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1911? L&H say they introduced the model in 1985. http://www.lyonhealy.com/press.htm
There is one for sale in the classifieds here. Yours clearly needs complete restringing and a service.
I asked Stoney End if I could increase the tension on my Eve and they said ‘yes, lots’. So I did, lots, by putting brass string on it about 6 years ago. Not advice, but the reason I didn’t give the warning Alison has.
Is the low D the one below middle C? Or above? Just checking that you are right to be planning to tune up, rather than down!
If it has been sitting around for years in that tuning the strings are probably old and it may well sound far better with new strings anyway. According to Stoney End’s price list a new set of strings is $30.
You will need to keep a bit of an eye on the tuning pegs – as you tune up they will screw in, and you don’t want them to hit the bottom of their holes.
A few disconnected thoughts to muddy the water even more…
If someone is selling a used harp you like the sound and price of can you get it checked out by a technician? Does your daughter’s harp teacher feel knowledgable enough to help? It may well want a service and change of bass wires (factor the cost in to your plans). Or maybe the technician who last serviced it will remember it and be happy to vouch for it.
Why does size matter?
Firstly, running out of strings for repertoire is a nuisance and will depend on what type of music she plays and how fast she advances.
Secondly, sound and volume – different harps have different sounds, and volume matters in an orchestra. I am carefully not saying bigger is better – or even always louder (the extended soundboard gives more bass resonance, not necessarily volume). However, the nicest straightboard harps I have met have all been older instruments.
Thirdly is the size of the player, which I find less convincing. The modern huge beastie came into being I think in the tail end of the 19th century. Before that the harp to play (large men included) was a 46 string, straightboard Erard Gothic, itself introduced in the 1830s as a size increase to the Grecian model, a lightly built 43 string instrument. If you are visiting a harp showroom I am confident the largest harpist there will happily play the smallest pedal harp to demonstrate how it can be done comfortably.I went through several pedal harps as I learnt and am glad I did – a 41 string, a 46 straight board and then a CG. As my playing developed, and my ear, each time I could afford to move up I chose a harp very different from what I would have chosen previously. I liken this to learning to ride on a school horse rather than a race horse.
NY Phil marked part is here if it is of use http://archives.nyphil.org/index.php/artifact/a1e28ec1-9274-47a3-bc30-f0ae0bc9f9c9/fullview#page/1/mode/2up
The rest of this handy resource is here: http://archives.nyphil.org/index.php/search?search-type=singleFilter&search-text=harp&doctype=part&x=41&y=6&search-dates-from=&search-dates-to=
Hi Mae, I am glad you are using the resources available to you. I jumped to completely the wrong conclusion and feared you were learning to play just by session practice which would be possible, but inefficient – Sorry. I agree you want a folk player! The most comprehensive way to get your questions answered would probably involve hopping on the train. London is close by and perfectly doable for lessons as I did it for a couple of years and Leeds usually only one change. Train and tube travel with a Pilgrim is easy enough, your new friend may be less convenient. Ailie Robertson is based in London at present, and I am sure there are other great Irish players there too.
My rare attempts at Irish music are rather lacking in the right feel, and for that matter effort or practice on my part, but have done the odd workshop (one was even called folk for classical players – very kindly we were given written music;-) ) and been an audience member quite a lot. My impression is that ornaments are mostly fingered the same as they would be if the same notes occurred in classical music. So for instance very often an upper grace note will be played with the thumb, but sometimes a 2 or 3 if they are nearer. The problem is getting the right relative weights of the notes which seems to be down to practice, control and hence technique. The main difference I have noticed is that the Irish ornaments tend to be fingered using the option which minimises the repeated use of one finger. So a trill dede which is a nice example even if you don’t want to play it can be fingered 2121 or 4321 with the 2 placing over the 3 (or 4231) and a turn edcd could be fingered 1231 or 2341 (or 1232). The second of these options seems to be the one more often chosen by Irish players, and is very often the one I would prefer for lighter ornaments in classical music. However, an alternative is that some players look to the wire string harp and use the thumb much less – see Bunting Vol 3 from p 24 http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Ancient_Music_of_Ireland_%28Bunting,_Edward%29 and http://andrewlawrenceking.com/category/early-harps/irish-harp-ornaments/
The one ornament I know which is used Irishly but I can’t remember every coming across classically (it doesn’t work so well on high tension) is a repeated note played by striking the same string with 4 3 2, feeling to me a bit like playing an arpeggiated chord that I haven’t placed in advance. You can see this in the second video above including at 25-30 seconds.
