Double String Debate

[Elettaria]

Biagio, I’ll look at those in the spreadsheet on Monday. I didn’t realise I probably need to switch to G as my bottom note I too after I’d come to my partner’s for the weekend and didn’t have access to the spreadsheets on my laptop, but I think I’d had a quick look and the tensile strength came it as 20% for the bottom string if it’s G. Is that what you were getting? If it’s just he bottom few notes that need to be lengthened a bit, say 2cm, that’s probably OK, especially if it saves me from having to order strings in from the US. (I saw a comment by you on anot post where you mentioned that four wound strings each side in the bass of a double added 60lb of tension, which does not sound good for this situation.) It would be making the whole thing taller that would get awkward.

How does the Waring get away with low tension and short string lengths, if that’s a question that isn’t too much of a pain to answer?

[Biagio]

Wil, I guess it is a question of preference and cost. Personally I really do not like metal wrap if at all avoidable, with the exception of fiber core/silver: I don’t like a sudden tonal change going from nylon or gut to metal wrap.

WRT the Dustys – I’m a convert to bronze core nylon wrap, versus steel/fiber/bronze (or copper) – the bronze core imparts more energy to the SB without the tonal difference and added stiffness of the other.

It also helps to visualize what happens when you pluck a metal core fiber/nylon string. Fiber and wrap compress on one side and expand on the other (player’s side) – smoother feel compared to metal/fiber/metal.

Oh how fun!

[Biagio]

“How does the Waring get away with low tension and short string lengths….? ”

Presumably you would use a very light touch. Giving those a good hard pluck would probably not be a great idea.

South American harps are also very lightly strung and partly because of that the SB and frame are also very light. Techniques is also very different from typical lever and pedal harps.

My die-hard Celtic music friends prefer very light tension too – it facilitates rapid playing with all those turns, slides and ornaments. I wouldn’t know, I don’t play that well LOL.

I also get about 20% TS with FC, I think Nylon comes in at 16%. Too low for my taste.

Some may disagree with the following but that’s what makes life interesting:

I prefer a smooth increase in Tension, a smooth decrease in Tension/Length and %TS around 40-50% in the treble down to 30% or higher in the low bass. No big jumps in either tension or diameters anywhere. That is not always possible given size and other constraints.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Biagio.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Biagio.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Biagio.

[Elettaria]

I’ve got the chart for converting nylon to KF now, so once I’ve redone it in KF, there’ll be smoother lines all round, as a there are far more gauges available.

Unfortunately no one round here has a Waring for me to try, but I haven’t heard anyone complain about having to use a ought touch. As you’ve quoted Harper Tasche saying, play the harp in front of you! On the other hand it could drive me up the wall. But I know I’ll definitely not cope with a large or a heavy harp, so it seems like learning to play with a light touch is a better option for me. I think I want to keep it very lightly tensioned, but with an even feel and nice sound, those do matter to me. That Camac Hermine I rented for a whole suddenly felt floppy for the bottom two KF strings, the tenor D and E, and that was really annoying. I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to get back to wire harp or not, but it certainly taught me about playing with a light touch. I don’t mind a quiet instrument, either.

What I don’t want is pingy or tinkly. The reason why I can’t play the Kilcoy now is that the high pitched brass strings are actually painful to hear. It started a few months ago along with other neurological symptoms I’ll be talking about with the neurologist in two weeks. The high notes on my rented Starfish Student are pretty much OK, although since that’s a 34 string I’m not really playing up in the top end all that much. This is why I got that lyre made with wound bronze strings. It turned out very nicely, by the way, and I’m attaching a photo as I can’t remember if I did before. I’m basically treating it as a small wire harp with wider spacing.

I’m definitely going to try Mae’s double before making any decisions, having just chatted to another disabled harpist who said that the two rows of strings did not play well with her neurological issues. I think I’ll *probably* be fine, but I should check.

The narrowest guage wound nylon that you mention aren’t currently sold in the UK, for what it’s worth. Morley harps are the ones selling wound nylon, the ones specifically for the imported harps they well, as can be seen through the links Wil gave earlier.

