strings, and gut strings above the fourth octave.
Ask a harpist who has played it for a look at their book. It is large. Some parts are very tricky to learn. There are two versions, the old and the new. You also need to know if you will be playing claves or not.
Yes, we need slurs for phrasing, though some have wanted to do away with them. It affects how we play. But they should not obscure fingerings or pedal markings.
Such engravers as you describe sound incompetent. No one has used arc shapes that I can think of. “L.V.” is only needed where there is a pause, rest or at the end of a piece where it is not desirable to muffle the strings. Consult responsibly produced harp music, or contact me directly.Inconsistent placement of pedal markings is messy and very annoying. They should either be between the staves or below, one or the other, and be consistent. If between the staves, then you have to have extra room to allow for the dynamics and other expressive markings so it is not cluttered. But that separates the hands too much. The worst is when they’re above the system, which makes no sense to me at all, unless you’re playing lever harp.
As for Carl Fischer, did you perhaps show them some previous publications they did for harp with better printing style?I have some ideas for the ideal, stair-climbing cart, but finding someone to actually design and make it is not easy. Cindy Schultz’s father made the best one, though they are heavy, but they have long been unavailable. They had a friction skid on the back that made it safe on stairs.
I used to use my trunk, the only problem was I couldn’t see around it and it didn’t roll in a straight line very well.
My first dolly was made by Wayne Barrington, was just a wooden shelf with wheels and a strap to go around the base. It worked well, but the buckle chewed up a foot, and it might have made a lot of wear on the base. Maria Muribus’s husband made one with clip-on wheels that clipped over the feet, very nice looking. I don’t know how many he made. My teacher always liked those where you kept a hand on the harp, for safety’s sake.I think it’s an awful choice to play on the harp. It’s such a fine masterwork for organ. A harp can never produce those thundering sounds. Even an orchestra doesn’t compare. It seems like young harpists want to make a splash by playing the most unlikely music they can find, and that is unfortunate. There is so much great original music for harp not getting played, and there are many works suitable for transcribing, just not a lot of J. S. Bach. To think you can’t have a great program without Bach on it seems off. And how many people have played Dewey Owens’s masterful transcription of the Chaconne? The Italian Concerto is another one that almost seems to work, but there are a couple of notes in the slow movement that cannot be played, so why not play the more-difficult and wonderful Sonata by C. P. E. Bach instead?
Leave it be as long as you can play on it. That may be a surface crack on the neck. You can check its depth with a pin, perhaps, or piece of paper. Cracks can be repaired with glues or bolts. A board pulling up only affects the regulation, and a master regulator should be able to compensate for that. It used to be assumed that sounding boards have to be replaced over time, but too many harps sound perfectly fine without doing that.
The Hamilton music stand is much sturdier than the Manhasset and can hold any weight of music. After a time, Manhassets lose their grip and you cannot fill the desk with music without it sliding down. The paint also chips off and gets marred. They are lighter. The Hamilton also fits very well around the pedals of the harp, I can get it closer in.
My favorite is a wooden stand made by Lyon & Healy in the 1980s to go with the Salzedo model. It is not the strongest, but the wood is beautiful.
