Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I think there is a world of difference between musicians who happen to play the harp and performers where the music is not the primary focus. Many people don’t care about this difference – and some will prefer the latter. There is also unfortunately no necessary correlation between being able to play the harp well and having a great business plan and ability to get the fees, and gigs, needed for a career.
On a related note, I have very often seen beginner harpists encouraged to play out and perform – often with very nearly the exact words of everyone loves a harp regardless of what or how you play. Can we really have it both ways? Prioritise displaying the harp or the music? I certainly agree that the harp is lovely, and have to own up to recieving undeserved praise for playng notes which weren’t as musical as they should be – but at least I feel guilty about it and that we should all be pushing for great music (of all genres) which just happens to be played on a harp.
Someone who wants to dress up as a fairy and plink notes with lots of reverb on a harp as a prop has a right to make a living… but ideally called a performer not a musician.
What are you filing them with? Most callus care things are marketed for feet, as that is where most people get calluses. Have you had a look at the foot care section of a chemists?
When I need to file mine I use a pumice-like thing called a chiropody sponge which came with instructions (use on skin softened with warm water and lots of soap as lubricant) that work – be careful not to over do it as that can make playing hurt!
Often a broken neck like this would lead to the whole neck being replaced, so the rest of the harp may be around somewhere and playable. I would have expected the tuning pins to have been rescued but new ones could have been used.
Another auction of a harp missing something…
http://www.chiswickauctions.co.uk/catalogues/as260814/lot0255.html
‘Nice cup of tea’ is what I was taught – you only want four syllables. I found it clicked for me when I wrote out crotchet, 2 quavers, crotchet (repeat) with the relevant tails going up and down.
I have forwarded you a notification – as I mentioned above they seem to come from topics I posted on from the old site.
Do you keep your heels on the floor and swivel the foot to notch the pedal or do you move the whole foot? If you are swivelling the foot you need to have the heel inwards and a bit close to the harp to start with or your foot just won’t bend that way. But as you swivel the foot the heel to pedal distance gets a little closer and either the pedal needs to slide in a bit from the toes, or the heel needs to move away from the harp. Of course when you are pushing down on a pedal getting it to slide slightly on the sole of the shoe is harder. I think I have just found a justification for my habit of engaging this pedal by pulling the whole foot sideways.
One a completely different note, harps can be altered! I would discourage anyone from doing this until sure of what you want from a harp and that the awkwardness isn’t the sort of thing that will go away with practice and developing expertise. You will probably need to persuade the technician doing the work too. The outer bit of the pedal, just from the bolt where it folds up for transport can be bent inwards – you would need to do more than just the A to give it room. Also pedal springs can be softened, some of the force needed is for the forks bending the bass wires, but much is from the springs. It may make the harp mechanism sluggish to return to natural or flat so will depend on what your priorities are. This could be undone by replacing the pedal springs with new ones, and I hope replacement straight pedals could be acquired too – might be safer to remove the original ones and store them and mount new curved ones.
Ask your string supplier – this is how I have acquired gauge listings (but for gut).
Or Bow Brand International Limited, UK & Export: +44 (0) 1553 772943
Email:sales@bowbrand.co.ukMy teachers recommended trying sensible sorts of heeled shoes and definite down across or across up motions. I seldom follow the heel advice, but when I was lazy and tried to cut corners with the pedals it wore out the felts much faster and I find that way is a bit noisier.
Right, I’ll just retire muttering about the inelegance of hiding a power I expected in a function of a function…
I am not sure if it is in the book or not, but mark the position of the old disk so you can put the new one at nearly the right angle first try. I have used a line drawn on a bit of the stickier sort of postit marker.
I am reminded I have a whole heap of notes that I started intending to be a book on the harp from a physicist’s point of view – maybe I will be inspired to finish it!
The ‘feel’ of the string is an established criteria, but (I am sorry, Mae) I do not agree with your derivation in italics (starting with energy = fx does not hold when f is variable with x).
For the problems of thicker strings the usual effect to invoke is the lateral stiffness of the string, its resistance to bending throughout its length, which affects higher harmonics more than lower ones.
For measuring the denisty of strings precisely you may want to take into account the Young’s modulus as you would be measuring them unstretched and measurements for different gut strings would be useful if the varnish thickness is significant to you.
If you want references starting off with Chris Waltham in Rossing’s book the Physics of Stringed Instruments and the other material his university has on the web is one source, Ian Firth and Alex Bell have also published. Nicolas Lynch Aird gave a talk at Edinburgh this year with some interesting data.
Hope this is useful.
I have got a couple recently despite having ticked ‘no’ in all the email boxes. It seems to apply to old threads which I contributed to on the previous site – I am somehow subscribed to them.
Email from staff@harpcolumn.com is now shunted to an email oubliette!
The Puccini is on here: http://archives.nyphil.org you can’t print, but can see it.
I was at a talk where Carol of Bow Brand advised treating strings where the varnish was wearing off with castor oil so they find varnish and oil are OK together. As it is your fingers on the strings that squeak rather than treat the strings I would see if playing with recently moisturised hands helps, though not to the point of slopiness, or even rub a couple of drops of olive oil into your hands. I have come across dry fingers squeaking on the strings before, but not the the extent you complain of. Maybe your teacher’s harp has less clean strings, or a more humid environment.
I think it is really sensible to have a hygrometer and know what your humidity is. I like one that records the max and min so I can tell what it has been going overnight or longer term. I see some smart phones can now do this, or mine was under £20, worth it to know how well I am treating my harp.