By the way, Wil, did you get that I’m 150cm tall? I wasn’t sure why you mentioned a big man with a small harp, and wondered if you’d converted the units wrongly.

[Elettaria]

Lyre with small cat and the Gesto collection for scale. Edit: well, that was rejected as too big! But you can still see it. The lyre is 59cm/23″ tall, and if it rests on my lap thr top is level with my forehead. I normally have the bottom bit held between my legs, though.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Elettaria.

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[wil-weten]

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.

[Elettaria]

Wil – I’ve just noticed your question about which G I mean. Yes, the one below middle C. I’m still not sure if the F is an option or not. Have you both been thinking I wanted to go an octave lower than that? I copied the Waring measurements, then added a harmonic curve, then made it all about 2cm taller and slightly increased the gauges, which is why I thought I could get away with a low F. I keep trying various pieces on my floor harp in these ranges, with the left hand up an octave as needed, plus any transposition necessary, to see what fits and how to adapt things.

The tall bloke with a small harp is leaning back on a sofa, and I’ll probably be sitting up cross legged in bed. As I said, I do cope with the size of the Kilcoy and my lyre.

I don’t play in the major all that often if I’m playing medieval music, I use a variety of modes. The dorian turns up a lot. If it turns out to be better to put the harp in F or G and transpose a lot, I’ll do that, I’m fine with it. I may be relatively new to harp, but I had a solid musical upbringing with piano, singing and percussion, starting 35 years ago, and studied music as an outside course at university level.

[Elettaria]

By the way, here is a small woman (I’m told), the one with white hair, photographed with a 28″ harp which definitely does not look too small on her. And now I think about it, it’s interesting that they don’t do B levers as standard on an F-F harp, just F and C.

[Biagio]

Elettaria, I’m not understanding something: why do you need a KF-to-Nylon conversion sheet? On that spreadsheet I sent you, just type in Carbon for the column for “Core” and enter the gauge in millimeters in the column “Core Strg Gauge”.

I guess there are no string makers in the UK – at least I can’t find any except Salopian. Most makers there seem to use gut, or only supply nylon for US models. Why that is, I don’t know.

[Elettaria]

Bow Brand is in the UK, which isn’t much use to a vegan!

I was starting with nylon because I can compare string charts for small harps that way, and then I will convert it to the equivalent gauge in KF, type in “carbon” and that gives me a starting point. It was looking from a quick try that it would come out with slightly lower tension overall, is that right? I only figured out how to use KF on that spreadsheet at all when we were packing to come to my partner’s for the weekend. I kept muttering, “Give me five minutes,” and we didn’t get over till gone ten!

I can’t remember why the US likes nylon and the UK likes gut, I’m sure I’ve seen articles about it somewhere. The high import cost means that people are less likely to buy harps from outside the UK, especially outside Europe. Have you seen the cost of Harpsicles here?! Dusty harps are meant to be great, and incidentally I hear those phosphor bronze core bass strings are amazing, but they’re so much more expensive than even the best luthiers here that I never even tried one. Plus I was looking at the shorter harps, I have shoulder trouble and do a lot of quick lever changes, so tall harps make the bass levers too far away. Still annoyed about that, I’d love to have tried a Silver Spear.

Oh, he uses nylon. Only serious UK harp maker who does, I think. I know a couple of folk making budget smallish harps who use it, but they’re not well known. KF seems to be taking off if slowly, and more popular in Ireland.

[wil-weten]

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.

[Elettaria]

Wil, could you please take my word for it about my disabilities? It is absolutely draining to have people repeatedly telling me that I’m wrong about how much I can lift or how far I can reach.

I did find a lever harp that suited me at the festival, and I would have most likely gone for the same harp even if I hadn’t filtered out the taller ones. It’s gorgeous. I don’t have it yet because his waiting list is quite long.

I assumed the woman in the Lorien photo wasn’t playing like that, that she was standing because it gave you a good view of the harp and its strap. I’ve been changing that in my head to how it would look if she were sitting down with it, and looking at the size of the harp next to the size of the woman. Don’t worry, I promise not to play standing up. This is because I can’t stand up for more than a minute or two, and frequently can’t stand up at all.

