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Hi Perelandra, I don’t know the Teach Yourself Harpsicle Method, so I can’t say anything on the usefulness ofits fingerings. But I do know that different teachers prefer different fingerings, and frankly, I don’t understand why your teacher didn’t write the fingerings she preferred in your score.
Did you talk to her about your wish to play fun pieces as well? The fact that a lot of pieces go several strings lower than your 26-string harp can, needn’t be an obstacle: you could play most pieces a whole octave higher.
Hi Evolène, eh,,, you mean the accidental in the accompaniment of the air as there is none in the melody? From O’Carolan’s music only the single melody lines are left, so everybody needs to arrange the music herself. 🙂 So the accidental has nothing to do with the composer. As to style, I don’t dare to say anything about that.
Anyway, I’m glad the link did work out in the end. In the mean time I managed to make screen shots and send them to your account in the French harp forum.
I know just one great harp teaching method that is useful for harps from 19 strings and more. The F below middle C is the lowest string. So this method is suitable for most lap harps. That is to say, for harpers who can read German.
Its title is Saitenklang and it is written by Monika Mandelartz. Can you read German?
You may like to get an impression of some of its tunes here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3j_4TxzLNGi8UdATer9dhvidB-ZIEZ7v
Hi Evolène, I just retried the link I gave and it still works for me. Perhaps the site just had a hick up? Otherwise, perhaps they block access to people from certain countries? Anyway, if you still can’t get there, I will try and send you some print screens
Hi Perelandra, there is really nice music to play from the very beginning of one’s harp journey. Did you talk to your teacher about also learning fun pieces? All my harp teachers gave me every lesson both technical exercises as well as pieces which are fun to play. Do you have a lever harp or a pedal harp? Which kind of music would you be able to learn to play?
We could mention several books, but I just wonder which books have you been using until now?
Hi Biagio, the funny thing is, that indeed, O’Carolan’s Welcome is also known as O’Carolan’s Air, but… O’Carolan’s Air in Betty Paret’s book is quite a different tune.
I only found an arrangement of three pages from Cynthia Boener for harp and flute at: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/o-carolan-s-air-for-harp-and-flute-digital-sheet-music/20662908
I made a mistake. I said the Isolde Celtic was strung with Kürschner carbon strings, but I just saw at https://www.camac-harps.com/en/harps-en/lever/isolde-celtic/ that is is strung with (Savarez) Alliance. So, I had one of my senior moments. I am sorry.
I will correct my mistake above. So, there’s a different kind of carbon strings on the Camac Isolde Celtic and the Camac Excalibur.
Hi Djan,
both the Isolde Celtic and the Excalibur have Kürschner carbon strings. The Isolde Classic has Savarez Carbon strings.Edit: both the Isolde Classic and the Excalibur have Kürschner carbon strings. The Isolde Celtic has Savarez Carbon strings.The fact that you found the Isolde Celtic in the middle register sound warmer than the Excalibur, may have to do with the two specimens you tried. If you try let’s say five the ‘same’ harps, they all sound a bit different from each other. Some sound warmer or brighter than others of the same model and wood.
The Camac Isolde weighs 14 kilo, the Camac Korrigan 15 kilo and the L&H Ogden… 12,7 kilo.
The Telenn is gut strung, but not with pedal gut, but with lever gut, which is at most places about 4 strings thinner than pedal gut. So, yes, the significantly lower tension gives a different sound.I love the upper register of the Excalibur, as, in contrast to a lot of lever harps, it is not overly bright and for me they are comfortable to play, even though I am rather small.
In my ears, the Excalibur has a warmish clear sound. There are harps that sound more or less like guitars, but I don’t reckon the Excalibur to be one of them.
No, I didn’t say that the Isolde was more warm (as it isn’t.). You can read the whole thread back by scrolling all the way down and see a small option to go back from this page 2 to pay 1.
