A while back – I don’t remember how long – I realized that I really wanted to properly learn to play music. Not only because it’s generally a cool thing to do, but I realized that my life is often centered around music in many ways. Also, given that I know for a fact that I’m personally at risk of dementia and other mind-degrading conditions, learning to play music now would help me in the distant future when my mind begins to slip – it would give me a solid foothold on reality to help reinforce a weakening grasp.
So I look around and decide that “hey, the violin is a popular choice, let’s figure that out.”
I’m talking to my friend about this and they tell me that they bought a violin a while back, but never got around to playing it, and they offer to loan it to me on the condition that I keep up with learning and practicing.
For some reason, I didn’t realize how loud a violin is.
I couldn’t practice while working, because, well. I was working. I couldn’t practice in the evening after working because I needed to be engaging with my kids. I couldn’t practice after the kids were in bed because that’s just about the only daily time I have to spend with Amanda. And because of how loud it is, I also can’t seriously practice after everyone else has gone to bed…because it would wake them up.
Also it turns out that violins are out of tune a lot of the time, and until you’re more experienced, tuning it is like a 10-minute process. This amount of time is more than enough to turn me off from wanting to practice the few times that I could.
In addition, I didn’t realize that violins did not have frets. At first my reaction to this was a simple “huh. Didn’t know that before.” But eventually I realized that without a lot of experience, it was pretty hard to properly place my fingers to get the right note. This was absolutely devastating to my ability to keep a practice/learning session smoothly working.
So, because “on the weekends” is not nearly enough time to practice (especially when first starting out), I quickly realized that this was not a great choice of instrument.
BUT NOW, armed with some knowledge of what sort of instrument I should try to learn, I hyperfixated on this question and looked for an instrument that ticks all the boxes:
– Cheap-ish
– Can be played quietly
– Can start practicing without much prep
– Did not have to rely on my own skill for affecting the tone (i.e. “has frets” or something)
And I came to the conclusion that the answer is a harp.
Harps are cool, and there’s a handful of different kinds. I researched this for a while and found that the cheaper ones were called “lever harps” or “celtic harps” and sometimes “lap harps” – but all of them are the same, and the traditional name of them is “cláirseach”, which is an old Gaelic word. This type of instrument very nearly a different class of instrument than what you see as part of an orchestra.
A lever harp is based on a triangular frame, usually 3-4 feet tall. The smallest are sometimes about 2 feet tall, and the largest ones end up being 5 feet tall or more. The smaller ones are designed to be worn with a strap around your back, or resting on your lap, and have between 20 and 30 strings. The larger ones (often called ‘floor harps’) are much less mobile, but can have up to 40 strings.
Since a harp (of any type or size) has exactly one string for each note, I didn’t need to rely on learning where to press on a string or whatever in order to get the right tone. Because of the levers, there’s a bit of flexibility in which key you’re tuned to, and you generally won’t be flipping the levers much while playing a song. This means that I won’t have to rely on my own skill for making the right tone – I simply have to select the right string.
Lever harps are also nearly always ready to be played at the drop of a hat – they are pretty easy to carry around your house, and are constantly ready to be played. They do like to get out of tune pretty easily, but being out of tune a small amount is fine for casual playing, and tuning it is a matter of maybe 2-3 minutes if you’re playing with others or in public. This means that I can pick it up and put it down very easily, so I can practice while on break at work or any other time I’ve got 5 minutes.
Harps in general are not loud – You can play a harp very quietly if you want to. It’s a recurring joke that conductors will ask for ‘more volume from the harp’ in practice, but there simply isn’t any more volume to be had out of the thing. So this would solve the problem of “can’t play it while people are sleeping.”
And one of the hardest limiting factors: price. Pedal harps (the big orchestral ones) can very easily run up to the $20,000 range and far beyond. Until the mid-2000s, lever harps (being much less complicated) were still very easily priced as high as $2000 at the low end, and ones that were very poorly designed/constructed *might* come down to $1000. But one luthier – William Rees – decided that there should be a budget-friendly harp on the market, and so made the “Harpsicle” line of harps. It’s a basic harp with zero bells and whistles (not even levers), but it’s affordable for a normal budget of “person looking to buy an instrument” at $580 (as of this writing). When it first hit mass production, the lightweight nature and cheap price made it suddenly *very* popular with people doing music therapy for elderly people and children. They began selling faster than they could make them.
There’s a few more expensive harps in the Harpsicle line, and I was excited that I found what should work for me. If you go up only a single step to the “Sharpsicle”, then you had all the structure you needed to upgrade it to the fully-levered “Fullsicle”.
After looking around online for sales or deals or anything like that, I decided to contact a local shop owner that not only repaired and maintained pianos and harps, she also gave lessons!
The first time that I sat down at a harp and strummed the strings in her shop, I was instantly hooked. It didn’t matter how much it cost, I was going to have a harp, I was going to learn to play it, and I was going to play it. The sound of the strings ringing to my touch reached in through my ears and grabbed me by my brainstem – *this was the answer*. I didn’t even know what question it was an answer *to* – I just knew that harps were the thing that fit into a place in me, and it’s going to be something I do for quite a long time.
I started by renting a harp from my teacher, and later on she (being a dealer) found a great deal on a special edition Fullsicle. I call this harp “Striped Jenny.” I love this harp and I’m planning on making a travel case for her in the future.
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