have harp, will travel

A harp you can pack in your suitcase?

What a great idea for keeping your fingers in shape whilst away on holiday!

I love the way it fits in the suitcase, although that does look like a pretty big suitcase.

Pretty nifty travel harp made by Don Peddle of randomsound music in Canada and it sounds ok as well.

Delta Harp

This looks extremely cool - a new electric harp which has a bridge and more bass end - so a cross between bass guitar and harp? These are really going to take off.



Unfortunately not much in the way of videos on the internet at the moment which showcase the possibilities of what you can do with it, with slides and bending notes, but no doubt there will be soon. I really like the way you can wear it like a guitar as well as a harp.

Very cool photos of Remy van Kesteren playing one on the Delta Harps Facebook page

psychedelic harp & mushrooms

A fantastic video from Erin Hill, with some pretty awesome production!

Erin and her psychedelic harp, (otherwise known as a black Big Blue Camac harp) has made this video as result of crowd funding through Kickstarter and has a new funding scheme to make more videos through a tax-deductible scheme in the US. 



I hope she gets to do more videos from her album as they are great songs and she also has the funkiest of CD cover designs, which is available to purchase here

Come on British Government, why don't we have tax-deductible schemes for sponsoring the arts here in the UK?

tuning key

What a great idea! A clever clip on tuner embedded onto a tuning key by Dusty Strings - very nifty!

The concert version fits Lyon & Healy, Camac, Salvi harps etc. The universal has an adapter to fit all types of harps, not sure how strong and effective that would be though.

What I like the most is that the tuner can be tilted with your thumb to get better viewing angle whilst you are tuning, as well as the usual things like calibration and standard LED display you can see in the dark.

At $85 for the concert harp version that's not a bad price, and it's available from Sylvia Woods Centre. Birthday present anyone??

A Greek in Spain

I love this video by Maria Christina - great use of loop pedals and a fantastic vibe to "A Greek in Spain"

Her Music is a mixture of Greek traditional music, jazz, blues with experimental sounds.




Nicely done - more please!

how gut strings are made

Some nice little videos from the Hong Kong Harp Centre of a tour round the Bow Brand Factory.







When you get a string out of the packet, it's easy to not realise the process it's taken to get to you.

I had the pleasure of a good long tour round the Bow Brand factory some years ago which was amazing. If you ever get the chance, do go and visit them. It's brilliant to see how skillful all the wonderful people who make our strings are... the smell is quite something though! The chemicals not the workers!!!

The whole process is on this video produced by Bow Brand in 2010, which for some bizarre reason, sounds like it is narrated by a time traveling man from the 1940s.

Shhh!!!

I struggle a little bit with the concept of a piece which you can't quite hear as too many years of sitting in front of the percussion section in orchestras has had it's toll on my eardrums.  Personally, I like my music to be of a volume that I can actually hear it.

But it's always good to push the boundaries and open a debate about music.



Shoals Duo
Martino Panizza (harp) and Alice Purton (cello)
http://soundcloud.com/shoalsduo

Charlie Sdraulig, hush (2011-12)
http://charliesdraulig.com

Score available here: http://www.charliesdraulig.com/hush.pdf

More about the notation: http://johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/the-contemporary-notation-project/

Engineer: Erik Nyström

N.B. This work is extremely soft. Where possible, try to listen to this piece in a quiet environment on a good set of speakers or with headphones.

Studio recording: http://soundcloud.com/charlie-sdraulig/hush

All about the harp

Always good to see a well written article about the harp online - a nicely written article by Alexander Rider with good examples of harp music on the Sinfini Music website here

breaking strings

Very interesting post I've just seen on the Vanderbilt website.... I thought it was just me having problems with gut strings continually breaking in the 1st & 2nd octaves.

Turns out that new EU regulations have meant that gut from younger cows has recently been allowed to be used in the manufacturing process. Gut from younger cows is not as strong as gut from older cows.

According to Vanderbilt, Bow Brand have made an agreement with their suppliers to go back to only getting gut from older cows, so string quality should be back to normal soon.

I was beginning to wonder whether I needed to change over to nylon strings on my top octaves as I've been getting so many breakages.... PHEW!!! Just need to wait it out then.

Let them eat cake

Happy 150th birthday Lyon and Healy and what an AMAZING cake!

and check out the Salzedo Song of the Night sheet music!

Hat's off to the cake makers - Jewell Events Catering in Chicago - who have made the most amazing harp cake EVER! Apparently it took only 2 weeks.

What were the strings made of?