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Biagio, may I ask how much physics you have studied? I am wondering if my point is too subtle in distinguising between a rule of thumb and the appropriate physical quantity. I might for instance say to stay your car length from a particular cliff edge – which could be a good rule of thumb. The point I am making is along the lines of if you go away and buy a really short Smart car the cliff doesn’t get safer – because the rule of thumb was related to a car length being conveniently known, not an intrinsic property of your car.
The breaking point is relevant when we are breaking strings, so for calculating maximum string length for a given pitch. Well below this tension the breaking point is just a conveniently known constant for generating a rule of thumb for the lower limit of sounding OK.
You don’t get my point Biagio – you gave a rule of thumb for considering a string’s length and pitch. You did not provide any support for choosing the absolute strength of the string as a normalising constant especially when changing between materials. If I doctored a string to be weaker without changing its mass or elasticity would the sound change?
I am unconvinced by the percentage of tensile strength being a fundamentally relevant metric or of more than serendipitous relevance when swapping between similar materials: a way of normalising tension for cross sectional area. You aren’t breaking the strings, gut is in its elastic region and nylon creeps a bit but is pretty near elastic and you are far from the failure point.
I would go with a needle file, hand reamer or burr grinder – I feel more control of rigid tools than flexible ones.
If the harp will take it I would try increasing the tension on the woody side without letting the strings get thick enough that you don’t like the sound. For some, moving the strings you have up the harp may work (and you have the wrong thickness blue ones to play with even if it is the wrong colour for where you try it) – you may well want KF or more wound strings.
Is Salzedo diagram widespread as a term in the US? I don’t think I have ever come across it before. (And agree with Emma – damp over here, except when etouffee.)
Try Morley – close to you too.
http://www.morleyharps.co.uk/news-items/antique-harps-for-sale-summer-2013/
Isn’t it still taught at the Brussels Conservatory? They may know of a source too.
I am not comfortable being filmed and would explain that it distracts me from teaching. Do you usually let parents sit in on lessons?
Playing in less than half the music is par for the course, but it is reasonable to expect and demand that you are told which bits of rehearsals you are needed in.
Star Wars might suit that orchestra (you will need gliss picks!).
Allegra – I play harmonics on the low wires the same way I do the low guts, except standing to the right of the harp for tuning. It may take a little time to find the centre of the string the first time – probably lower than you expect. I either tune the harmonic to the tuner, or the string an octave above.
The wire strung harps were strung on the left:
http://dh.tcd.ie/clontarf/The%20Brian%20Boru%20HarpReaching under the neck of one to play the treble from the opposite side would not be very easy. Though if you look at the images of players some had the knee of the harp more central under the chin – especially I am thinking of Hempson and Carolan who were of course blind. Much of the music played is thought to have been structured differently from the familiar basic melody and chords beneath – a crude description might be structure and twiddles so having the dominant hand lower made dense for the structure. There are recordings of the current state of reconstructing the music and playing: http://www.earlygaelicharp.info/emporium/CDs/harp.htm
I quite often tune the bottom octave on my pedal harp by playing the 1st harmonic. I find my tuner copes better and this will automatically stretch the octaves by an appropriate amount. Not of course by the only appropriate amount, but I am happy with the result.
Glad he was able to reassure you! For reference the easy way to increase indoor humidity in winter without risking condensation is to turn your heating down. This afternoon I turned the fire on in the room with my harps and as it heated from 18 to 23 degrees I watched the humidity reading fall from 47 to 41%.
Charles, I have it on good authority that it is perfectly possible to regulate a pedal harp to mean temperaments if you want to. Flat to natural has a lot of flexibility with adjustable nuts, and there is a fair amount of adjustment possible for natural to sharp by rotating both disks.
I am most conscious of the attack of a note being sharper with the lowest strings, particularly on harps with a short string length (so lower tension – I did calculate it once). Lower strings sustain for longer which makes it more prominent too.
I read about some research which played pure sine tones at people and discovered that they stretched the upper octaves. I haven’t checked my recollection, but what I remember is that our ears generate slightly stretched/unharmonic overtones even when they don’t exist in the sound played.
Here it is:
http://nashville.craigslist.org/atq/4838148739.html
Does it actually say Erard on it? You don’t show a photo of any inscription and off the top of my head I can’t think of a crochet mechanism Erard. Definitely interesting, but I would want to see more evidence for it being an Erard. Makers who seem more probable to me would be Blaicher or Challiot, but if it isn’t signed there is unlikely to be a definite answer.
