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Yep, my tech says change strings a minimum of two weeks before regulation as well.
Once the strings settle in they may stretch a little over time, but not that much. Mostly, as the strings age, problems with regulation come from the strings getting pits where the prongs on the disks press against them. If you can easily feel the indents on the strings from the disks it’s time to change strings.
I use Burgundy on my L& H and also think it sounds no different than the regular Bow Brand strings. The visual imperfections don’t bother me at all, you can’t really notice them unless you are right
I have read both and personally I find the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Music Theory a much better introduction to music theory than Music Theory For Dummies.
Both are decent, but the Idiot’s Guide is better at explaining the more difficult concepts, and is generally a more engaging book.
A L&H 17 should be able to handle either gut or nylon, or any combination of them. I think in this case when they say that gut is recommended I think they are speaking in terms of tone, not harp structure. Lyon and Healy typically ships its harps with a combination of gut with nylon in the upper octave or two. Lyon and Healy concert harps generally sound best when the majority of octaves other than the very top are strung in gut.
I would not suggest replacing just one string with nylon however if the rest are all gut because it will most likely stand out. I would wait and restring the whole harp the way you want it if you really want to go with nylon.
I keep my pedal harp strung the way that L&H sent it, with mostly gut, and nylon only in the top. Looking at my string chart it looks like the recommended stringing for L&H semi grands is to be strung with gut through the 3rd octave, and then nylon in the 2nd and 1st octaves. But all gut or all nylon are shown as options for stringing.
If you change from one material to the other you may need to get it regulated after switching over from one to the other.
Develop good technique.
Learn music theory.
Learn to improvise.
Listen to everything and anything you can.
The harp is a fantastic instrument for jazz.
I highly recommend getting a good teacher not just for harp itself but for theory. In the mean time I highly recommend working through Mark Levine’s The Jazz Theory Book.
Also a fun and light introduction to improvisation is Introduction to Improvisation by Deborah Henson-Conant. It’s fun because it comes with a CD of Vamps to improvise over that are very fun and not too hard to work with.
And learn the head and chord progressions of as many Jazz standards as you can.
No, I don’t talk to them. Nor do I kiss them. I hug and lean on them in a practical way, you really can’t help it when practicing and playing, but not in an affectionate way. And as I have mentioned before, I don’t name inanimate objects. If other people do that’s great, but I really don’t get it.
That doesn’t mean I don’t have an attachment to them. I know their feel, am familiar with their quirks and strengths. I have an intimate understanding of how they respond, and if I had to switch one of them with a new harp I would have to go through an awkward period of introduction to the instrument.
That said, if I had to replace one I wouldn’t be emotionally upset by it. To me they are, ultimately, tools. Beautiful, unique tools that require a great deal of familiarity to get the most out of, but still just tools.
Typically I use an iPad using Fourscore. In Fourscore I look up the music by any number of criteria, plus I can create playlists for specific kinds of gigs, or one off kind of events.
If I need it I do keep a binder with all my music. I separate into genres and within the genre I organize alphabetically. For the specific event I pull out all of the pieces on my set let and order them in that order in the front of the book, and then put them back in their correct order afterwards. Again I have printed set lists I keep in the binder for various occasions.
I also keep a disk in my gig bag with PDFs of all my music as well as keep copies of the PDFs on “the cloud” so that in a pinch I can get copies of any of my music anywhere I can get to a computer with a printer.
Sound quality is mostly subjective, not an objective truth.
Gut isn’t objectively a better sound than nylon, and concert tension doesn’t objectively produce a better tone than folk tension.
Some people simply like the sound of one over another. Some music generally sounds better when played on the one or the other.
Also far more than the strings go into producing the tone of the instrument. The construction methods, the woods used, the way the soundboard is shaped… there is no one element that can be pointed at on a harp to say “this harp uses X and that harp doesn’t, therefore this harp will sound better”.
You need to go listen to the sound of the actual harp itself and decide if you, personally, like the sound of the harp when playing the kind of music you want to play on it.
That is the only determination.
In addition to reading music you may want to familiarize yourself with basic music theory beyond that.
Specifically harp related is Sylvia Woods’ ‘Music Theory and Arranging Techniques for the Folk Harp’. This book requires only a basic music reading ability.
If your music reading skills are still at the very early stages you can try Edly’s Music Theory For Practical People, which is specifically written as an introduction to music theory that doesn’t require you to be able to read music already in order to understand what it is talking about.
It sounds like he has no respect for you. I am going to assume that he wasn’t always like this, because if he was then why would you marry him at all in the first place?
But if I were living in your situation I would probably be considering leaving if he wasn’t willing to go to couples counseling.
For one thing, if you are married, then it is ‘your’ (plural) house. He is willing to give you some money towards groceries? That’s it?
He doesn’t sound like he thinks he is in a marriage but more a business relationship, and that your other business is interfering with his. I am not going to try to diagnose him based on what you wrote. Having once worked in the mental health field I know you have not given enough information to pin down exactly what is up with him. But I can see enough in your description (if accurate) to say that he is exhibiting at least some form of personality disorder, and that
I can understand why the local library wouldn’t necessarily put your entire collection in the stacks. They have limited space and most small, local public libraries have to balance out the convenience of having everything with those space limitations. They tend to keep what is most likely going to be requested, plus a few odd things, and rely on interlibrary loan for the requests for most of the unusual items.
So to make your music collection available to students in it’s entirety you will want to give it to a library that has reason to think that there will be some kind of a demand for it, and the best bet would be a library at a college that has a harp program.
When I play in a suite I have two that I had custom done. A standard dark grey suite and a tux. While they were being fitted I moved in the way I would when I played and made sure they tailored them to accommodate the movement. My shirts are tailored Thai silk. Very comfortable, very nice looking, and they don’t bunch up.
Since I don’t play in a classical setting however, I often don’t need to wear a suite, and generally I am more concerned about shoes than anything else.
” if you aim to be a true music therapist”
Please don’t confuse harp therapy programs and music therapy. They are NOT the same thing.
Music therapy is a minimum of a BA degree that you get by attending an accredited college that offers the course of study. You then get board certified as a music therapist after completing the coursework, the internship, and taking board exams. There are advanced degrees at both the Masters and PHD level.
Harp Therapy programs are not taught through accredited colleges and do not teach the same things as a music therapy program. They are independent certifications and not degrees.
