Of Silver Strings
Mar. 28th, 2006 12:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kniteracyOf Silver Strings
Recently, we had a![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sailing_harper, and we did all sorts of fun things with her and I enjoyed being a tourist in London once again, and all was Merry And Gay, Hey Nonny Nonny.
sailing_harper is a deeply capable, caring and talented woman. I met her at a weekend seminar I taught at once a long time ago, and mostly through her efforts, we've remained mostly in touch over the past five years or so.
Before she came to visit, we talked about harps (duh) and which ones I had at the house in London and what they were like. I told her the story of how my beloved 24-string Witcher came into my life and mentioned that Jay, while he's a genius and all, has a reputation for overbuilding (ya think?) and understringing, and that my lowest string particularly was a bit thuddy, as were the two or three above that. She asked me a couple of questions, including the length of the string, and I sucked and didn't get the answers back to her until just the week before she came here, and that was that.
But tell us of the silver string!
It must have been one of the last nights she was here with us that she revealed what she'd done, since the package hadn't arrived as expected during her visit. She'd contacted Ann Heymann and ordered a silver string to go on the bottom of my lap harp! I was boggled and amazed.
On Saturday, it arrived, and we found out why it had taken so long. Apparently Royal Mail interprets "Global Priority Mail" as "Registered Mail," which means that instead of arriving sooner it actually takes longer since it has to be checked and tracked and signed for and all that. So on Saturday, this unassuming coil of heavy silver wire, just exactly long enough to be strung onto the lowest throughpin on my harp, arrived, along with a lovely postcard and a note from Ann. And yes, I do remember the days when I was such a drooling Ann fangrrl that this experience would have sent me over the moon; as it was, I admit it did give me a little thrill.
The weekend was busy and there wasn't a lot of quiet time, so I resolved to put the string on today, since I don't work on Mondays and everybody else (except the kittycat, of course) is out of the house.
Now, let's talk about harp strings for a minute. As you know, I play wire harps. These are strung mostly with brass wire. Some wire harps are strung with phospher bronze, but I think brass sounds better, and I won't go into the historical arguments about which is better than what. Now, in some of the historical harp literature, and certainly in stories and legend, there is talk of harps that are strung with gold and silver. And I'd heard talk of this, but, much like I dismissed the old man I met in my youth who wistfully told me about the gold E string he had for his violin once, I truly thought this must be some sort of a fairytale idea-- I mean, who would string an instrument with a precious metal? I love the sound of my yellow brass strings, and when properly cleaned and polished, they look like gold. There's been speculation that what those stories were talking about was really properly polished brass (or bronze alloy) wires, but some people continue to insist on gold. Now, lots of the people who continue to insist that they really were strung with gold are-- hm, let me put this politely-- nutters. And you find a lot of nutters in the harp world. There are people out there who believe that their harps are going to get them into heaven or fairyland -- or maybe even Disneyland; who knows? But some of the people who put strings made of precious metal on their harps are Ann Heymann. And I recall Allison Kinnaird saying that someone (probably Ann) had given her a silver or gold string for one of her wire harps at one point and that she really liked it.
But, ih. I have really resisted, over the years, resisted very strongly, being in the flower and fairytales camp regarding harps and harping. I know that might make some of you giggle, since I have written songs about fairies before. But the fact is, I think that to draw attention to the fact that you believe your harp is really the spirit of a dryad that shaped itself (while deftly manipulating the luthier's tools) into the perfect harp just for you is a wee bit over the top. For a long time I resisted naming musical instruments. Even now, the only one of my instruments that has a name is Heretic, the big ash Cunningham wire harp. And he has a name for a reason, not because he whispered it into my dreams one night only I have to figure out how to pronounce the Gaelic so I'm going to post a message to a harp mailing list with 8,000 subscribers to see if anybody can tell me how to pronounce my harp's mystical name, which surprisingly enough is the same as the name of Brian Boru's own personal harp, upon which he composed his own march, which we still play today. *headdesk* Heck, I will even cop to once having written a snarky-disguised-as-tongue-in-cheek message to this selfsame harp list entitled, "What our harps might really say, if indeed they could talk." It included things like, "Hey! You! My name is not Peaseblossom! It's Butch! Got it? Butch!" and (after a harp workshop with Sue Richards during which Sue played an example piece on the speaking harp) "Hey! Why do I have to go home with you? I want to go home with her!"
