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Yes, it is very quiet. Not completely, but quiet enough that it shouldn’t really interfere with someone watching TV unless they watch with the volume really, really low.
As Maya said, you do need to plug it into something. Many practice amps have headphone jacks so that is an option. Also there are many recording or emulator programs and apps that allow you to plug into a computer or tablet and practice with headphones. You just need an adaptor to plug the instrument chord into the computer.
I use an app called Amplitube, which is actually an amplifier emulator app for the iPad meant for use with electric guitars. I use an iRig adaptor to plug the harp into the iPad, then I can select the kind of amp I want to use, custom tweak it if I need to, and can then play with headphones on. It can add all sorts of effects too.
It can also record. It’s like a dozen practice amps in one small package.
I kind of want to transcribe the guitar solo and try to fake it on the harp… But I don’t think that would work out very well. haha
I considered it too and came to the same conclusion. The other day I was playing around with Black Sabbath’s Planet Caravan and got most of the melody down, but I tried to imiate Tony Iommi’s guitar solo and it is just impossible to do on harp. But I really liked the overall sound of the piece on harp so I may have to come up with my own harp solo for it.
So you can alway do that. Make your own solo. That’s what solos are for, to shine and improvise in your own voice.
It’s nice being able to pivot on the heel when you’re going fast.
As a man I have always envied the women that they can wear high heals just for the pivot factor.
My feet are plenty big, but I always make sure to find men’s dress shoes to play in that have enough of a heel to facilitate pivoting at least to some degree for fast peddling.
What Kimberly said. They really are more alike than different.
Think about what a technique is supposed to do for you. It is supposed to allow you to play everything you want to play without hurting yourself.
All the main techniques allow you to do this with enough study and practice, so none are superior.
Like others mentioned, I knew nothing about different techniques when I started playing. I found a teacher and started taking lessons. She mentioned at one point that her teacher was this guy named Salzedo, but that meant nothing to me at the time. It wasn’t until a fair bit of time later that I learned that I was being taught a specific style of playing, and that this Salzedo guy was fairly well known and developed this style.
And that still didn’t mean all that much to me. All I knew was I was learning to play the music I wanted.
So don’t worry about style. If you want to take lessons from a teacher (and I highly recommend you do) worry about finding a teacher who knows how to teach well, regardless of what style they teach.
Because in the end you will either be able to play or you won’t and if you can or can’t will have far less to do with the technique you learn than with your dedication and discipline to study and practice.
And just on a side note, there is a difference between playing technique and method of learning new music. They can mix and match.
Yes, since many people who use the French or Salzedo techniques focus on classical music they often rely on sheet music, but that is because of the genre of music they are learning and not because of anything inherent in the techniques.
I can play from sheet music. I can also memorize sheet music so after a while I don’t need it. I can also learn by ear. That I play with the Salzedo technique has little to do with that other than my teacher did insist that I learn to sight read, which no matter what method of learning you want to rely on primarily is still always a valuable skill for any musician. I play primarily jazz and pop, and so I generally sight read from lead sheets, or simply memorize the basic structure of music, and then improvise a lot. I learned that from my teacher who was not only a student of Salzedo and Lawrence but who also happened to be one of the pioneer of jazz harp. Her technique was not in any way a problem for her more Jazz like approach to music.
Being a Salzedo player, or a French player, or a Russian player doesn’t limit you to learning music in only one proscribed way. It doesn’t prevent you from playing any genre of music you want. It really doesn’t mean anything at all other than when you use one of these techniques you are using a technique that has been tried and tested by many people over a fair bit of time to ensure that it actually works. Of the established techinques they all work, so I recommend anyone wanting to learn to not worry about the name of the technique they will learn and worry more about finding a competent teacher regardless of style.
Hey Jerusha,
If I can get it down to my satisfaction I will post it on youtube.Yes, the Moon River arranged by Baker is strictly a pedal harp arrangement.
I do still play pop and jazz on lever harp. Depending on the arrangement some things are simply easier to play on lever harp, although when all other things are equal I tend to go with the pedal harp.
After taking a fairly long break from learning any new pieces I am back in the grove.
Coincidently I am also working on Sylvia Woods’ arrangement of Stairway to Heaven. I already play two other versions. Dave Ice’s and my own. There are bits I like from David’s version, and bits I like from my own, and when I saw Sylvia’s version I realized she did some really nice things with the last section I really liked. So I am going to learn her version as well, and them I am going combine the parts from each I like best into an amalgamated version.
Other than that I am working on Deborah Friou’s arramgement of The Lament of Tristan.
And I am working on Paul Baker’s arrangement of Moon River.
I would definitely recommend getting a teacher first, and start by renting. Even if you know for a fact you will stick with it, you still need to figure out what the right harp for you actually is. They are not all the same. They feel different, sound different, and have such variation that you are better off learning to play on a rental and developing an idea of what feels right to you, sounds right to you, and works best for you.
Then you can make a much better informed decision when you decide to buy.
Yes. Garageband is great for recording. There are numerous other apps that can record as well. I use Music Studio, which is a DAW program (Digital Audio Workstation). But there are no shortage of apps that can be used.
But really, Garageband is great. And if you have a mac as well the mac should have come with a copy of the desktop version of Garageband already on it, and it is a piece of cake to transfer recorded tracks between the ipad and desktop versions.
There are a few bands and musicians who have recorded entire, professional albums using garageband on an iPad.
