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I believe that anyone who can repair a Lyon & Healy harp can repair a Venus harp, more or less, anyway.
There’s also recreational music, such as playing for children or seniors, not sure what job title that gets, or what training, if any.
For most harpists, you do not want to go beyond a tenth in total, or a fifth between 4 and 3. But it depends on the total spacing of a chord and if it is broken (as usual) or flat (exceptional). A chord of all 4ths is possible, or all fifths, when broken. Vaughan-Williams wrote many chords with a sixth on the bottom, c-a-c-f, but one would omit the doubled note and play c-a-f 421. Some harpists can do it comfortably. Many cannot.
Music Education is probably still the most practical choice. Another option might be studio engineering, but that probably requires a lot of investment in equipment. I wish I had learned plumbing to pay the bills. Many working-class semi-skilled or skilled jobs pay much better and maybe some can be done part-time. But you don’t have to worry about that so much until senior year.
I would never consider a Camac harp as they are musically inadequate for certain requirements, such as responding to a sudden accent or change in dynamics. They ring a lot, but you have less control of it, and there is a plastic quality to it, as the columns are not wood, but carbon fiber (synthetic material).
Therefore, you would have to play music with a lot of sudden contrasts. But the main thing is to play a scale and see if the tone is even from top to bottom, that it resonates freely, and there are lots of overtones; the other factor is, how responsive is it to your touch? Does it speak clearly, or in a fuzzy way? I think it should be very responsive, very even, very reverberant but not overly so, and very clear. Some harps now seem to have too much bass and the bass strings won’t stop ringing beyond normal, which becomes a noticable problem, requiring frequent muffling. I think the LH Style 100 is your best option. It can last a lifetime, if needed.Or you can buy a second-hand harp, which may turn out to be the better deal, as the older models all had a proper glossy finish and were extremely well built since the 1990s.
It’s never too much if the harps are fine enough to warrant it. Everything has gone up tremendously recently. At least a 30 or 100 is still a viable alternative, I hope. I’m more concerned with the large turnover of staff they have had recently.
Do what fits your hand. It doesn’t matter how it was done in ancient times, you’re the one who’s going to play it, and you are probably a good size bigger than they were.
I would think this would be considered a trade secret. You can look at the patents for Wurlitzer harps, which are public domain, I believe, and are copies of early Lyon & Healy harps.
I suspect there are a lot more jobs for music therapists. You might also consider music education. I have a colleague who went that route, taught kindergarten-level music, and had a full career in addition. It also depends on which school you go to and what they offer. You don’t really have to decide until at least your junior year of college. Start as a music major and see how that develops. You can then add therapy or education to it, or in graduate school. I think education will pay more than therapy. I don’t think there are very many jobs in therapeutic harp, it depends on the area.
I am not particularly pleased by the Suzuki books. I think the best pedagogy is Lawrence/Salzedo. The ABC of Harp Playing, Pathfinder Studies, the Method for the Harp, and the Art of Modulating. By the time you complete those, which should not take more than four years, you are an adept harpist, at least an upper Intermediate player. It’s meant to be very economical and efficient, rather than taking many years to get anywhere. After that, the training comes from repertoire.
The other way is to apprentice to a harp technician, or a harpist such as Richard Turner, who is expert at regulation. The question is, where do you live, and why aren’t any technicians visiting? I live in a major city, yet only one technician ever comes here, and he is limited in what he does.
You can always borrow notes from one hand to the other. It’s the simplest solution to many passages. Do not be flummoxed by how the notes are written on the page. It is rare that they are written in the most-playable fashion. If you want to know more, book a lesson with me.
Relax! Go slower. Practice more and practice better. Break everything down into the smallest possible step. Take great care when placing. Your pinky should always be relaxed. All your fingers should be relaxed. If you are tense, then you don’t know what you are doing well enough. Drill every bar or beat ten times or more every day until it feels natural. Make sure you understand finger and hand position, and finger movement.
