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Did you mean to add a link or an embedded video? After the three dots I see nothing at all, and I would love to read or hear that story.
Agree with andy-b. Many moons ago, I started playing Woods’ album with Christmas songs when I just had a couple of months of harp lessons. I still like them.
I love Suzanne Guldimann’s 3 Christmas albums for the lap harp even more. They are nicely arranged and contain both well-known, as well as less well-known Christmas songs.
Start with this Google question:
christmas site:harpcolumn.com/forums/
And then you will find lots of great Christmas music for the harp and tips to play them.
By googling at:
splitting nails site:classicalguitardelcamp.comyou will find lots of threads with the solution classical guitar players use for splitting nails. Perhaps you find something that would suit your nails and your dream of playing the harp as well.
Of course, you could find ways to play the harp with your nails, but beware that you would sound quite different. It may be a question of taste, but I don’t like nylon or gut strung harps played with nails. Playing wire harp with nails is quite a different question. Actually, I like that.
There are different kind of fake nails. Lots of guitarists need them. Read about their experiences in the discussion threads on the Delcamp classical guitar forum which you find after you google:
fake nails site:classicalguitardelcamp.comAs to the relationship with playing the harp, you’d best read especially about the kind of solutions people have found for the left hand (where the nails should be very short).
Hi Aurélie, I’m really sorry to say, but even though you’ve live in the UK since you were six months old, you still will be effected in other ways than UK citizens.
Have a look at this article in the Guardian of yesterday: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/20/eu-citizens-uk-demand-clarification-immigraiton-status-no-deal-brexit
I can’t answer any of your questions, but you may like to research first what would be the possible consequences for you as a EU-citizen if the UK crashes out of the EU at 31 October. To start with, it may have an effect on your right to stay in the UK.
Are you aware that there may be shortages of food and medicine, as well as steep rises in prices. Also, there is a fear of riots.
The risk of a no deal Brexit has never been greater than now.
Congratulations with your Prelude, Karine. I’m sure you will enjoy many happy hours with it.
You will notice it’s sound will even improve in the next months of your playing. That’s what mine has been doing and I got it ten months ago. Frankly, I think the Prelude has a mellower sound than the Ana, which one hears most clearly in the highest register. That is one of the things why I bought the Prelude.
Hi Brook-BoddiePerhaps in the US they still use pedal gut for the Salvi Ana’s. In Europe, lever gut has been used for more than ten years now on these harps… E.g.: https://www.morleyharps.co.uk/salvi-ana-38-40-c102x3468685
Good to hear that the Salvi levers on your harp function nicely.Hi Karine, Just a thought: Virginia Harpcenter does have a 34 strings Dusty Boulevard lever harp with pedal gut tension. It’s rather affordable and, due to its compact model, more easily transportable than a Salvi Ana.
Virginia Harpcenter also has the 3 L&H lever harps with pedal gut tension. For me, the 40 L&H Prelude looks a lot like the Salvi Ana, but it sounds more mellow. I read that the Prelude leaves you indifferently, I wonder whether that has to do with the colour of the wood (mine has a natural maple finish, it can also be had in mahogany colour finish or ebony colour finish). By the way, you can easily remove the ‘golden’ crown and claws).
I think it’s definitely worth while to drive the 7 hours to Virginia, as it would give you very valuable information about how these harps feel. Before you go, you could ask whether they are expecting a Salvi Ana any time soon.
I just wonder whether the harp shops in Canada would be even further from where you live. Perhaps another thing to consider is that you may have to pay duty, tax and other importing costs when you order from the USA.There may be more difference between harpsicles of the second and the third generation than between the walnut/cherry versus the maple version.
The third generation has longer bass notes, and so these strings feel less floppy. Relatively newer third generation harpsicles made of maple also have the right eyelets to put the upgraded bass strings on, which make them sound even less floppy.
Beware though that the overall string tension remains very light.I agree with Veronika: it sounds like your heart prefers the Egan. It’s a sturdy harp with a great sound and a nice look.
I think an Egan from 2012 may have the nicely adjustable and silent L&H performance levers, which in my opinion, function way better than the old Salvi levers and the new so called plug-and-play (Chinese) levers) which give a bit of click-clack noise when you flip them.
One important thing: you really needs to sit behind the harp to know whether you can sit comfortably behind it. Some harp models ‘feel’ better when you play them than others and I think, that’s a mainly personal thing. Also, the sound when one sits right behind a harp differs from the sound the listeners hear.
Edit: Though I prefer really nice levers, if the sound of a harp with not so nice, but still adequately functional levers was really great, I would still buy that harp. But if I had to choose between two harps of just about the same sound quality, I would choose for the better levers.
I think the transition from the Ana or the Egan will be more or less the same. Both are harps with a medium string tension which requires the virtually same technique for playing the strings as pedal harps.
Nowadays, Salvi Ana’s are strung with lever gut. I don’t know when Salvi stopped with putting pedal gut strings on Salvi Ana’s. Also, depending on its age, the Salvi Ana will have the old Salvi levers (the earliest of this version not easily regulated) or the performance levers (like on the L&H lever harps) or the new Chinese levers. Depending on its age, the Salvi Ana may have 38 or 40 strings, all of them levered, or the lowest and/or highest not levered (can’t remember which of the strings were not levered in earlier versions).
As to ‘the’ sound of the Ana: I heard several and they all seem to sound a bit different. I liked the old Ana’s with their pedal gut strings better than the modern Ana’s.
As to the Salvi Egan, frankly, I only heard two of them in real life and I preferred both of them to the Ana. I wonder whether the Egan would have a different string spacing from the Ana.
If you are thinking of a pedal harp in the future, I would think of a L&H lever harp. They seem to have very nice ‘upgrade’ possibilities to a pedal harp, but perhaps this depends on where you live. By the way, I put ‘upgrade’ between quotes, as I think a professional lever harps is in its own way just as great as a professional pedal harp.
You may like to perform a google search on
harp kit site:harpcolumn.com and you will find lots of experiences.You may need a little ‘podium’ (can’t find the right English word…) to put the harp on. You could make that easily yourself or have a carpenter do it. Perhaps something that looks more or less like this: https://www.zingendesnaar.nl/silver-spear-inklapbare-harp-tafeltjes.html
