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Yes, I think it looks a little better. When I zoom the text seems a bit easier to read. Thanks Hugh.
As a general rule I think that the expectation would still be more pedal harp for those. If for no other reason than that the majority of Jazz and Pop harpists tend to play pedal harp. Which makes sense. Although you can play pop and Jazz on a lever harp, the chromatic nature of these kinds of music tends to make it a good fit for pedal harp in general.
So I think that anyone who is actually familiar with pop and jazz played on harp is going to probably expect pedal harp because that is probably more what they will have seen.
However I would be willing to bet that they would also probably be more flexible than people wanting a strictly classical / church music. I think if people ask for Jazz they are probably more interested in the music itself and so may be more concerned with finding someone who can play the music rather than what they play it on.
Of course these are all generalities. As Barbara pointed out, some folks just find a full concert grand pedal harp intimidating and would rather a smaller harp no matter the kind of music. And other people just wont care one way or another. When I played professionally I always gave the customer the option so long as the music being requested was something I could play on either. For a period all I had was a lever harp and I managed to find work anyway. Fortunately there are a wide range of customers with a varying degree of wants.
I think Jerusha is right. If someone is looking for Celtic music they probably know enough to understand what a Celtic style harp looks like. But if someone is expecting the general classical / religious music typical of weddings they may be expecting the kind of harp they are used to seeing playing that kind of music.
I think the thing to remember is that when playing a wedding or similar event you aren’t playing a concert. You are part of the ambiance. How you present is part of what they are looking for. It’s like putting on a play. The producer may have very specific ideas of what he wants the stage to look like. If a bride wants a large, gold gilt pedal harp then that is what she wants. I don’t think anyone should take it as an insult if they ask for that over a lever harp. It’s not about the practicality of the instrument. It is that you are part of the scenery as well and you have to fit the producer’s vision.
To be honest I have seen far more prejudice against specific kinds of harps from other harpists. There are still far too many harpists who put down types of harps different than the ones they play. I have heard pedal harpists who say that lever harp is just what you play until you are “ready” to “move on to” a pedal harp. And I Have heard lever harpists who say that pedal harps are all dull sounding. I have heard wire strung players talk about how their harps are so much harder to play and take so much more control than those other harps.
So yeah, a bride may want a specific type of harp at her wedding, or a party planner may want a specific look of harp at a cocktail party. But I don’t see that as prejudice. That is strictly about having something that fits their visual image of what they want the event to look like. They mostly don’t know or care about the qualities of the harps, what music they are best suited to play, or how versatile they are or are not. They aren’t talking about which harp is “better” musically. Only which is better for their production which includes appearance.
You should be fine with the playing. It is the responsibility of the venue to have the proper licencing for the music, not the performer. If the Restaurant has it’s licenses in order then neither you nor they are
New a Korrigan goes for $3650, so that’s over a thousand off the new price. If it is as described then it is a very good deal.
It doesn’t bend over, but it is still a deliberate plucking of the string. You don’t want to just drag the thumb across the string to the next string. Your thumb should push past the first string to the second, not be pulled across it.
Otherwise you don’t get good tone and your timing will be off (because when you drag a finger across a string rather than actively pluck it you aren’t in complete control as to when the string will release from your finger, same reason why you keep your fingers curved in the top finger joint and don’t let them hyper extend back when plucking).
I downloaded the PDF copy and it worked like a charm. Very nice.
If I have one negative it is that the file size is a bit small. I can understand the desire to keep it as small as possible to make downloading faster and easier, but in order to read it I had to zoom it a bit and it did result in a slight decrease in the image quality by the time I had it enlarged enough to read easily.
Not enough to really detract, but enough to notice. Making the original image just a bit bigger would probably solve that and not have too much of an impact on the download speed.
But it is a minor issue. Overally it is excellent and I am very happy with this new addition.
That is SO COOL.
I am going to try to download as soon as I get home tonight. Seriously, I love this idea. I read virtually all my magazines on the iPad. Being able to have the Harp Column on iPad as well is a great idea.
It’s like an early Christmas gift. Thanks.
Add one more I managed to squeeze in just before year end. I was ordering strings to restring my first octave and I happened to see that I had an email from Sylvia Woods that had a 15% discount code for all music books. A few weeks ago I had gone to see Patrick Ball play, and he was performing with Aryeh Frankfurter and Lisa Lynne.
I really enjoyed some of Aryeh’s arrangements, and I saw that he had a book with some of them available through Sylvia Woods, so I couldn’t resist.
Yes, a microphone will work with any amp so long as it either doesn’t need external power, or you have a phantom power source for it. It just will sound better with some than others.
But a PA doesn’t have to be a house system. There are portable PA systems.
The Fender Passport portable PA systems are all really great in my opinion. Great clarity, and they range in size from smaller than a marshal stack to the same size as a smaller guitar amp.
The downside is that PA systems will tend to cost more than amps of comparable size and wattage. That’s because they tend to have built in multi channel sound boards, and some can even record, have USB ports and other extras. It all depends on the system.
Again, you can use microphones with any kind of amp you want, but for best sound they work best with PA systems, not amps. And you also have to consider the type of microphone you are using. Dynamic mics are simple and just plug and play with possibly the use of CEQ in the signal chain or built into the PA system. Condenser mics need phantom power that may or may
Acoustic amplifiers are amplifiers designed for amplifying acoustic instruments as opposed to electric.
But when you get to the nitty gritty what it is really referring to is the kind of pickup it is designed to work best with.
Acoustic instruments can use various types of pickups. Some are basically flat dynamic microphones stuck to the inside of the instrument, others are more sophisticated such as piezo pickups, which are pickups that use pressure sensitive crystals that have an electron flow across them that can be “picked up” and conveyed to an amplifier to be amplified.
Amps designed to work with “electric” instruments are geared more towards working best with electromagnetic pickups. These are pickups that create a magnetic field. The metal strings of the instrument distort the field as they vibrate through it, and this creates an electrical current that fluctuates at the same rate as the strings vibrations, and is again conveyed to the amplifier to be amplified.
It is certainly possible to use an amp designed for electric instruments with an acoustic instrument, and an amp designed for acoustic instruments with electric instruments. It is just that the acoustic amp is made to work with the pickups typically used on acoustic instruments better, and to re-create the sound in a more natural way. “Natural” isn’t so much a concern when playing fully electric instruments.
So it’s really about the pickups on the instrument. That is why my Camac electroharp, which is technically an electric instrument because it is solid bodied and doesn’t have a sound box and only makes any real sound when it is plugged in, I find works best with an acoustic amp. That’s because, since it doesn’t use metal strings, it doesn’t use electromagnetic pickups. It uses piezo pickups just like most acoustic guitars with built in pickups use, and the amp I use primarily is designed specifically to work best with piezo pickups. It’s not really an acoustic instrument, but it uses the same pickups as one, so I