Andee, I rely on you contradict me on the ornament front, especially if I have the wrong end of something that isn’t even a stick! Apologies for my earlier outburst, I over react to feeling misinterpreted.
Andee, I am hurt that you think I am such a blinkered classicalist I would write that a classical background is necessary. I didn’t. I went on in praise of technique and said ‘sometimes’ classical. I wished to counteract Mae’s assumption that she needed a folk harpist to help her – also a blinkered view, especially if there aren’t good people around! It would be untrue to say either that classical study is necessary or useless.
When I look at videos of Grainne and Triona it seems to me their technique came out fairly similar in the end!
Hi Alison,
I got mine about my 13th birthday, but have always been slight so probably was still 4 foot something. I had hired a non-pedal Progress from when I started playing on entering senior school and changed with no problems. Weight wasn’t a problem at all – harp held near point of balance, resting mostly on knees not shoulder and when it needed moving I mostly walked it or occasionally applied dad to the problem. Chair height needed a cushion as I didn’t have an adjustable stool. String spacing also I didn’t notice to question. I had my lessons on a Gothic Erard and was happy with that too.You can get pedal extenders if needed. Some of the youtube videos of Ben Creighton Griffiths from several years back illustrate how a small person can play a large harp.
I believe, if it makes a difference, that Pilgrim are no longer making new Progresses (they have certainly been half removed from the website) but they do come up used quite often including one in Pilgrim’s current listing and one on Jack Hayward’s.
Hi Mae, It is possible to play Irish at speed at the harp, but most of the people I know who can do it have many years of study and technique, sometimes classical, behind them. (Listen to Harriet Earis or Triona Marshal for instance, fast tunes can be done.) My advice would be to play chords or other accompaniment in sessions and work on technique and tunes at home aiming for playing all the tunes at speed in about 10 years. Sorry – it is a hard instrument to play fast. (If you look at the Edinburgh Harp Festival you will see it has a slow session every year.) Have you been in contact with Rohan Platts? She does a lot of teaching around Cambridge and I am sure could help with technique, whatever music you want to apply it to.
On many instruments you make each noise individually – if you want an A on the whistle you know how to finger it. On the harp as with the piano which finger depends on where you have been and where you are going. Further, on the harp you make the sound not by placing, but by removing the fingers so need to place ahead. All this adds up to really needing fingering rules so you use the same fingers each time and eventually finger sensibly without thinking too much about it. And relaxed technique so you don’t get muscles fighting each other and can turn under and over confidently for scale runs, and can play evenly or put the accent on whichever finger you wish. Carl Swanson who posts here has a lovely definition of technique – the ability to make the sound you want, when you want it, without damaging yourself. At the beginning stages the guidance of a teacher can help ensure that your technique not only works for early tunes, but will work for more complicated ones too.
As Ben touches upon, many harpists have more than one instrument, such as one for serious practice and another for portability. Dusty Strings have a new model, the Boulevard, which is ibased on the Ravenna, but particularly designed to have a similar stringing and playing technique to pedal harps.
Does your car have a back seat or trunk the harp could go on? Otherwise, could you push the seat back as far as it will go to use the footwell too. Perhaps putting the harp upside down (but not resting on the levers).
Patricia, you can get cheap micrometers which are useful for strings and all sorts of other things from most budget tool sources (eg ebay). Plain wire gauges are available too, but usually marked up with gauge numbers so easier to use for comparison than recording a measurement in mm or 001″.