[wil-weten]

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.

[Biagio]

When a maker (such as Lorien) provides the harp’s height, they mean as measured from the base to the top end of the neck. More meaningful for a lap harp would be the length from base to top of soundboard at the treble.

That will be somewhat less, depending on the string angle. You want your chin to be about there when sitting. So measure from your waist to your chin to judge and use that compared to the SB length.

For example, my wire 19 is 25″ in height, and 20″ length – the string angle is 35 degrees. My nylon 26 is 45″ high and 38″ in length, excluding legs; that is a floor harp (for comparison purposes).

[Elettaria]

I know that’s the measurement they give, I end up trying to get a good side-on photo to figure out the soundboard side length as well. Blevins sometimes lists both measurements and they have a lot of small harps in various shapes, so that helps me figure out the relative measurements.

Not to mention that I am also paying a lot of attention to the soundbox side because soundbox volume is so important to the sound. A lot of the comfort seems to be about the depth and shape of the soundbox, plus how the base is made. I’m still surprised that the County Kerry sat so high on me.

This design has a relatively short soundbox at 62cm. I’m trying to let it go up as high as possible on the treble end to maximise volume, which is why the neck joins the soundbox in the same fashion as the Triplett Christina, rather than having a normal knee joint where it curves over the top of the soundbox.

Harp coming up to my chin – hah, things sound so different for taller people! It’ll be higher than that. Anything bigger than the Kilcoy is, on me. Wil sounds like they like their harp sitting quite a bit higher than I do, and you evidently like it sitting lower.

Wil, I have been trying to work out how we fit harps in such different ways despite being close in height, as I doubt it’s all about technique. I know that compared to the average, I’m short-bodied and long-legged. So that might explain why the bass levers are harder for me to reach, plus having more limited movement in my shoulders these days. But I don’t think that much of it is the shoulders. If you are longer-bodied, your shoulders will be relatively higher up the harp to start with, so your arms will be able to reach higher.

That is about the levers; when it comes to how you hold your arms to play a lap harp, it may help to remember that I can’t lift mine as high due to muscle weakness, and forcing a higher position is never going to work. Have a look at some wire harp players, actually, they can end up holding the harp and their arms very low, and still maintain good posture and technique. Simon Chadwick, for instance. That was one of the the aspects of wire harp I got on with.

The hands thing has me puzzled, though, as I’m really surprised you struggled with octaves on a harp. My fingers are shorter than my palm, which doesn’t help with reach, but my piano teacher (who was your height, as I recall) pointed out that I don’t have much webbing in between my fingers, which helped. So maybe it’s a webbing thing? I’ve always been able to play octaves comfortably on piano, but I really had to work up to playing ninths for a Bartok suite I performed for my A-level music, I couldn’t do it now. People who can play tenths on piano can shush, stop gloating, and stop putting them in their piano compositions, damnit.

I was thrilled to find out I can easily play tenths on harp. Of course, the string spacing varies on harp, tenths are a little tense for me on concert spacing (this knocked all harps with concert spacing off my list, it’s so much more comfortable with folk spacing, and tense hands aren’t good for anyone), but I’d have thought anyone 1.50m or taller should have no problems with octaves. Did you have your hand in an odd position or something? Or is there a lot more to hand anatomy that’s relevant to harp than I’m realising?

Biagio – I’ve slept badly so am going to nap before I dive into spreadsheets, but I did at least sketch the soundboard again when I got home last night. I originally based it on the Waring, as I’d done a mockup in cardboard from that plan, and made it 11cm wide at the top and 21cm wide at the bottom. Now that Biagio has explained about how I should space the string ribs and needing 15cm minimum soundboard width because of that, I’ve tried 14cm wide at the top and 18cm wide at the bottom. That’s about the same surface area, although for the top few strings it will be marginally under 15cm wide, if that’s OK. I don’t want to make it too wide to hold comfortably between my knees if sitting cross-legged, and was messing around with various instruments at my partner’s to see what was comfortable.

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