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If you don’t need any of your other base strings, especially below this string (not sure if you are talking about 7th C or not) you could try muffling them with a bit of cloth, especially those with a lot of shared harmonics with the string in question. This would of course change the resonance of the rest of the harp too.
Depending on the piece and key is moving all the pedals down a notch an option?
I think the price is in Canadian dollars, which makes it look potentially attractive to me. Of course, second hand harp prices do vary a lot with area and I don’t know the market around you, but buying cross border can get expensive with taxes so looking locally is an advantage.
A lot of makers of harps, and for that matter pianos, do tend to use polyurethane or modern lacquers. In many ways our instruments are furniture. However, french polish has also been used a lot on harps and I would expect harp makers who also repair antiques to be familiar with its use, or have a french polisher they work with.
I am not surprised at luthiers not wanting to work with wood that someone else selected – who would be responsible if it didn’t work out well?
Is there a reason you can’t ask the seller to tune it, repeatedly, and give you a call to try it once it is holding tune? I once bought a neglected harp which took a month of more than daily tuning before it would behave and hold tune, so it can happen, but equally it could be a harp with issues. No one can tell from your description.
One good way to start is by word of mouth – if other teachers and harpists in the area are happy to pass students to you that is a reassuring vote of confidence for both you and the student.
This reading list may give you some ideas – teaching starts on page 21 but the general lists may be useful too http://us.abrsm.org/fileadmin/user_upload/diplomas/readingList2009.pdf but don’t confine yourself to harp books, or even music books. Other pedagogy publications and practices will have relevant and pinchable ideas. I have found some very interesting cross-overs with sports and academic teaching.
What do you think of these Bochsa ones?
http://imslp.org/wiki/50_le%C3%A7ons_progressives_pour_la_harpe_%28Bochsa,_Nicholas_Charles%29
Just to clarify Balfour, I don’t feel in any danger of overbalancing or being squished by my CG so long as I have a bench at my preferred height and I am a couple of inches shorter than you. Whatever harp I am playing I am pretty fussy about seat height.
It is an office chair without the back which I tweaked (mainly stopped it rolling around on castors) inspired by these: http://www.concertdesign.com/chairstechinfo.html
The thing that stands out for me is that you are leaning back for balance when you move both feet which is something I have never noticed a need to do. I wonder if sitting a bit further back on your seat would make you more stable when you wave your feet around?
My lovely seat slopes forward so I can have it high and not need to sit at the very edge and have all the leg motion I want.
There is a piano and flute arrangement on petrucci – is the part similar enough you could use that and just make any necessary changes?
I had a somewhat similar experience at around your daughter’s age. I wanted to play harp but my parents, practical people who knew harps are big and expensive, signed me up for flute lessons at nine. For the first couple of terms I enjoyed these and then had a change of teacher and didn’t get on with lessons so much after that. I would genuinely forget my flute that day or to leave class for the lesson. At 11 I won my point and changed to harp lessons. Looking back later, I realised that the second flute teacher was too much of a perfectionist for me at that time and maybe with a different teacher I would have stuck with the flute. (I had played the right notes in the right order, what more could he possibly want?)
I don’t feel regret either that I changed instruments or that I didn’t start harp at nine. I was still learning music. I also don’t think my harp teacher was any less of a perfectionist than the flute teacher, but I was older by then and really wanted to play harp. Perhaps it would be worth discussing with your daughter learning music on piano for a bit longer and coming back to the harp later or that if she ever wants a break she could restart lessons again later.
You might also talk with her about how different people teach (just look at sport coaches).
There is a cynical definition of practice: playing something wrong repeatedly while praying it goes right on the night. Avoid this!
Know what you are aiming to achieve – if you aren’t sure exactly how to do something spend your time working out how to do it rather than repeating something you suspect isn’t right and embedding bad habits.
20 minutes a day is generally more productive than 2 hours once a week. Keep coming back to things as that gives you more practice at getting them right first time.
It usually takes around six weeks of conscious thought before a muscle movement will become habit.
While for the nuances of how to play a solo on the harp it is easiest to go to a harp teacher, at the end of the day this is music. Do you have any good local orchestras which hold open rehearsals? Why is the conductor asking for what he does? Or join a choir that is good enough to concentrate on details rather than note learning.
You may already be doing this, but find the score of a piece and follow it as you listen to lots of recordings. What different choices have the performers made? Why do you like some better than others? If you could pick and mix a bit from each what would you choose? How is the transcription to another instrument different?
And as Alyson says, don’t be surprised that you play worse in lessons, even on your own harp.
I think that it is a good idea to have some lessons on your own harp. Work on tone colour and posture in particular benefit and also polishing before a performance. It is also good to be able to play on different harps and part of the reason for starting with warm ups and exercises is getting used to the instrument you are playing today.
Why not ask your teacher if you could bring your own harp sometimes? If you aren’t yet used to a fast in-out with a pedal harp you could also ask about trying a longer lesson time when you bring yours.
