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Hi Molly, I hope that you have been happy with your Ravenna and that you’ve grown accustomed to the Loveland levers.
If you still feel them a bit stiff, here: is how you could adjust the stiffness: https://manufacturing.dustystrings.com/application/files/1814/7518/1495/Sharping_Lever_Installation_Instructions.pdf you can read how to adjust the stiffness. It is explained at the bottom of page 1 under ‘Optional step.’
Hi Sarah, some time ago, you started here : https://harpcolumn.com/forums/topic/camac-mademoiselle-or-salvi-ana/ a thread in which you wrote a little more than two years ago: “, i love my Korrigan. It is about 4 yrs old with new Camac levers but i feel i would like the harp to have a fuller more mellow sound from a larger harp. I will go to a Camac harp exhibition next month and hopefully try out a Mademoiselle.”
So, how did you like the Mademoiselle? When I was looking to replace my Camac PH38 with a new harp, I thought of buying the new Mademoiselle, but there was only one in the shop, and I didn’t like it at all… I think that if there were more Mademoiselles in the shop then, one of them could have stolen my heart. Every harp, even of the same make and model and kind of wood used does have a unique sound, as every tree and perhaps every branch of a tree produces it’s own sound.
When you still are looking for a fuller and more mellow sound than your Korrigan provides, the L&H Prelude seems to be a great choice. I ended up buying an L&H Prelude. 🙂 The L&H lever harps sound more mellow than the Camac Mademoiselle and the Salvi Ana.
Beware, though that the L&H, though strung with pedal gut tension, just like the Camac Mademoiselle, pulling the strings feels tougher. Perhaps, this has to do with a thicker soundboard, but that’s just my guess.
The L&H harp have ‘performance levers’, and though they are not so great as the Camac levers, they still are nice enough, as they work smoothly and silently. In a little more than a year’s time, I lost 3 strings, all in the first three months that I had the L&H. When the performance levers were new on the market (already several years ago, they had some starter problems (they ‘ate’ strings), but now these problems have been long solved.
When you try a Salvi Ana, listen carefully to the click-clack of the ‘plug-and-play-levers’. It is said though that these Chinese levers have improved recently. Also, you need to listen carefully if you like the more or less piercing sound of the higher strings. I much prefer the mellow and still ringing sound of the L&H Prelude, also in the highest register.
I think Salvi is more expensive than the L&H’s and the Camacs, because of Salvi’s price policy, not necessarily because of the cost to build them.
Hi greenjudy, sounds exciting! You probably already know that the harp was originally meant for lever gut tension. So, the feel and sound will be quite different from your earlier pedal gut strung Pratt and. The string tension will also be a bit lighter than is the case on your Camac Bardic.
The Camac Stivell may in sound and feel be closer to the Thurau Cromos harp.Hi bettyblue16, you may like the vast amount of free resources and the free newsletter of Noa Kageyama, a performance psychologist of the faculty of The Juilliard School at https://bulletproofmusician.com/
Congratulations, Molly! Nice to hear that you have ordered a 34 string Ravenna. I expect that you will be really happy with it for many years to come.
Hi greenjudy, you’re welcome. It would be great if you’d tell us your experiences with your the tasting of Camac harps over the holidays. You probably already know that even identical looking harps of the same harp manufacture can sound significantly different from each other, so, you may like to try all ‘identical’ ones of an interesting harp model and perhaps one of them will steal your heart. 🙂
I agree with Biago: if you don’t have a teacher, you’d best get a lever harp with lower intermediate or intermediate string tension. That way you may prevent developing (chronic) injuries you might suffer when using unhealthy techniques on a pedal string tension harp.
As you do consider moving on to a pedal harp in about 5 years, I think you may like to learn classical technique from the very beginning. It would save you a lot of time later on having to ‘unlearn’ the kind of unhelpful technique that sounds fine (though not great) on a lever tension strung harp.