What you will need, other than an appropriate app, is a mic or mic interface that works with the iPad.
You can go with an irig mic, which typically goes for between $50 and $60. Or just the irig preamp for ipad that lets you use your own mic at around $40. But if you want top quality audio I think the best mic is the one by Apogee. But it’s a bit pricy at $200.
Of course you can use the built in mic on the ipad, but it really isn’t meant for recording music and the quality of the sound isn’t going to be something you are going to want to use for a CD or use for promotion. But if you just want to record your practice sessions for your own review or lay down some preliminary tracks to catch some ideas as they go through your head, then it is fine. So for that all you really need is garageband (which I think costs $10) and your imagination.
I switched to the colored bass strings years ago and wouldn’t go back to the copper if you paid me.
I’m sure some people can hear a difference, just as some people find CDs to be so inferior to vinyl. But those aren’t most people and if there is a difference it is so slight as to be irrelevant. The only way to notice it is if you had someone with exceptional hearing listening to two harps with the two different strings playing together side by side.
REQUIRED:
Harp (lever or pedal)
Dust cover
Tuning key
Electronic tuner
*Replacement strings
*Harp regulation (every 1 to 5 years depending on harp and usage)Every harp maker I ever heard of provides a tuning key so that is not an extra expense.
You don’t need a dust cover. It’s nice, but you don’t need one. Most of the more expenseive harps (pedal harps, higher quality lever harps) come with some kind of a case or padded cover. If not and you really feel the need for a dust cover thow an old sheet over it when not being played.
An electronic tuner is recommended, but not required. A tuning fork (or other note reference) and patience is all that is needed. If she has a cell phone chances are she can download a free tuning app, which is what I use more these days and my stand alone electronic tuners mostly collect dust (maybe I need a dust cover for my tuners?).
Almost every thing else except strings and maintaniance are things that you can add over time as needed. Fun From the First Vol I and II are very inexpensive ($10 each) and will keep her busy for a while.
Keep in mind that most of the other things you list will apply to almost all instruments. No matter what you play you have to, over time, collect sheet music, have a music stand, get lessons, have maintainanence, etc…
An overhaul on my basic fooling around flute can cost $100 to $200, which I need to do every year. If you move up to a hand made flute you may need to get a complete overhaul every 3 to 5 years, which seems like a lot of time, but it can be very expenseive. Over $1000.
I only need to get my pedal harp regulated every two years or so, and it costs $300.
So maintanance on even my cheap flute costs the same or more than my pedal harp.
The big cost for a harp are the strings. Even inexpensive options for restringing a pedal harp are not cheap, and even if you can get away with restringing every other year thats a few hundred more, plus keeping extra strings on hand in case one breaks.
However, while the strings on my guitars are much fewer and much less expensive, they need to be changed almost every month. My estimation for completely restringing a Concert Grand would be $420 (less for smaller harps with less strings, and even less for harps that are typically strung with all nylon strings). If you’re not playing professionally you can easily get away with only doing that every other year, so $210 a year.
Not bad. I spend about $180 per year on guitar strings for my 3 guitars. If you only had one guitar and restrung only every month you can get away with between $60 to $75 a year depending on the type of strings you use. I spend about $60 on my acoustic, $85 on my good electric, and $48 on my beater electric.
So harp strings are a big expense and higher than most other stringed instruments, but even with a guitar you would still be shelling out some bucks.
The big deal with the harp is the initial expense. For what you need to spend for even a basic, lower end concert grand you could get a pretty freaking amazing violin.
Of course you can tune to B. If you can change tuning to B just by flipping levers or not depends on what key you have it tuned to when the levers are not engaged.
If you normally have your harp tuned to C without the levers engaged then tuning to B is easy as raising the F, C, G, D and A levers to sharp those notes.
If you are tuned to, say, Eb you would first need to manually return the As to natural with the levers disengaged. Then raise the F,C,G,D and A levers to make those strings sharp, and also raise the E and B levers to make those strings natural.
If you don’t have levers on all the strings then manually retune those strings to sharp or natural as needed with your tuning key, and then tune them back down when you are done.
Hey, I think Candace stole my book :^)
Sounds pretty much like what I have in mine, right down to the Disney tunes. Only difference is I only have a couple of Spirituals but do have a bunch of folk and Celtic music.What it comes down to is the music you want to play. If you want to play fairly chromatic music regularly, such as Jazz or Classical, or pop, then you are better off with the 85P. (not that you can’t play anything in these genres on lever harp, but there is a lot of music in these genres that you can’t).
If you are playing diatonic or only slightly chromatic music then you are probably better off sticking with the Prelude.
They are both good harps. What I always say is that you want the right tool for the job, and in this case the music is the job and the harp is the tool. Figure out what harp bests fits the job and go with it.
As a general rule the pedal harp will be most versatile. I play a range of music and use both lever and pedal harp, and while there are a fair number of things I play that simply can’t be played on the lever harp I have yet to come across something I can play on lever harp that I can’t play on pedal harp as well.
However, that said there are definitely arrangements I use that are easier to play on lever harp than on pedal harp so it’s not that the pedal harp is inherently superior. Also if you aren’t going to play professionally and don’t have a real desire to play music or arrangements that are highly chromatic then you can always find plenty in all genres that you can play on lever harp.
That and the cost of maintaining a pedal harp are good reasons not to switch unless you have a real reason to.
