Hi everyone,
My clear nylon 0.040 'B' string recently broke. When I purchased my harp a few years ago, I also bought a full string set on the Sylvia Woods website. The full set only comes with one clear 0.040 string, and unfortunately, I broke it while bringing it up to tune. (It was my first time trying to change a string.) :(
I was looking to find a replacement, and have discovered that Sylvia Woods no longer sells single strings, or even full sets for the grand harpsicle. The Harpsicle website does sell strings for the grand, but they only sell full sets (and I only need one string!) for $165.00! I can't believe how much the prices have increased in just a couple years.
Is there anywhere online that I can buy the single string I need?
Leave a comment if you have any ideas. Any help would be much appreciated!
EDIT: Apparently I didn't have a way for you to comment on the blog. But a nice reader named Helen emailed me. She said I should contact Sylvia directly. Which is what I did. For anyone looking... I emailed Sylvia Woods and evidently she DOES still sell full sets for the Grand Harpsicle. :) I ended up finding single nylon strings on the Dusty Strings website. But thank you to everyone who chimed in with some sources. I will keep them bookmarked for the future!
I played harp from ages 10 to about 13, and then the family moved and the harp I was using went back to my school. 15 years later, I am thinking about taking the instrument back up. I have been a pianist for as long as I can remember, but I miss the harp. I was thinking of starting with a lever harp as the budget is no where close to affording a pedal harp (and I wouldn't want to make that kind of investment out-of-the-gate anyway).
I was thinking about purchasing a Merlin from R-Harps. From what I understand, it's a good harp for the money.
Any thoughts on R-Harps and/or re-learning the instrument? Also, I have seen some books and a few names to search on YouTube around this sub-reddit, I will certainly seek those out, but any advice would be appreciated.
Many harp sellers have rent-to-purchase options, so that would probably be worth looking into.
Teachers also often have instruments for students to rent and can advise on which harp would be best for you, which is a good idea since they're such a hefty investment. There's also huge variation in sound among lever harps -- mine is enormous and pretends to be a pedal harp, it gets a deep, full sound -- so it's advisable to try out lots of different harps from different makers, if possible.
Suzanne Guldimann has a number of books out with decent arrangements for lap harp.
I had the same problem when I switched to a 26 from 36 string for busking purposes - I ended up rearranging a lot of my favourites by simply leaving out or transposing notes I didn't have, and with that much piano experience you can likely do the same, but it might be a bit exhausting to do while also learning harp technique.
Harpsicle themselves publishes a number of simple songbooks meant to fit on their harps, but I find they aren't particularly pleasant arrangements.
I'm about to leave on a three week trip so I can't dig through my sheet music now, but if you are still looking by then, remind me and I'll look through my collection for the ones that I know work!
Also, bad news, most dedicated harp sheet music is just as expensive or more so than the Sylvia Woods ones, due to the smaller target market than piano. In fact I've found the SW books to be quite helpful because often they contain "easier" and "advanced" versions of the same pieces, and the "beginner" ones tend to be geared toward fitting on smaller harps.