Hi Djan, it’s important to know that you find both the tension of the strings of the Hermine and the Ravenna too low. You could get accustomed to playing a harp with a low or intermediate tension, but maybe you simply prefer the sound of harps with a heavier tension? I think the tension of the Camac Isolde is not significantly heavier than the tension of the Ravenna…
I have tried and/or played several harps, but I have never tried or played the Celtic Isolde. I just happen to know something about the kind of strings on it. I played several middle tension lever harps at my teachers’, but frankly, I prefer playing a harp with a bit more tension, partly because I am used to that, but mainly because I like the sound of harps with a heavier tension.
At the moment, I do own a Camac Excalibur and a L&H Prelude as well as an old Salvi Heather. In the past I also owned the precursor of the Camac Mademoiselle. I love the Excalibur, with its tension between ‘celtic’ and ‘classic’ for playing Renaissance and traditional music. It plays rather easily.
I love the L&H Prelude with its standard pedal gut tenion for classical pieces, but I enjoy playing other kinds of music on it as well. As a matter of fact, this harps plays a bit more heavily than I like, but I do love its sound. Yes, I played the precursor of the pedal gut strung Camac Mademoiselle for many moons and I tried the current Camac Mademoiselle and they both play a lot ‘lighter’ than the L&H Prelude, although all these harps are strung with standard pedal gut… I guess the L&H plays heavier, because of its heavier soundboard. So, how ‘heavy’ a harp plays doesn’t only have to do with the string tension and string lenght, but also with the thickness of the soundboard.
In one of your latest mails you mentioned before that in future you may like to play the pedal harp. Well, if that’s the kind of sound you are looking for, you may want to try the Camac Korrigan, which is strung with standard pedal gut, or one of the L&H lever harps. Yes, all these are gut strung and you’d prefer harps without gut, but perhaps you like nylgut or silkgut, which are synthetic strings. Camac sells nylgut for pedal gut strung harps and this is a lot cheaper and supposedly stronger than natural pedal gut.
I think your really need to find a way to try a harp before you buy. Judging the sound of a harp is very personal. Even several a first glance exactly the same harps of the same model and built with the same kind of woodmay sound quite different, because they are built from different trees or branches of a tree.
I would never, ever, buy a harp unseen, unless I could return it for free when it wouldn’t be to my liking. The latter is a very nice possibility the large German music store Thomann.de offers and it also ships also to the UK. They sell L&H-harps as well as Salvi harps (and some sad Paki harps with non-paki names). Unfortunately, they don’t sell Camac harps.
This weekend you saw and tried several harps. Which ones did you like in sound and feel? Which ones didn’t speak to you?
Hi Emma, could it be that you just don’t like the upper strings of Salvi harps? These strings tend to sound a bit shrill in my ears, this may be better camouflaged with gut than with other kinds of strings. I am not a real fan of the sound of most Salvi lever harps, though I’ve got an old Salvi Heather pedal gut strung walnut harp of more than 30 years old, but then, Salvi Harps were still completely built in Italy.
I agree, for the price of a Pilgrim Clarsach there are lots of other possibilities that may suit the wishes of the OP better.
Like you, I think the Camac Hermine is a fine harp, especially for the money. I heard the Camac Hermine is the most popular of all current Camac lever harps and due to its small size and relatively low weight and low string tension, a lot of children start on this harp.
The question just is, whether this harp with low string tension would be best suitable for someone liking to play jazz. Think of all the necessary damping when one at the same time needs one’s fingers to flip lots of levers… I really think the OP would be happier with a harp with intermediate or perhaps even hard tension, as she thinks about having a pedal harp in future.
Agree with Biagio, and indeed, when I wrote ‘sound board’ I meant the sound box and so I just corrected my message above.
All the same, the Pilgrim Clarsach the OP has been playing on for a few years, is a carefully hand-built harp with a sound box of full walnut and, unless things have changed since I last saw one many moons ago, a solid wood sound board.
