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Books that fit your catagories that I have read and enjoyed:
Pentacle: The Story of Carlos Salzedo and the Harp by Meriette Bitter
Carlos Salzedo: From Aeolian to Thunder by Dewy Ownes
Harps and Harpists by Roslyn Rensch
Carolan: The Life, Times and Music of an Irish Harper by Donal O’Sullivan
The Story of the Irish Harp: It’s History and Influences by Nora Joan Clark
The Harp of Ireland: The Belfast Harpers’ Festival of 1792, and the Saving of Ireland’s Harp Music By Edward Bunting by Grainne Yeats
For non bios or history books about harps themselves and playing I have enjoyed, or found very useful:
The Harpers Manual by Laurie Riley
Trouble Shooting your Lever Harp by David Kolacny
The Gurl’s Guide to Amplification by Deborah Henson-Conant
Music Theory and Arranging Techniques for the Harp by Sylvia Woods
Exploring the Folk Harp by Janna McCall Geller and Mallory Geller
Also Jay Witcher makes historic reproductions as well, so it could be one of his. But honestly, Kortier was my first thought too.
I heard back from Patrick about what pens he uses. Here is what he said:
“Opaque paint pens work well. Sharpie makes them, as well as Permapaque. And yes, as Kari sagely points out, everything wears off. But, in this as elsewhere in life, I try to avoid confrontation. So, I only color the upper part of the string. My fingers never touch the color.”
He also asked me to wish you good luck with your new harp.
Personally I don’t think any pickup sounds as good for amplifying an acoustic harp as using microphones.
Of course they are a lot more work and effort.
Of the pickups I have tried the one I like best is the Fishman SBT-HP harp and piano pickup. The trick to pickups is that you need to also use a preamp. Fishman also makes a decent preamp with built in equalizer.
Pedal felt clamps / blocks are still available from harp.com.
http://us.harp.com/info/products/pact_show/id_19396323/
In case anyone is interested.
When I had my harp regulated last year my harp tech let me watch, and she used them. That part actually didn’t look too hard, but that could just be because she made it look easier then it is. But I can’t see trying to change he felts with out the blocks.
I was going to recommend what Chris said. I have seen Patrick Ball play many times, and I noticed that when he uses markers to mark the strings he only marks them on the tops, above where he plays. He can see the color there, but doesn’t touch the colored part when he plays.
I will ask him what he uses.
I typically warm up with Salzedo’s Conditioning Exercises. It is what my teacher always had me use from day one and I still use them.
It’s really a personal thing. You have to listen and decide for yourself what works best for you.
That said, if it were me and my ears that needed to be pleased in this situation I would go with the Korrigan.
Well, I will say that when I first heard her I could immediately appreciate what she did, but it didn’t really suite my tastes.
However, over time I have grown very fond of her music. Not obsessed by any means, but she definitely has a style and approach that can grow on you even if it doesn’t bowl you over right off the bat.
But I will say, it doesn’t matter who it is, every musician should have some one they look up to and who inspires them. Someone who they can be at least a little obsessive about (in a non stalkerish kind of way of course).
Yes, I started with intentions of playing only lever harp. I was primarily interested in Celtic music.
I found a harp teacher near me that could teach me to play, although she didn’t play Celtic music, but I figured I could learn the fundamentals of playing from her, and I knew the music itself from growing up with it.
Thing is she happened to be not only a great classical harpist but also one of the earliest jazz harpists on the East coast. Since she was a classically trained harpist she used the examples and teaching materials she was familiar with, although always happy for me to bring her Celtic music I wanted to learn.
But as a result my interests broadened and I developed an interest in classical, and more significantly for me, Jazz. As I started to delve more into that I realized I needed pedals.
I used to rent a pedal harp. Then due to circumstances I had to make due without a pedal harp for a long time. I started doing what I could with both classical and Jazz with just a lever harp for many years. I believe the challenges of that helped me understand both the instrument and the music better.
Eventually I got me a small pedal harp, L&H 85P. It’s big enough for me to do what I want. I wouldn’t want to go play in an orchestra with it, but for the music I got it for it is perfectly sufficient, and it has a surprisingly nice and full tone for such a small harp.
I have never looked at pedal and lever as a ‘vs’ thing. To me they are tools, and it is a matter of using the right tool for the job at hand.
If I could only have one I would go with pedal only because I play a lot of highly chromatic music that would be very hard to impossible to play on lever harp.
However, I still often play lever harp because some music is more suited for it. Both in terms of appearance (playing Celtic music on a pedal harp just misses that general ‘Celticness” of the visual), but also practical reasons.
There is some music that, on a lever harp, requires one lever change but played on pedal harp requires repeated pedal changes. Some music is simply easier to play on lever harp, and some easier (or only possible) on pedal harp.
That said, there isn’t anything I play on lever that is impossible on pedal, but there are things I play on pedal that are impossible on lever. But still, when given the option I will chose the right tool for the job, and sometimes that is a lever harp. No point using an axe to drive a nail when you have a hammer in your tool box.
Wow, what rude people. Do they think a harp is a guitar? All those strings take time to tune, and you can be sure that if you didn’t do it and played with the harp out of tune they would have complained about that.
Some people are just unpleasant and you have to learn to ignore them.
Typically when I am in a situation where I have to tune in front of people it actually increases their appreciation.
“You have to tune all those strings every time you play? Wow, I never realized that.”
My advice would be the same as Shelby’s. Forget the left hand arrangement for the accompaniment for now and just play the basic chords. Much easier.
You can vary a bit by changing the octave in the right hand on the second go through.
And later when you get better and do learn the full arrangement for the left hand you can combine them, playing once through with just the chords, and then a second time with the more complicated arrangement.
I would recommend some of Sylvia Wood’s books of arrangement. All her arrangements include the chord notations, so you don’t have to figure the chords out. Plus some of her books of traditional and O’Carolan music have two arrangements, and easy and intermediate one. So you can learn all three variations, with just the chords, with the easy arrangement, and with the intermediate arrangement when you get a little more proficient, and then you play through each one with your playing getting more complex as you go. It makes for a very
