Double String Debate

[wil-weten]

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.

[Elettaria]

There were quite a few of us who were tiny in my friends group at school, and we were all fine playing piano octaves. Two were violinists too. There was a woman in my A-level music class who was your height and found octaves more of a stretch, I think. I’m fairly sure she was in the violin section too. I was away back in the percussion section, MP where it was more my height that was the issue. I used to have to wear big blocky heels to play tuned percussion, and still had to stand on something for vibraphone.

I’m now staring suspiciously at my hand, trying to work out if that’s another area where I’m a bit hypermobile and hadn’t realised it. Last I measured my handspan, which is probably twenty years ago (can’t get to the tape measure right now, there’s a cat on me), it was 17cm.

The shoulder thing is a right nuisance, I have calcium deposits in the tendons. It started with the right one as acute calcific tendinitis. You know how doctors routinely talk down pain? Even they call it “excruciating”. I couldn’t use my right arm for a month, and I remember how horrific it was when the doctors would lift my arm to the side to see how much they could force it to move. They could only get it 10cm or 15cm away from my body, and I was trying not to scream. It turned up in the left shoulder a year or so later, more in the chronic form. It’s mostly settled these days, but my range of movement is definitely impaired.

[wil-weten]

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.

[Elettaria]

What the…? My handspan was definitely 17cm when I was a teenager. It’s 18.5cm now. I really need to look into hypermobility issues, I’ve had a few people bring it up. Anyway, you and I are evidently built quite differently!

It’s never been called frozen shoulder, but it sounds similar in some ways. Thankfully I got a good physio. It’s not a problem when it’s in remission, apart from not having the same range of movement, but it’s horrible when it flares up. Constantly reaching for high levers in the bass is the sort of thing that flares it up.

Right, time to look at those spreadsheets with proper KF and a stringing scheme going down to G!

I realise it’s been confusing when I keep looking at different possibilities. Right now, the plan is to string it the same on both sides, in KF, avoid wound nylon if I possibly can, keep the string lengths on the short side, and keep the tension low, so that I can keep the frame as small and lightweight as possible. Does that make sense?

[wil-weten]

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.

[Elettaria]

I don’t think so, no. My cousin has EDS so I know about it.

[Elettaria]

Quick question: I keep dithering over a cardboard vs. a wooden soundbox, and checking the likely weight is making me lean back towards cardboard, especially after a friend made a video of her new Fireside harp. If I were to do so, what’s a good way of doing the soundboard side of things? Could I still use a birch plywood soundboard for the whole top of the soundbox, pair of good sturdy string ribs on the underside (partly running under the neck and pillar in order to help support them), and then glue that onto the cardboard with the odd bit of bracing? The current sketch looks like this, if you ignore the error where I’ve written the dimensions for the soundbox back. I’m guessing that would give a better sound that the usual method of a very thick string rib that doubles as a soundboard, but I’m only guessing.

[wil-weten]

I can’t help you, but if you want to use wood or plywood for building your own small harp, you may find some great tips on: http://www.sligoharps.com/plans of the reputable harp builder Rick Kemper.

The fourth design, the Waldorf, is a 22 string harp (sounding 3 notes lower than usual for this kind of harp!) is free. In the documentation below the links of that harp you find valuable information which may be inspirational for you. It’s not a double strung harp, though.

[Biagio]

I am not clear on the question Elletaria, but let’s try to break things down. In terms of construction a “cardboard” harp is quite different from one with a wooden sound board. Consider the “Troubador” practice instrument:

http://www.niebischandtree.co.uk/new-harps-troubador.html

If you just glued a cardboard box to the rib piece you have the basic Waring. That rib takes all the strain, the box is strictly for amplification.

[Elettaria]

Yes, Rick’s plans are great, I’ve been studying them carefully. The Waldorf is far bigger and heavier than I want, but it’s also designed to have a lower range and higher tension. The construction advice is still really useful.

The bit that confuses me is how the soundboard works, if you can call it that, for cardboard harps. Is the heavy string rib acting as the soundboard as well? The double Waring simply has two of them side by side, but while that’s sensible when you are making all your kits from 3/4″ x 1 1/2″ timber, I don’t have to follow that and I don’t know what the best size of wood would be for that spot on mine. A friend has just given me the string lengths for the Fireside and they are actually slightly better suited than the Brittany lengths, shorter at both ends and with a gentler harmonic curve, so I’ll try drawing it with those ones on Monday.

[Biagio]

“The bit that confuses me is how the soundboard works, if you can call it that, for cardboard harps”

When you pluck or strike a string, it imparts energy to whatever it is fastened too (plus air of course). If that’s just two sticks all you hear is the string itself vibrating in air.

To amplify, attach an acoustic chamber. Try it: ake a sturdy triangle 2ith say 12″ legs, and pluck a string stretched across it. Then hold up a shoe box to one of the legs and pluck again.

[Elettaria]

Ive realised its not practical for me, but thank you anyway.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by Elettaria.

[wil-weten]

I am sorry about your health troubles.

As I have said before, I’ve got no technical skills regarding harps, so I probably can’t be of much help.

I tried to find the weight of the cardboard fireside harp. According to https://www.etsy.com/listing/518736788/fireside-folk-harp-kit (great pictures) the cardboard backyard harp has a weight of 6 lbs, so, 2.7 kg, which is almost twice as much as your 3 lbs/ less than 1.5 kg lyre which, as you mention above, sometimes causes you fibro pain.

Besides, you would like to make it a double. This will probably ask for an extra heavy string rib (or two ribs) to withstand the doubling of the tension (the fireside harp already does have very light string tension, so I doubt you could go even lower and still have a nice sound).

As far as I, know plywood is heavier than corrugated cardboard. The string rib may be somewhat lighter when using plywood for the soundbox instead of corrugated cardboard, but then you would like to use a quite different design, like that of Rick Kemper’s Waldorf harp. The problem is that you find the Waldorf harp too large and too heavy and the string tension too high. To complicate things even further, you’d like to convert it into a double. So, instead of getting inspired by an existing model, you would be trying to design a whole new model.

I got the impression that you are thinking about a cardboard soundbox with a top layer of plywood.

When you keep the string rib as heavy as it is, it will add extra weight to the harp.

I don’t know what would happen if you use a lighter string rib. Then the string tension would pull on the plywood soundboard.

A soundboard is only completely flat before you put it under tension by the strings. After some time a soundboard makes a nice little belly. Anyway, a double harp may add to this effect. I wonder whether this effect would tear off the plywood layer from the rest of the (cardboard) soundbox.

Even with an all wood harp, when the gluing was not perfect, sometimes the sound board is pulled out of the rest of the sound box.

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