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In that price range with those details I would go with the Ogden. In my opinion, for its size and quality, it’s the best bang for the buck.
That doesn’t surprise me. I would think you would want to blend as much as possible tuning wise, and the best way is for everyone to be tuned as precisely to each other as possible. If you take too much liberty with your tuning you may sound good solo, but you are going to sound out of tune when playing with others who aren’t tuned the same way.
I have an older Peterson tuner. No, it doesn’t have a factory setting for stretch tuning, however you can save your own tuning parameters once you figure out what works best for yourself. I haven’t done it in a long time, I usually just tune to the Peterson and if necessary adjust the upper octaves by ear.
Of all the tuners I have used the Peterson is the one that has gotten me closest to perfect (to my ear) of any. I also have the Peterson tuning app on my iphone and it also works really, really well, although I prefer the stand alone tuner just for ease of use.
What, specifically, are you asking for regarding tuning and strings? For tuning you have to tune yourself. For strings you can travel to one of the harp retailers, but it is easiest to just order on-line.
The closest retailer would be the branch of the Virginia Harp Center that is located near Philadelphia in Haddonfield NJ. Since they sell used harps they can probably give you a rough idea what a harp is worth. However if you are looking for an appraisal for insurance reasons they may not be able to do that, but you can ask. The website is at http://www.vaharpcenter.com/index.php and their phone number and address are located in the Contact Us section on the web site.
My first introduction to music was in a marching band, and I played the glockenspiel (at the time it was almost as big as me), and dealing with sheet music playing glockenspiel while marching is next to impossible, so I just used to memorize it.
When I started the harp I just naturally tried memorizing everything and I had that exact problem. If I lost my way I was stumped. My teacher was always pushing me to sight read when I played and try to memorize just through repetition.
She would literally stop me in the middle of playing, point to a random measure, and say “start from here now”.
At first it drove me crazy, but eventually it really made a difference. It not only helped me not get tripped up like that, but it also greatly improved my sight reading abilities. I learned to look for the patterns and the underlying structure of the music.
The hard part about that is that when you are just starting you don’t know you way around the harp. Feeling your way around is hard. You have to spend a lot of time looking at the strings, then back at the music, then back at the strings…
But by forcing yourself to sight read the music and not just memorize it through muscle memory you also learn your way around the harp without having to look as much. Before you know it you are only looking when absolutely necessary. When I just memorized music I looked at the strings all the time. Once I really pushed myself to follow the sheet music I quickly learned to find my way around with far, far less looking to the strings.
Of course eventually you just have it in your fingers from practicing it so much, but by then you also have it down visually from the sheet music. I can almost see the sheet music in my head by that point, and I have associated what is on the page with what my fingers are doing that if you point to a random measure I can pretty much just start from there with almost no difficulty.
The other thing I find really helpful is when I have a passage in a piece of music that is just stumping me, I copy it by hand. I find that really forces me to take note of the patterns and what is going on. Often when I copy a section of music it just clicks suddenly, and things just start making sense.
Yes, I use Melody’s and Vanderbilt as well, as well as Lyra Music, Sylvia Woods Harp Center, and Harps Etc., which is physically the closest to me in over in Walnut Creek, CA.
Also sometimes the Virginia Harp Center.
Between these it is rare I can’t find what I am looking for.
I call my harps by the type, or sometimes by the make or color. I have never really considered giving personal names to inanimate objects. It’s a romantic notion I guess, but one that seems to lack and practical nature, and to be honest, it would make me feel silly telling someone, “this is my harp, George.”
I think I actually prefer the dark nickel. And Camac levers are just fantastic to begin with. I would love to switch out the loveland levers on my L&H lever harp with Camac levers.
Well, I always warm up with a few O’Carolan tunes anyway. Maybe today I will have to play a jig or something. I think I can remember how to play Banish Misfortune if I try hard enough. Or maybe Morrison’s Jig.
Interesting. I actually was introduced to the idea of stretching the upper octaves a little sharp by my harp tech when she was doing a regulation for my
I just use a soft cloth. Actually an old, flannel pillow case. I just give the harp a wiping down after each use. The best way to clean a harp is to not let dirt build up on it in the first place.
I used to not do that with my old lever harp, and it would get discolored around the edges of the sound board. I used Lyon and Healy harp polish to give it a good cleaning (I don’t know if they still make that, but it worked great), and now just wipe it down after each use. I also wipe down the strings. I have found that helps them last longer.
Honestly, I would be more worried about my house. Call an exterminator before it is too late. Trust me,
Well, if I were you I would check my A against the oboe and, assuming that it is correct and so no serious problem is about to ruin you, quickly check the rest of the octave of what ever octave you are going to be doing most of your playing in.
In the event that a string may have gone out of tune for some reason, or that you just missed one, you want to be most concerned with the notes you will be playing most in the piece. So if there are only a note or two in the first octave being played, but most of your playing is in the third octave for the piece then check those just to make sure that nothing has gone awry. You can’t retune the whole harp, but you should be able to make a last minute correction to one or two strings if you catch it during the tuning phase.
Or just pretend to be checking by playing some intervals or arpeggios. I find arpeggios a good way to catch the odd, out of tune string anyway.
Well, I don’t think if it as stretch tuning what I do because as I understand it stretch tuning is a rather complicated and precise system of tuning and what you can do with a piano in this regard is effected by the fact that you have all those strings for every note. The harmonics on a harp are different so the same system of stretch tuning that works on a piano I doubt would have the same effect on a harp.
Having spoken to people who know more about the piano than I ever will, it isn’t arbitrary what piano tuners do, and it isn’t just a matter of listening by ear. There is a general consensus of exactly how far off from perfect pitch each string should be to be tuned in what is considered Stretch Tuning, and it isn’t a fly by the seat of your pants adjustment.
That said, I do tune the upper octaves of my harps just a little sharp. It just sounds better that way. But what I do IS a fly by the seat of my pants, just make it sound good to my ear, approach and nothing so elaborate as stretch tuning on a piano.
That was the name of the duet on the show itself. I don’t think that is their actual performance name in real life. Harp Attack is a harmonica quartet in real life. I think it was a joke, as the last guy to do the planning had a group called Cello Submarine.
I can not find any reference to a group called harp attack other than the
