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Gretchen, Silent night is such a pretty piece, but every Christmas Eve service I’ve ever done it has always been the last piece of the service. Have you considered What Child Is This or Still Still Still?
“Concedo” strings from Bow Brand are sold at Lyon and Healy West, I don’t know what type of pedal harp you have but I added up the cost for strings from 1rst oct E down to 5th oct A. Without tax and shipping the cost is $435.14
Florescent lights come in all shapes and sizes these days but if the lightbulb is “curly” then if definitely is florescent. I don’t know why you are asking if they have a tint to them (baby pink or blue). GE makes a line of lightbulbs called “Reveal” that have this tint to the bulb, it helps to enhance colors but I don’t think this will help you in this case. Stick to “bright White”. Florescent lights do burn hot, though not as hot as incandescent light bulbs. If you want a lightbulb that doesn’t get hot then you should look for LED bulbs and again, for work purposes choose bright white. I will warn you, LED bulbs are expensive, a bulb equivalent to 100 watts will cost about $20 at Home Depot, but they are cool to the touch!As long as you can see a difference between the clear strings and the colored strings is a good thing. Maybe start to identify the way that pianists do for reference. When glancing at the piano, you see a pattern of two and three (these are the black keys). There are 3 clear strings between F and C and two clear strings between C and F. There are many ways to find the correct string as you will soon learn. Another good way is by training your ear to identify pitch.
I play my harp every day and don’t leave it covered. The only times I have covered it is when I go away on vacation. I do DUST it regularly. I POLISH once a year year with L&H harp polish. Salvi makes a polish as well. Don’t over polish your harp, it’s bad for the finish….
Because it gets such a positive effect from listeners and it fits easily under the fingers, Penny Beavers arrangement of “Theme From Somewhere In Time” is my favorite show off piece.
I love love LOVE Sylvia’s advice! Also pick up a book titled “Power Performance.” We all crash and burn but reading this book (written by a harpist) really helped me to understand why I would get flustered. Please don’t stop playing!
Karren has the gist of the story above. This all happened because of Mad Cow Disease (MCD) in Europe. Bow Brand had a contract with intestine (gut) suppliers that the age of the cow should be “X” years of age. With MCD, it became law that cows going to slaughter had to be “X” years of age, so some genius took this clause out of Bow Brands contract because they felt it was redundant to have this in the contract when it was the law! But when MCD cleared up (I think it was a 10 year period) they were free to use younger cows as well as older cows. No one told Bow Brand about this change. It took a while for them to figure out what was going on. It was social media like Harp Column and harp groups on Facebook that got the attention of harp techs to start looking in to this matter. The issue is now resolved at Bow Brand but there are still bad strings out there that need to be replaced. I really wish that I could remember what year Harp Doc told me this started. Maybe he will see this post and fill in the many gaps that I know are still in this story but at least we can all be assured that gut strings leaving Bow Brand today are up to par again.
I was always taught, buy a new set of strings and put them on right away. Back ups are “back ups.” This really worked in my favor with the bad batch of strings. L&H guarantees strings for two weeks (or maybe more, don’t really remember). They not only kept replacing the 5th oct E but any of the other strings that had broke. They even replaced a few strings that I pointed out “looked like seconds.” When all this was happening, I emailed the Harp Doc. He wrote back that this matter was being looked in to. When he arrived in Dallas last month to do regulations he told me the story of what had happened with Bow Brand and their gut supplier. It was an amazing story and I’m glad that I spoke up and got an answer, it’s restored my faith in Bow Brand. But I still would like to try out Savarez gut strings.
I restrung with Bow Brand back in January (newly ordered strings); had to replace 5th Oct E 6 times. This first one broke after 48 hours and the following 5 all broke within a week. If you think upper octaves are scary when they break, then you’ll really freak when a 5th oct breaks! I’m still a little tense when tuning as I still grit my teeth while tuning. Bow Brad has solved the issue with the breaking gut strings now so anyone ordering new ones should be safe. I did once have a new 7nth oct E break on my while pulling it up to pitch. That one really sounded like gun fire! But it didn’t come apart… the wire windings just gave. It was a rare faulty wire. Made me wonder, what if this would have happened at church where the harp s amplified? Bet folks in the congregation would have fallen on the floor for cover! LOL
I really don’t think about breaking strings so much but it’s obvious that subconsciously the thought is there.Joining a community orchestra really propelled me forward as a harpist. My teacher was a little unsure when I approached her with my plan of taking the challenge of this role. But when she saw how excited I was about this she perked up and said, okay let’s go for it. Playing with a group is challenging as it is fun, so I definitely think this is something you should discuss with your teacher. Understand that most community orchestras have to pay for a harpist because most of the harp community will not do volunteer work. I was snubbed by a few harpists because what I started doing for free was once a little extra gig for them. Too bad that so many students aren’t offered positions like this so GOOD FOR YOU!
As for picking music for this group; there is probably a board of directors that have approved the years program already leaving small gaps to fill in here or there. Just want you to be aware of that. I eventually got on such board and made my way in to the artistic comity that goes over the music and presents it to the board to be voted on. Sounds like fun but it was very tiring work. But, it opened my eyes to how an orchestra works. Have fun!Yes Kara, I’m a hairdresser by trade and a lot of hair products have “silicone”, I think this is what you were meaning instead of silicates? If I can go 4 days or more without using products with this ingredient, squeaking stops for me. If I can’t avoid these products before a performance, using a soft nail file (the kind that manicurists use to remove ridges from the nail bed) on my fingers followed by good quality hand lotion (silicone free)does the trick.
As for Nair. That is sodium hydroxide. That is the active ingredient for hair relaxers (yes, leave that relaxer on too ling and your hair falls out!) Its also the main ingredient for Easy Off Oven Cleaner (yes, leave it on even longer and you’ll burn your skin!) Don’t use Nair to clean your hands.I had this trouble with the G pedal years ago with my 23. It felt as if I had to come up off the bench to lock it in place. I finally had a harp technician adjust this during a regulation. It may have been the pedal spring that was the culprit (Can’t remember if I was even present when he did it). He was somewhat reluctant to do this as the pedals need to feel uniform and overdoing this job could ruin that. Please don’t attempt this adjustment yourself!
As for playing barefoot, please don’t. It’s not a good habit and you will find later that there are pieces that you can’t play with shoes on. Yes, it’s cute but it looks unprofessional in a gig (like a string player that has to chew gum.)