Hi Molly, yes, I agree, if you are looking for a lever harp that’s primarily very good for Celtic and folk music, there are a lot of lever harps which would suit you better than one with pedal gut tension.
Hi Molly, an L&H Prelude is a lever harp very close in sound to a little pedal harp. I’ve got one myself and can say from experience that when the levers are well adjusted, they function fine and frictionless. In a whole year I had three strings broken, all three within a very short time after buying the Prelude. Yes, Camac levers are nicer, indeed, but the performance levers on the Prelude are ‘nice enough’ for me.
You may have read some horror stories about when these ‘performance levers’ were just new on the market several years ago.
You may be able to find a second hand L&H Prelude or another harp with pedal string tension that does fit your budget (perhaps an L&H Ogden or Troubadour). But frankly, harps with pedal gut tension are great for classical music and a lot of other music, but it’s really hard to play fast celtic music on it.
A 34 string harp would be fine for most music for lever harp. Yet, two of my three harps do have a low A and A low B beneath the C two octaves below middle C, and though I seldom play them, I love their ‘sounding along in sympathy’ with the other strings.
I agree with Balfour-Knight and Biagio on the Ravenna being a great starter harp. It’s also very suitable for all kinds of popular and celtic music, just a bit less for classical music in my mind.
Please, don’t buy a harp before hearing and seeing and feeling it yourself.
I found one harpshop in Nebraska: http://www.hurstharps.com/Harps.html I was very surprised to see a new 38 string L&H Prelude for sale. For several years now, Preludes come standard with 40 strings, so a 38 string is an old model that may be sold for an extra neat price.
Hi greenjudy, the Camac Bardic is a cute little tank, indeed! And I think, you are very lucky to own a Camac harp, not only, because these are real nice harps, but also as these harps are made in a way that they suffer less much from less than ideal surroundings than harps built with relatively vulnerable parts of solid woods.
I think you may need to measure the level of humidity in the room where your harp will stand. I live in a relatively moderate climate, but still need to use a dehumidfier (I use a Venta) in the wet seasons and a humidifier (I use a Qlima) in the dry season in order to keep the humidity level between 40% and 60%. Unfortunately, where I live, heating alone won’t keep the humidity level within that reach, and I fear the same will be the case at your place.
I understand you would like a larger instrument than the Bardic. The question being, how many strings would you like? With 34 strings you could play most music meant for lever harp, but 36 or 38, or even 40 strings may suit you even better.
Should the harp be easily transportable by bus or train or a (small) car? Would you need to regularly walk the stairs with it?
Also very important, if not most important, what kind of music do you like? Classical, popular, and/or celtic? And are you looking for a lever harp almost sounding like a pedal harp or more like a celtic harp?
As to the string tension of the Bardic versus the Excalibur. I’ve got an Excalibur and I can’t tell you if its string tension would be a little less than the tension of the Bardic. Both harps have a tension harder than celtic and softer than pedal tension, but the Bardic (mostly) has nylon strings, while the Excalibur (mostly) has carbon strings. Carbon strings are a bit elastic, so, perhaps they may feel a little bit less tense, but this may be misleading.
Earlier, you already owned a Pratt Chamber harp and had to sell it, I wonder why you are willing to look for another kind of harp. Which aspect of harp playing would you rather see different in your next harp? Is it the levers, the sound, the string tension, or the ‘feel’ or perhaps the looks?
One of the harps you are interested in, is a Korrigan. This is a sturdy harp does have pedal gut strings and sounds nice to my ears, but is significantly smaller than the Pratt Chamber harp, so its sound is simply not as rich as a significantly larger harp. Camac makes several other nice and sturdy harps with all kinds of string tension. So, the main question is, what kind of sound would you like?
The Dusty Boulevard is in fact a Dusty Ravenna adapted for pedal gut strings. I never heard a Dusty Boulevard other than on the internet, but I think I like most other pedal gut lever harp strings better.
