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Yes, Greg, I did mean to say above that the lowest 2 wire strings, so the A and the B on my Prelude 40 don’t have levers. Also, the 2 highest nylon strings don’t have levers.
I never missed those levers and I’m very happy that they function smoothly and almost silently.Hi Gregg, I had a look too and I saw that the Salvi Ana’s 40 strung with lever gut, were also strung with lever wire (as I expected).
I also saw to my surprise, that the Salvi Ana’s 40 strung with pedal gut, were also strung with pedal wire. I didn’t expect that, as my old Salvi Heather, which was originally strung with pedal gut, did have lever wire strings, which was quite to be expected, as a short length of string in combination of very thick and heavy tension tends to give a rather dull sound.
My old predecessor of the Camac Mademoiselle, which came originally strung with pedal gut, had lever wire. Also the Camac Korrigans, which are also strung with pedal gut, have lever wire.
By the way, I’ve never missed levers on the upper and lower sides of the L&H Prelude. They simply seldom or never get used.
Hi Gregg, both the Salvi Ana as well as the Camac Mademoiselle have lever wire.
The L&H Prelude has pedal wire. Pedal wire is too heavy for levers.So, the question has not to do with a difference in the used levers, but in the used wire for the bass strings.
Edit thanks to Gregg enlightening me: the Salvi Ana strung with lever gut comes with lever wire, but the Salvi Ana strung with pedal gut proves to be having pedal wire.
Hi Lisa, yes, the L&H Prelude would be a great ‘forever’ harp. By the way, if you have to wait half a year for it in the colour of your choice, the shop may be willing to rent a harp to you and deduct a lot or even all of the renting costs from the purchase of your harp (most shops I know rent harps for people wanting to try out an instrument for some time). That way, you could start right away ;earning the harp.
I wish you many happy hours with learning to play the harp.
@Balfour, The Camac Mademoiselle is strung with pedal gut strings and lever wire strings for the bass notes up to the full octave below the middle C (and I seem to remember some nylon strings for the highest notes). This harp sounds pretty classical, though brighter than the L&H Prelude
Gut strings need a certain minimum length in order not to sound dull and I guess that is exactly the reason why the A and B, which are pedal gut at the L&H lever harps, are strung with wire on the Mademoiselle.
I’ve got a Prelude and the A and B sound a bit dull and I heard several people say they changed these gut strings therefor for wire. Sometimes I’m tempted to change these 2 strings with fluorocarbon, but I guess the levers will have to be regulated then.
Now, to the question why the Camac Mademoiselle uses lever wire for the bass strings. I guess this is, because it allows the soundboard to be built not as heavy as would otherwise been the case. Playing the Camac Mademoiselle feels like the string tension is significantly lower than that of the L&H Prelude, while boths harps are strung with pedal gut.
Yes, it would be best to try before you buy. You may like to try and visit a harp showroom where they have L&H lever harps in Australia or New Zealand. Even if they wouldn’t have the colour of your choice, it would be a great experience sitting behind the harp and feeling the strings.
By the way, if you’re thinking of playing together with your friends, you may think of a L&H Ogden. While the Prelude weighs almost 20 kilo, the Ogden weighs 12.8 kilo and is much easier transportable, and is also significantly cheaper, of course.
And yes, the sound of the Prelude is richer, but I think the Ogden is still a very nice harp and with its 34 strings, you could play almost all lever harp music on it.
Also, some shops rent
I bought a L&H Prelude, because it has a bit mellower and warmer sound than the Salvi Ana and the performance levers on the Prelude are much quieter in use. Also, it was significantly cheaper than the Salvi Ana.
The Salvi Ana has a bit brighter sound.
Formerly, about 10 years ago or maybe even a bit more, Salvi Ana came with pedal gut strings, but nowadays, at least in the Netherlands, they come with lever gut strings. Perhaps you can still get them with pedal gut by special order.
The only pedal gut strung Salvi lever harp model nowadays is the 38 string Salvi Gaia.
I’ve got no idea of harp possibilities in Australia, you may also be interested in the Camac Mademoiselle (40 strings), the Camac Korrigan (38 strings), the L&H Troubadour (36 strings) and the L&H Ogden (34 strings).
