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The only time I know of that Lyon and Healy discounts harps was when they were discontinuing a particular model. My style 85 I got at a discount because it was no longer going to be produced, replaced instead with the Chicago line.
There may be some kind of scholarship programs that can help a student pay for a harp, but I don’t think that any harp maker regularly discounts harps.
I love the harpsicle, but I wouldn’t recommend it for your situation. It can work, And I wouldn’t rule them out completely, but if you went that route I would really push for the grand harpsicle for the range and size (and full set of levers) and at that price you may as well invest a bit more and go for the Ogden.
The pilgrim harp Tayce mentions is actually comparable in size, and string tension and spacing to the ogden. Depending on where you live that is a good choice too. Pilgrim is based in England and their harps are harder to come by in the US and Canada, where the Ogden is Lyon & Healy based in Chicago, and fairly easy to come by in the US.
But the harpsicle was designed as a light, inexpensive travel harp. While it isn’t inherently limited to that use, and can even be used professionally on some instances, I think a serious study of the harp would necessitate replacing it with something larger, and with full levers (and depending of the ultimate goal and type of music she wants to play, stiffer string tension) sooner then later.
Definitely what the others said, however. A teacher will be able to help you find the right harp for her.
Jesus, Joy of Man’s Desiring is a classical piece by Bach that is heard at Christmas frequently. Sylvia Woods has a nice arrangement for lever harp.
Thanks to A Charley Brown Christmas, Fur Elise has become associated with Christmas as well, and Barbara has a nice arrangement playable on Lever harp in her book Classics on Request Vol 1.
Also Gounod’s Ave Maria is a nice choice. And it happens that it is in Barbara’s Classics on Request Vol 3.
And I
I have never seen pins colored, but I use colored bands on my tuning pins to make them easy to identify from the tuning key side of the harp. It makes tuning much easier when you don’t have to guess, or get up to make sure you are on the right string.
They also fit on the ends of most levers to make it easy to find the right levers. I can’t tell you how helpful it is when you play music with lever changes in it to be able to so easily identify the correct levers.
I got them from Syliva Woods. Here is the link:
http://www.harpcenter.com/product/rubber-rings/
It is such a simple idea, but absolutely brilliant. And while the idea of a whole tuning pin colored is nice, and could work on some harps (as they do on those black carbon fiber harps), I don’t think I would want it on my pedal harp. I think it would look to busy. The rings can be pushed all the way to the neck of the harp and are fairly subtle . And instead of red and blue they have red and black which makes them even less busy looking.
If she is playing solo there is no reason she can’t make do with a lever harp for many, many years. I used a lever harp for almost 15 years with only a few years early on renting a pedal harp, and only purchased a pedal harp because I really wanted to play full jazz improvisation, which really requires pedals. But in that time without a pedal harp I built a fairly decent repertoire of classical music all playable on lever harp.
In the time I have been playing amount of classical music being arranged for lever harp has expanded exponentially. Enough to keep someone challenged for a very long time.
And ultimately, even if she feels the need to switch to pedal harp in a year or two, if you are only renting anyway there is no loss in renting lever for as long as needed and switching when the need is felt. In the mean time you can start saving to put down a downpayment on harp of her own in the event that she really takes off with it.
It is such a personal choice. The thing is, all three that you mention are good choices. Really, any of them would be a great instrument so it isn’t like there is some objective criteria to say that one is a better choice. So you really have to go with the one that speaks to you. It would be so much better if you could go try them all. Then it would simply be which ever one felt and sounded more right to you.
If that isn’t the case then go with the one that sounds most like what you want from the sound clips.
I’ll tell you which one I would pick, but that really doesn’t matter because the one I would pick isn’t inherently better than the others. It is simply a preference thing.
That said, out of those I prefer the Triplett Signature. I just like the tone of it and have played one before and like the feel of the spacing and the contour of the staved back. Also I like the look of it better than the other. More of a classic, simple Celtic look.
Well, you are trying what I was going to suggest, using abrasive string to polish up the eyelets and the tuning pins (you may also want to go over the bridge pins as well). There very well could be rough spots that you can’t see or easily feel inside the eyelets or string holes, so that is the best first step.
Other than that the only thing that I can think of that would be causing such a problem (assuming that you simply haven’t been having very weird, varying, frequent weather changes) is that maybe you have the strings tuned too tense? Make certain you are tuning them to the correct octave.
Beat me to it Lisa. Thanks. That’s great. And I took a look and yes, that is the song. Yes, it looks like it is very playable on harp, although I may try spicing it up a bit.
OK, I am home now and will see if the Harp Column forum can handle Chinese:
The title of the song in Chinese characters is:
月亮代表我的心
That may give better search results, although it will also probably bring up more Chinese only pages.
And yes, Michael is right, the translation of the title is The Moon Represents My Heart.
I don’t have sheet music for it, but would love it too if anyone has some. It’s one of my favorite love songs.
But it isn’t Cantonese, it’s Mandarin (han yu). And Barbara is correct, the proper spelling in Chinese PinYin is Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin. I don’t know if the forum will display it with the tone marks, but I will try here:
yuè liang dài biǎo wǒ de xīn
If I were on my home computer I would give you the characters, but the computer I am on is not
My favorite is my Peterson Virtual Strobe tuner.
I also use the Peterson tuning app Barbara mentions on my iphone and ipad. Very convenient. I also use another app called Cleartune on my iphone that I like a lot.
And I have a little Korg tuner that I really use for my guitar, but it works alright with the harp in a
For $300 difference I say go for it. Adding them later will almost certainly cost more.
For instance, Truitt levers cost $15.75 each. So assuming you have a 30 string harp, and you get partial levers, say on Cs and Fs, that leaves (depending on what note the harp begins and ends on) 21 or 22 strings that still need levers.
So say 21 strings, that comes to $315 just for the additonal levers. Then you either
I’m no expert or even a great lover of renaissance music. However I do have the Friou book, Renaissance Music for the Harp, and it is excellent, and very playable by someone at the intermediate level.
I don’t know how historically sound her arrangements are, but they are very nice and the music is very enjoyable. In fact I recommend all her books, but this one specifically deals with renaissance music, and I would highly suggest it.