And so, I was initially surprised the OP thought of buying an entry level harp. No bad word about the Dusty Ravenna from me: I think it offers great value for money. Yet, I think the OP would be looking for a different harp.
One of my harps is a Camac Excalibur. It has Kürschner carbon strings with a tension somewhere between celtic and classic. These Kürschner strings are a little bit warmer than Savarez carbon strings and they keep their red and black colour just fine (The colour of Savarez carbon strings fades after some time. I also have a harp with partly Savarez carbon strings and, apart from the fact that I like their sound too, a nice thing about them is that they can be had in thicker gauges than Kürschner carbon strings).
I’ve got the Excalibur for a little bit more than 1 year now and in that time only one string got broken (the D immediately above middle C).
I know the Excalibur is significantly pricier than the Ravenna, but I do think the Excalibur is worth the extra cost. It sounds clear with a little bit of warmth over the whole range and has a great balance of sound. If the Excalibur is really out of your price range, you may like to try the Isolde Classic and Celtic because of their clear and balanced sound. As you will try the Ravenna, please listen well if you mind the difference in feel and sound between the wound strings and the nylon strings.
If you think of buying pedal harp in the future. You may like to try harps with pedal gut tension. Think of the L&H Ogden, which is almost in your price range. There is also the Salvi Gaia with pedal gut tension.
Here: https://youtu.be/6iPLzipq4kQ a harp teacher plays both of these harps next to each other and then she also plays a pedal harp.
When pedal gut is not practical, you may think of stringing it with the very much cheaper Camac Nylgut (which, like other nylgut, is made by Aquila). For the prices of nylgut for pedal harps and for pedal tension stringed lever harps, see: http://www.harpes-camac-boutique.net/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=nylgut&sort=2a&page=1
I’ve got a L&H Prelude as well and, as you mentioned small hands, I must say that it is much easier for me to grasp a decim on the Camac Excalibur than on the L&H Prelude or on a L&H Ogden which have more distance between the lower strings. I like the rich sound of the L&H’s but they do require a good classic technique to play them. The Excalibur is much easier to play, but then, it has a quite different, much more bright sound.The Camac Hermine has a rather low tension, the Telenn a middle tension and so does the Isolde Celtic. The Isolde Classic has a classic tension. I love the Excalibur with its tension between celtic and classic.
If the Excalibur is too much out of your price range, I would try both the Isoldes. The Isolde harps, especially the celtic strung ones, are also very popular, so it would be easy to sell it later on.
Camac also has harps for rent. They may have a nice scheme for you to hire a certain harp e.g. with the possibility of buying it within a half year with the costs of hiring subtracted from the harp (or maybe in the UK they’ve got other interesting schemes, I really don’t know about that). This may be a great way to find out whether a harp really suits you or not.
As to damping, low tension strings, especially the longer ones, need more damping than high tension strings. This has not to do with the kind of material.
I just wonder: which other harps you may have a look at next weekend?
Edit: I don’t know why you would skip looking at 2nd hand harps. If you buy one from a reputable harp shop with, let’s say a guarantee of a year (like I got on both 2nd hand harps), you get a fine harp with lot of bang for your buck! I was also offered the option of trading it in within three months for another 2nd hand harp without any extra costs. But then, I don’t know about harp selling policies in the UK.
Hi Biagio, I’ve got a soprano voice and just like you, I like to have some bass strings that go lower than two octaves below middle C, in my case both my current Camac Excalibur and my L&H Prelude go down to the A below the two octaves below middle C. Even when I seldom pluck them, they resonate with certain higher strings I do pluck and so they give the harp a richer sound.
I agree with you that for jazz music one would prefer a fairly high tension. Otherwise, perhaps, the music would tend to sound muddy unless one would diligently damp the strings, but that would be troublesome when one also needs to flip many levers in a short time. Or did you have other considerations when thinking of a fairly high tension for jazz?
