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So, Danamarie, you want a harp with perhaps 38 strings which is easier to travel with than your Salvi Ana.
I think the first question you may like to ask yourself is which kind of sound you prefer and whether you prefer the middle hard tension of the Triplett or the hard tension of the Ana.I wonder why you mention the Camac Melusine. As it is nylon strung with relatively light tension it sounds quite different from the Salvi Ana.
You already mention the Camac Korrigan, which, like your Salvi Ana, has pedal gut strings.
You may like to find out whether you would like a Camac Isolde (with carbon strings with celtic or classic string tension) or a Camac Excalibur (with carbon strings with a tension somewhere between celtic and classic tension).
All harps mentioned above have 38 strings. When weight and/or dimensions are an issue you may think of a 34 string harp.
Yes, we are definitely built quite differently.
I am not a doctor and I definitely don’t want to try and find a diagnosis, but have you been assessed for the syndrome of Ehlers-Danlos? It might give an alternative explanation for your chronic pains and fatigue.
I just measured my handspan and it’s 15 cm.
Yes, I do understand your ‘shoulder thing’ is a ‘right nuisance’. Do they call it a ‘frozen shoulder’? Anyway, it must make lots of things hard to do.Hi Elettaria, indeed, I guess that body proportions and flexibility do matter perhaps even more when we want to play a musical instrument than our lenghts.
We’ve got a piano in the house and I just tried to spread my fingers to see how far I can spread them now: only a sixth… Almost a seventh when I don’t need to be able to grasp a black key in between.
And this is after years of practicing the harp and slowly extending my reach… And yes, I got professional harp teachers showing me how to place my fingers.
I am quite astonished that you manage to play octaves on the piano comfortably! And that you once even managed to play ninths. Wow.
Anyway, it really seems the harp offers me far mor possibilities than the piano. I can play tenths on the harp, and I am very proud of that, but I can’t say I grasp them comfortably (yet).
I’ve got relatively short, though lean and slender fingers. Perhaps my under arms are relatively long, I don’t know. Already an adult, I once wanted to play the violin, but the violin teacher was surprised she had to tell me that my upper arm was even a bit too short for playing a 3/4 violin. So I gave up that dream.
As to my legs, I do know that I can’t reach the saddle of a 54 cm bike frame, but I do manage to reach the lowest position of a saddle on a 52 cm bike frame. So maybe I’ve got a relatively large upper body.
Hi Elettaria, of course, I do take your word for your disabilities! I am sorry for giving you the wrong impression.
I just had to mention that the relationship between one’s length and the size of the harp may be different from what people tend to think. Earlier, I myself thought I was to small to play the flute or the guitar, but I just needed a good teacher to found out I had more possibilities than I imagined. And even on the harp: at first, I believed I would never be able to grasp an interval of an eighth and thanks to a fine teacher now I can grasp even an interval of a tenth…
By the way, a lot of people think a harp leans on one’s shoulders. It shouldn’t. It’s weight rests fully on the floor. The shoulder is just for balancing. One should just feel a very light touch. Balancing a floor harp is a lot easier than balancing a lap harp. Moving a harp is, of course, quite a different matter.
I put quite a lot of time and energy in trying to help you a bit further with your search for a suitable harp. I will leave it at this.
First, I thought that you wanted to ‘cheat’ a double strung lap harp into a significantly longer range than is usual for that type of harp by stringing them an interval of a fifth of one another. But yesterday, you decided to have both rows the same tension and then I wondered what this would mean to the range you intend and to the overall tension on the harp. I got confused, because I got the impression you were still thinking about wound strings while talking about the question of the F versus the G as lowest note.
Frankly, I wonder whether a string with lower than 35% TS would be to my liking, but perhaps I am missing some parameters.
By the way, I play a 1.60 m high lever harp. Yes, it’s higher than I am. Its height is not a real problem. I just need to sit on the edge of a high gas lifted stool or on a normal chair with two thick cushions on it. At music school I sat on the top of two cheap stackable chairs (not too comfy, but very doable).
There are special harp chairs to be bought, but they are rather pricey.“I have shoulder trouble and do a lot of quick lever changes, so tall harps make the bass levers too far away.”
I do wonder whether you sat the right way behind your stand harp. You may google some information on that as I can’t really explain how I sit exactly, apart from the fact that I do sit behind the harp, but a little bit next to it in a way that keeps my back straight and my right eye at the height of my high E string. I can reach all the levers on my 1.60 m tall lever harp.There’s no way I could play like the woman with the small harp hanging from her back. My back would start hurting immediately… And besides, I learnt quite a different playing technique.
By the way, did you have a look at some of the harps of the German harp builders like Martin Gust at http://www.magus-harps.de/indexEngl.html? German builders tend to make the distance between the strings somewhat shorter dan average. This way it would be easier to reach the lowest bass strings and one could easier grip, let’s say a tenth of an interval. German builders also tend to use a rather light string tension, but some are willing to build them with an intermediate tension.
