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If you buy new, you take a hit on the second hand value as soon as it leaves the showroom. If you buy second hand you are more likely to be able to sell it again for what you paid. Of course you aren’t planning to sell soon, but I really value having changed instruments as I matured as a musician and my instrument preferences changed.
Older harps need to be assessed as individuals – some are great, and some aren’t – but if you are able and willing to hunt out a good one there are some great bargains. As said, getting a technician’s opinion is very worth while.
I plucked a few strings on one once. It didn’t sound or feel under the fingers like an historical harp, but did have a nice pointy shape.
I suggest you look at the people who move fine furniture around. A good way to find these is to look at who the midrange auction houses near to the harp’s current location recommend. Piano movers could probably do this without trouble too .
For packing, I received, and sent, a pedal harp in a big cardboard box.
I assume she has been playing it since 2008? Do you know what care it got when it was first dried out?
I don’t have experience of motherhood, but am a positive expert when it comes to not practicing!
I have always progressed by stops and starts, and when I return to practice things do come back very rapidly and sometimes things even get better when I haven’t been practicing them. If you want to force yourself to practice do just that – but don’t set unreasonable goals and set yourself up for failure. Schedule a time everyday and stick to it, even if it is only 10 minutes. If you want to use the metronome can you leave it out?
I also suggest you make a point to keep listening to harp music.
For science with equations try the chapter by Chris Waltham in Rossing’s Science of String Instruments. There are some things I think are relevant which need to be pulled in from other instruments still. I have been writing a version with more demonstrations to try out on harps but it is very far from finished.
Sorry I was confusing, Saul – when I talked about reflection I was thinking of the sound distribution from a harp and whether it needs to face the audience.
Renting a pedal harp as a trial is one option, but I don’t see it as necessary to have a pedal harp of your own to get to know how it would work out – giving lessons on one is one way of doing this. I have never rented a pedal harp, but the costs, long or short term, look high to me and some have rather long waiting lists.
You just wait until your first wire breaks on you – cowering under the table for sure.
And yes, get a thermo-hygro, I advise one with some sort of recording or max/min so you can get an idea of whats happening overnight too.
The students you expect to have problems with pedal changes would probably also have difficulties with lever changes, and diatonic music can be played on either instrument. They probably wouldn’t be using either a pedal or lever harp to its full capabilities, but if they want one its their choice. There are cheaper harps which wouldn’t limit their musical development, which merits mentioning, but that doesn’t mean the big gilded one won’t give them more pleasure. Just like all the snazzy cars out there that don’t get people from a to b any better than cheap ones, but the owners like them.
For the students you think would really benefit from pedals I would suggest not inflicting surprises – mention or discuss them early, but there is far more good material for lever harp than there used to be.
Renting isn’t always the cheapest financial choice, if the student can buy a harp without VAT through the school system, or 2nd hand, they can generally sell it for what they paid however long they keep it, which needs to be balanced against renting long term.
Some harps are painted, sometimes ‘bronzed’ rather than gold, but the gold standard (sorry) is water gilding, or a mixture of water and oil gilding. I estimate around 3g of gold in total, though it will have gesso etc underneath. Picture frame technology.
The usual rule of thumb is that sound waves are reflected by things which are the same size as the wavelength of the sound, or larger. So I wouldn’t expect soundwaves below about 2000 hz (17cm wavelength) to be affected much by passing the column, carved or uncarved.
I am ready to revise my expectations to a nice controlled experiment, which would be simple enough to plan, but the logistics of carrying it out would require rather a lot of harps.
Several of them are not what I would expect from my understanding of physics – has anyone done a controlled trial or blind testing?
When I visited the L&H factory and asked if they expected the gilt ones to sound any better I was told no, which is a surprising answer from the people selling the things if they do sound different.
The modern usual standard is for the score to reflect what the harpist will need to do, enharmonics are written as played.
This was treated differently in some schools of harp writing – Marcel Tournier for instance wrote the theory spelling.
