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Hi William,
I gathered from the description on his website that he has built x-harps in the past with levers on every string. They’re custom instruments apparently, so I guess it’s whatever configuration the customer needs.My Triplett Luna (wire harp) has a full set of sharping blades, so I can gliss in a lot of different keys as well. But your idea is interesting: if you had levers on the chromatic side of the x-harp, that would expand the range of scales you could use.
Hi Caroline,
I think you have answered my question for me – thanks! So if you had sharping blades or levers on a cross-strung, then you would be able to gliss in a different key. As to who the builder was that offered that option, I remembered that it was Mountain Glen harps… found it on his web page. It was puzzling to me at the time. Now I have that cleared up. Still not sure what the 6×6 layout looks like though.I don’t know Zep, I wouldn’t worry too much about your sacred jazz tune and people’s reaction to it. If you visit my website http://www.sherrimatthew.com you’ll see I do a lot with Gregorian Chant and I’ve gotten a lot of nice responses to my work. This started some years ago with my organ professor who had studied chant and encouraged me to pursue it, along with the harp and building my recording studio. He still listens to my work even today and gives encouragement and constructive feedback.
My husband is a church organist and while his background is primarily classical, he’s been exposed to a fair amount of CCM (contemporary Christian music) along the way and praise bands as well. If you’re good at jazz on the harp and you like sacred melodies too, maybe you’re onto something!
Hi Madeline,
I play organ. Used to play pipe organ in church, now play digitally sampled organ in my recording studio. Played piano (classical) prior to that. Would be interested in violin if I had some extra time.Hi Mia,
I guess people have to be friends first before they’re able to post something on your Music Stand. But they can respond to a blog posting, if that helps. Have you tried posting photos of your harps yet? You can do that here or on your bio page under Instruments.Hi Deb,
Harp looks a bit like a painting of an Egan harp with ditals. Wonder what it was like to play one of those (and if any are still around).Irish step dancing would be cool. My husband and I went to see Riverdance when we were in Ireland in 2008. It was a great show except they had the volume up too loud. Fortunately I had my earplugs with me in my purse, so that trimmed it a bit.
Hi Angela,
If you ever want any help getting a recording studio started, seriously (I did mine on a fixed budget over a period of time and stuck to it) I’ll be more than glad to help you. I bought all used equipment and only what I absolutely needed, no sales people involved. Just email me. And if you want help learning to mix and edit, it’s not that bad either. People think it sounds scary, but you learn to play harp, you learn to use your computer, so you can learn to do that too. There’s a learning curve with everything in life! 🙂
My husband is a church organist (professional) and yes, he’s been treated badly over the years. He’s got a nice church now and they love him and treat him well, but he’s got the scars to show for the past. 10 years ago I was a church organist too and that’s why I quit playing live. I had some really nasty experiences and a lot of it had to do with the fact that I was nervous. So I didn’t play well, then people felt the need to come up to me afterwards, let me know in a vicious way, and then I’d be even more nervous the next Sunday. I finally quit playing live altogether. Best thing I ever did for my music. But I greatly admire and respect those musicians who can get out there and play and perform before a live audience, because I sure can’t.
By the way, when I’ve posted my music online, I’ve gotten some pretty nice responses from people. Nice compliments from total strangers halfway around the world. Emails, text messages…. so it makes the work pretty gratifying. You’re still sharing your music, but this time with a global audience. I really enjoy it. Sometimes I get a little tired after working on something for a while and then after uploading it, getting a good response gives me some energy to go work on the next one. So you might be interested in sharing your music that way.
Hi there Katie and Jessica,
No, never tried playing one! Would sure like to though. Maybe some harp builder out there will see my post and start thinking about experimenting with removable bray clips. I would like to try something like that out on my wire harp and see what happens. I think bray harps were always strung with gut though, so I don’t know what would happen if you paired bray pins with wire. My soundboard (and entire harp body) is heavier to deal with the wire tension, but pictures I’ve seen of Gothic bray harps appear more delicate in construction compared to mine.One of these days I’d like to try out a cross-strung.
Jessica, my wire harp has copper-phospher bronze strings all throughout and my C’s and F’s in the bass are wound (and color-coded). I don’t know what type of harp you have (pedal, lever) but Triplett has these strings available if you call them. I broke my lowest E string on my Luna recently (wound string) and got a replacement from them. They come with metal toggles already attached.
Hi Katie,
I like the sound of bray harps too. Have you ever tried playing one?I’ve wondered on another post about the possibility of removable bray pins…. maybe a harp builder could make them, so you could retrofit your existing harp quickly and turn it into a bray harp. Something that would fit into the string holes, maybe with a spring-type clip. Then when you need it to be a regular harp just take them back out again. I don’t know if that would work or not.
Neat! Plugs into an amp so you can do whatever you want? What kind of strings? I take it they’re metal? Does it have levers of any kind?
Hi William,
Can’t remember where I saw that. But pretty sure it was a cross-strung.Have you ever played a 6×6? Are the strings colored coded like regular harps – red c’s, blue f’s?
Also,, how close do you play to the crossing intersection?
Hi Aaron and William,
My question for both of you is, I have seen cross-strung harps offered with sharping levers (or blades) on them. What is the advantage of this, if the instrument is already chromatic?
Also, can you explain for me the 6×6 arrangement? I understand 5×7 is supposed to emulate the black and white keys on the piano, but what is the half-tone, whole-tone relationship with this scale? And why would some harps be strung this way? Easier to play, different repertoire?
I’ve always been interested in these type of harps but never had access to one.