Yes, I’am really only 7 cm longer than you and I am surprised that you are comfortable playing small harps in front of you that are way too low for me. Perhaps this is because I learnt classic technique and therefore like the high E to be at the height of my eye?
The large man plays the kind of old little 22 string Camac harp I started my harp journey on. I could not properly position it on my lap and it was very low when I sat behind it.
“Also the lengths I’m talking about using are the same as some very popular small harps, such as the Musicmakers Limerick and the Stoney End Brittany (if I put G on the bottom note). Am I missing something?”
Now I wonder whether we are talking about the same G now that you’ve left out the lower range on one of the two rows.
The Limerick and Brittany have a G below middle C. Is that the G you are talking about? In that case, I wonder why you would need wounded strings.
If you thought of going lower than a full octave below middle C the idea of wounded strings is far more relevant. But as you plan to play in C, I would have the C a full octave below middle C as the lowest string (instead of going even further to the G below that). And I would be inclined to use KF strings for the whole range.
@Biagio, on both my harps I once changed my metal wound strings around a metal core for metal wound strings around a fibre core and was pretty happy with that (as I hated the large difference in sound between the gut strings and the metal strings). With metal around fibre, the difference between the bass and melody strings was not so large. Later on I put KF-strings to bridge the difference in sound between the gut strings and the wire strings and was happy with that. (And my supplier of wire around a fibre core retired).
I never heard on the same harp the difference with wire around wire and nylon around nylon, so I dare not say something about that. I only heard the significant difference in bass strings on the 34 Dusty Strings Boulevard (with wire bass strings) and 34 Dusty Ravenna (with nylon wounded bassstrings), not in real life but on recordings that were made in the same room. These two Dusty models look a lot alike (though I read that the Boulevard was built a bit sturdier because of the heavier tension of the strings), but to my ears, their bass strings (and their melody strings, but that’s another matter) sound quite different.You’ve done great research, Elettaria! I hope you will go on sharing your ideas and experiences with us. I really enjoy following your adventurous journey to your double harp.
To complicate things even more, here https://www.folkharp.com/33-19-26-string you find a list of 139 items of lap harp sheet music. I know you don’t plan to use sheet music a lot, but you may still like to have a look at it…
Even if your strings would have a longer sounding lenght of approx. 5 cm, then 65 plus 5 would only be 70 cm, which is still rather short.
By the way, I am just 7 cm longer than you are, and I started on a old 22 string Camac and it was much too short for me. I had to put in on a very thick cushion in front of me. Of course, I could never comfortably play a lap harp in my lap. So I sat behind it, preferably with legs crossed, but otherwise with the harp on a chair in front of me.
Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bm_aChbR4w you find a tall man playing such a harp in his lap. It must give him a back ache, I think.So, while I do understand your need of a lightweight harp, I am not sure why you think you need a harp with a very short length.
If your lowest string will be a G, I think you will be tempted to play pieces in G, even if you don’t use sheet music a lot.
Do I understand correctly that now you consider to have both rows the same strings?
I won’t tease you again, I promise, but would a Lewis Creek harp of 23 string harp of 76,2 cm and 2,5 kg still be too heavy?
http://www.lewiscreek.net/lc_hg_eagle.htmThere is also ‘Jessie ultra light harp with 27 string harp of 2,7 kg and 79 cm: http://www.detroubadourharpen.nl/The_Bards_Harps/Lewis_Creek.html.
The Dutch harp shop the Detroubadourharpen.nl sells Lewis Creek harps. Not cheap, buth Lewis Creek is a reputable harp builder.
Here you can see Carolyn Nobles unpack and play her new Jessie harp for the first time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8zpxCtw590&t=286sAnd these 17 and 19 strings look great: http://www.silverspearinstruments.co.uk/Harps.aspx?Id=4 but I would prefer to have a bit more strings.
Hi Elettaria, I think that for a small harp of 65 cm long now matter which material you choose a harp with alow G as lowest note would sound better than a low F. This is for all the reasons Biagio mentioned above. A higher lowest note would mean that all notes above would have a less extreme low tension, so would sound livelier and ‘cleaner’.
A lot of (American) sheet music for lap harps has a low G as lowest note.I would not use a string with a steel core for such a harp. I’ve never heard a harp where the transition between the gut/nylon/KF strings and a steel core string wasn’t obvious. For such a small harp I would either chose for be a KF or perhaps a nylon wound bass strings.
Edit: To complicate things: If you would choose a F as a lowest note, and use the most logical interval of a fifth, the lowest note of the higher sounding row would be a C, which is the note that I would prefer to be the lowest one of that row. So, perhaps, if the low F would be too floppy, it may be worth calculating through whether leaving out one or two of the top strings would help in order to give the rest of the strings a bit of a better tension.
Maybe the sad SPAM-software just allows a limited amount of messages per member? Even if that member has a well respected status?
Because recently one spammer managed to get its spam through and there’s no way to indicate that it is a spam message and it looks like no one is going to remove it…
This is the spammy message that was published a bit more than twelve hours ago…: https://harpcolumn.com/forums/topic/the-announcement-further-reiterates-that-the-clients-can-save/