Have you thought of one of the L&H lever harps? They are sturdy and are strung with pedal gut tension and I like their tone when they are played with a classical technique (I’ve got a Prelude, and love it). This harp does play heavier though than the Camac Mademoiselle and I think this has to do with the thickness of the soundboard.
The complexity of sound you hear in the Cromos, has, no doubt, to do with a very fine harp player playing a very fine harp and it being recorded with nice recording equipment. But I’m convinced the same harp player could have other well-built harps very nice as well.
As to getting used to medium lever tension (while you have now medium high lever tension on your bardic), I don’t think that would be a problem. The question would be, would you like the sound of a lesser tension?
At youtube you may compare lever harp clips that are shot in the same space by the same person. Have a look at the clips of Atlanta Harp Center or Virginia Harp Center. This may give you an idea of the sound you are looking for.
I love Kleemann’s playing too and I think Mr. Thurau builds great harps.
In an earlier message you wrote: “I just relinquished my beautiful Pratt Chamber Harp because it was too big, too heavy, and a little too temperature-sensitive for my lifestyle. I travel back and forth a lot and spend a lot of my time in a remote retreat area where it is difficult for me to control temperature and humidity.” I’m afraid such a brutal environment would ask for quite another kind of harp. Frankly, I’d rather think of a Dusty Ravenna…
As to string tension, in an earlier message you disliked the lighter tension of the Camac Ulysse and found the medium string tension of the Salvi Donegal more attractive.
As far as I know, the Erard harps had a kind of tension that was almost a modern lever gut tension and I wonder if that’s what you are looking for, given your earlier enthusiasme for the Camac Excalibur, which has a tension somewhat between lever tension and pedal gut tension.As to shipping, I can only say, that a few years ago, I wondered about importing a harp from the US to the Netherlands, where I live, and I found the shipping costs extremely high (think of more than 600 dollars for a lever harp and costs have been rising since) and above it, I would have to pay a lot of money on importing fees and VAT (even on the shipping costs). Well, I know the US, don’t have VAT, but you will still have to pay importing fees.
No, I don’t have hands-on experience with the Cromos by Rainer Thurau
As to current the price of the Cromos, you would have to ask Mr. Thurau privately.
Edit: here: https://www.oldharpsmadeyoung.com/single-post/2014/09/26/String-and-String-Tension I found some information on the string tension of Erard Gothic harps.
Howard, I hate to dissappoint you, but a smartphone may need almost daily or every other day to be charged, while the battery of a dedicated tuner could last you months. Also, when the battery is a bit low, it seems to make it harder for the microphone to catch the pitch.
Also, you would need a tuner that can handle both the lowest and the highest notes of your harp. I never had a problem with the lowest notes, but catching the highest register seems to be difficult or even impossiblefor some tuners (they simply don’t seem to register them), even when you hold the tuner directly next to the strings,
Even a dedicated tuner may have problems with catching the highest notes of one’s harp. I use a Korg TM-50 and though it’s able to catch all notes of my L&H 40 string Prelude, I still need to keep the tuner quite close to the strings in order to have the tuner register the highest notes.
@ Taras, google for pictures on “chinesische halbtonklappen” in Google Images.
Start searching for more information at this thread of 2012 in a German harpforum at: https://www.harfenforum.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4566
There you find a link to someone the OP had contact with and who may be willing to share information that might help you further.I agree with Evolène regarding buying a second hand harp from a reputable harp shop. In the Netherlands one could also buy a decent, somewhat older second hand harp for about the same price you mention.
And, like Evolène, I’m convinced that such a harp would be a much better investment than a cheap Paki harp of about the same price or a little less. Also, second hand harps from reputable builders tend to keep their value when one would want to sell it later on. It would be real hard though to try and sell a used Paki for a neat price.
I get the impression that in the US second hand harps are significantly pricier than they are where we live in Europe.
I also agree with the three points made above by Biagio.
Anyway, all this information doesn’t benefit Molly now. So I hope she will manage to make her Paki harp function and sound as good as possible.