You may also like to know that you would rather quickly get accustomed to the tension of pedal gut strings, if you are used to lever gut strings, as the Bow Brand lever gut set still gets you a rather firm string tension.
So, you’d best go for the harp which sounds the nicest in your ears, be it strung with pedal gut, lever gut or even fluorocarbon.
Am I correct that you are looking for a classic kind of sound? Otherwise, you may like to have a look at the Camac Isolde (both the Classic and the Celtic one) and the Camac Excalibur (the latter being strung with a tension between celtic and pedal tension strings).
Frankly, I would suggest a third option. All notes notated in the treble staff, with the first 3 with the beam upward, the next 3 with the beam downward, than 3 notes with the beam upward. That way the harper knows you want clusters of 3 notes to be played alternatively with the right hand, the left hand and the right hand.
I wouldn’t have dared putting it in a freezer, but great to hear it came out ok.
As to cork: it tends to get compressed a bit after some use, so that’s why cork tenons come rather stiff fitting when new. Mostly they just need lots and lots of lubrification every time after use.
So, perhaps the cork tenon is so stiff that sanding off a bit is necessary, but most of the time this is not the case. It should remain a tight fit. When you remove the headjoint from the body, do it with a careful, rotating movement. When the headjoint comes off easily, you’ll probably already have some air leakage. I’m by no means an expert on this topic, but you could find a lot a valuable information on forums for the clarinet (like the recorder a wooden instrument with cork tenons).When playing a duet with another recorderist who has a recorder that sounds a bit lower than yours, you may need to pull out the headjoint a bit in order to be in tune with the other recorderist.
Hi Nancy, when something like this happens to clarinet players, they get the advice to put the (wooden!) instrument in the cellar for perhaps two hours and then carefully try to make rotating movements. If the parts still don’t move at all, wait another hour and try again. Often, this seems to do the trick. I don’t know about your second question.
Good luck.Sorry, I wasn’t clear above.
The Bow Brand Silkgut (made by Aquila) is nylgut with dimensions for Salvi lever harps.
The Camac Nylgut (also made by Aquila) is meant for pedal gut strung harps.
If it is possible to use an electric dehumidifier for your harp room and keep the humidity between 40-60% this would spare you a lot of gut strings, risks to the wood and corrosion of the pins. I use a Qlima in summer, as where I live, the summers are pretty moist. Due to the dry circumstances in winter, I use a humidifier in winter. In my case that’s is a Venta airwasher.
I googled the Salvi Electra and I discovered it is a vintage concert grand pedal harp.
Supposedly, if the harp was the harp was strung with Bow Brand pedal gut (which is rather usual), there may be several reasons why the strings felt less tight. That could have to do with the strings of the grand pedal harp being longer. Yes, this sounds contradictory, but this is what my teacher told me several years ago, and there’s a logical explanation for it, which I can’t reproduce at the moment.
Another factor may be that as it is a much larger harp with a much larger and broader soundboard, even a little pluck may result in a big sound, where you really have to squeeze hard for a big sound on a smaller harp.
Silkgut is nylgut with dimensions for Salvi lever harps with celtic tension, so, not the kind of strings you’d like for your L&H pedal gut strung Prelude.
As to Camac Nylgut strings (which are being made by Aquila), their diameters are published on the Camac website at the pdf you find in one of the links at: https://shop.camac-harps.com/en/category/harp-strings/string-charts/
Now, beware that the measures of Bow Brand pedal gut are not exactly the same as those of Camac pedal gut, and this may have consequences for the diameters of the Camac nylgut which are thought of as a cheap replacement for Camac pedal gut strings.
Frankly, I find nylgut rather acceptable for strings of middle C and higher: a bit more bright, a tiny bit less rich. Below the middle C, those strings sound duller and duller, even on a large harp as a L&H Prelude, but I don’t know whether the nylon replacement for gut that L&H uses, would sound better. I guess below middle C carbon strings would sound better, but as they should be thinner than the diameters of the pedal gut strings (as their tension is too high when the same diameter would be used) this may have consequences for the levers, perhaps having them regulated is enough, perhaps you will need a few new levers, I frankly don’t know, but LH might advise you on this.
And here: https://shop.camac-harps.com/en/product/string-gauge-charts/ for Camac Strings (one of the options is for nylon strings).
