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Why do you, and they, care so much what the notes are called? This is moving from one code, written music, which has a spatial relationship to pitch, to another, note names, which is a step further from the pitch of the notes. Of course names are useful for communicating, but I think the mental connection between the printed music and the sound, or strings, is more important.
On the rare occasions I have taught music I make great use of landmark notes, starting with the Cs and Fs, navigating by interval from the previous note and pattern spotting. Eventually, and hopefully, any note will become a landmark as appropriate, but also players realise there is no need to actually read many of them individually.
You certainly don’t replace on long notes until they are over- but may want to replace just as/after you play the next note to let the next one ring more clearly.
As for your nice pull-off on strings… My school of playing is very strongly that you play with the fingers, not with the arm.
I have a pair from a travel shop – not the foam ones, but the sort that look like rubber mushrooms. Sometimes I only wear one in my left ear if I really want to hear me!
On a similar theme to the ‘they’re mine’ answers I think my favourite thing about my main harp – an L&H85CG is that it does what I tell it to, at least when I am in practice! I have had it for 16 years and I know where its strings are and what tone colours I am capable of getting out of it and how to ask for them. Playing less familiar harps needs more conscious thought.
If you want to be as carfeul as possible step it up every day or two, by 5% at a time. However, I advise backing up a few steps here- are you sure about that 50%? What is the humidity naturally, will the humidifier be plumbed in and will the harp ever move?
I ask because changes in humidity can be much worse than a constant low humidity and you also want to minimise the impact on the harp is the humidifier empties or the harp is moved. (Small, affordable, humidifiers in a dry atmosphere need filling with water daily, if not more often.) This could be done by looking at a humidity towards the bottom end of good, rather than right in the middle.
I have had two base wires break on me, both while I was playing, and one was a string that was presumably fairly new as the harp was. Unpleasant, isn’t it!
Oh and a couple on lever harps, but they didn’t make nearly such a bang and haven’t stuck in my memory so much.
I assume the 6 harp works are the Ring Cycle and while Rheingold has parts for 6 harpists it asks for 7 harps as there is time for a harpist to move from the pit to offstage (or is it onstage?), but moving the harp would be impractical. Just in the interests of persnicketyness and all that.
There are two main issues with putting strings in the wrong position. Firstly the risk of damaging the harp, and secondly the likelihood of sounding bad, or really different from the rest of the harp.
Damaging the harp: You can put strings which are thinner than idea on with little risk as the tension on the instrument will be less. There is a slight issue that if you left several consecutive strings with really light tension compared to the others for a long time the soundboard might take on a slightly uneven shape. However, the only time I have seen an uneven soundboard the harp in question had been sitting with only a few strings on it for 50 years or so. Putting heavier strings on will increase the tension on the harp and whether the harp can take it depends on the harp, how much heavier, how many and for how long. Putting pedal gauge strings on a Grecian Erard instead of the right ones (which are about lever gauge) is the equivalent of moving all the strings about 5 places thicker and is known to eventually pull the harp to pieces. I am not sure about time scales: anecdotally some seem to survive for some years, others don’t. Some harps will withstand much higher increases in tension (I inflicted a major one on a Stoney End Eve and it seems to be surviving fine). Individual strings again depend on the harp, but the overall tension is less likely to cause problems – changing the lowest guts for wires is possible and unlikely to cause soundboard distortion as there is already a tension change between the gut and the wire.
Sound and feel: I notice a slight change when I put a string one out of step but soon adjust and am not sure I would notice if I didn’t know my own harp so well. I have also come across students unbothered by the fact that they have accidentally restrung an octave out.
I would try putting a 1st E on instead. It won’t harm the harp, and it might stay put.
Have you changed anything about your string storage?
Salopian strings do custom cases and I think dust covers too. They would presumably make them decorative if you asked.
Are you sure the column is carved? If it is part of the grand tradition of copying Erard’s designs (43 strings is probably the Grecian model) most of the decor will be from gesso.
Markwood Strings have been mentioned as having string charts for these – but they are in the US. If shipping the strings is too expensive they might just sell you the details and I am sure someone like Salopian Strings could provide the strings themselves.
Those of you who think warming up is a bad habit must play and perform in places which are considerably warmer than I often have to contend with, or have better circulation than I do. Sometimes my warm up consists of putting my hands in warm water before walking on stage or holding a handwarmer until my entry comes along, but being physically warm is better for the body, better for my playing and less painful on the fingertips.
