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Hmph… I am still inclined to the thought that they aren’t bending enough at the soundboard and are bouncing off and zinging when you play them. And of course a thinner string will bend less. Do they zing more when you play them pulling along the line of the strings or across?
How to solve it is the next problem – if it is the cause- and you have tiddly little awkward holes in the soundboard. I would try loosening the string and sliding something into the top of the hole, maybe a bit of card or feather quill…
I am inclined to laziness so my heart sinks when I get a fresh part – usually it is much easier to read a used part or make alterations as needed. And being in the UK that does mean parts with French or German pedals which my feet can read if not too fast… But please – 2B pencils and not dug into the paper!
The first link is a Pilgrim Clarsach, the second already identified as a Stoney End and the third by MacDonald harps on Skye. Three very different harps!
Which country are you in? A cheap harp in one place can become very expensive once international shipping is added.
If the questioner did not have a good view could it all be a mistake? I can imagine someone mistaking the harp being put down and so moving forward for the harpist moving back.
Personally, I feel that lumping harps together by the mechanism used to get semitones, while a useful shorthand, can be a very poor match for reality. A Teifi Eos (36 strings, concert tension gut) and a Stoney End Eve (22 strings, medium/light tension nylon strings) are both ‘lever’ harps – if the Eve has levers. However, from the point of view of sound and playing technique they are miles apart, and the Teifi is much closer to many pedal harps. Though of course there are harps which make their semitones with a pedal mechanism but are not very like a L&H 23…
The Cabezon original was in: Libro de Cifra Nueva para Tecla, Arpa y Vihuela – which is written in ‘Cifra Nueva’ rather than familiar stave notation. But the book tells you how to read it. Page 70 of the 2nd scan or 139 of the 1st.
http://imslp.org/wiki/Libro_de_cifra_nueva_%28Venegas_de_Henestrosa,_Luis%29
The other way in would be to remove the base of the harp and move the pedals asside just enought to slip in.
I think there should be room for all gut strings with pegs to go in from the top – unless your strings are too thick or your knots too large. Wires I am not sure about – I have seen old wires with knots on the end, rather than premade ends so presumably you put them through from the front, fished the end round the door, threaded whatever washers you wanted, tied the knot and then pulled it back carefully. Which is a convenient way of changing strings even when you can get your hand inside.
However, if you have strings with pre-made ends then maybe you will need to get a narrow silicon tube or something you can thread from the front and then use to pull the string through? Or cut the premade end off if you have enough length? But I am improvising wildly here!