sailing_harper is an engineer, see. She designs computer crisps or something. And she knows a whole big assload more about physics and mathematics than I will ever know or want to know. And, at some point during the time she was here, she explained to me, in words I could almost understand, why having a silver string on my harp in that position would be less thuddy than the brass equivalent. But I can't explain it to you now; perhaps she'll comment and all you people out there in maths-and-physics land can have a high old time discussing the whole concept using words like "tensile" and "psi" and "critical tension". Or something like that.
Anyway, she convinced me. And so today I put that string on my harp.
Oh. My. God.
In the past, I've shied away from arrangements that highlighted the lower five strings of this harp because I didn't like that slightly sour sound of the string not being perfectly tensioned for the note it needed to sound. Now I am putting lots of low Cs in everything I can think of and nearly kicking myself for being so disappointed with another Witcher lap harp I had awhile back because it had a thuddy G fifth below that low C. A silver string would have fixed that, too. I'm sold. I love this sound. It's sweet and resonant and bright. So this afternoon, after I phonedsailing_harper to squee at her over the phone, I emailed Ann Heymann about putting four more of those strings, the entire bottom fifth, in silver (far, far, far less expensive than I imagined it would be, by the way). And wouldn't you know, the email bounced because her mailbox is over capacity, so I'll have to find another way. I'm still enough of a fangrrl that I'm nervous to phone her, even though I know it would be all right. I tried emailing again later today, but apparently she just doesn't check that email address very often, alas.
But, little whinge aside, I'm sitting here thinking how altogether beautiful this harp is once again. And how it sounds even better now. Make no mistake, this harp, true to its maker's name, is sweet and compelling and completely engaging. To make it sound better, well, that is quite a gift. Quite a gift.
Recently, we had a
sailing_harper, and we did all sorts of fun things with her and I enjoyed being a tourist in London once again, and all was Merry And Gay, Hey Nonny Nonny.sailing_harper is a deeply capable, caring and talented woman. I met her at a weekend seminar I taught at once a long time ago, and mostly through her efforts, we've remained mostly in touch over the past five years or so. Before she came to visit, we talked about harps (duh) and which ones I had at the house in London and what they were like. I told her the story of how my beloved 24-string Witcher came into my life and mentioned that Jay, while he's a genius and all, has a reputation for overbuilding (ya think?) and understringing, and that my lowest string particularly was a bit thuddy, as were the two or three above that. She asked me a couple of questions, including the length of the string, and I sucked and didn't get the answers back to her until just the week before she came here, and that was that.
But tell us of the silver string!
It must have been one of the last nights she was here with us that she revealed what she'd done, since the package hadn't arrived as expected during her visit. She'd contacted Ann Heymann and ordered a silver string to go on the bottom of my lap harp! I was boggled and amazed.
On Saturday, it arrived, and we found out why it had taken so long. Apparently Royal Mail interprets "Global Priority Mail" as "Registered Mail," which means that instead of arriving sooner it actually takes longer since it has to be checked and tracked and signed for and all that. So on Saturday, this unassuming coil of heavy silver wire, just exactly long enough to be strung onto the lowest throughpin on my harp, arrived, along with a lovely postcard and a note from Ann. And yes, I do remember the days when I was such a drooling Ann fangrrl that this experience would have sent me over the moon; as it was, I admit it did give me a little thrill.
The weekend was busy and there wasn't a lot of quiet time, so I resolved to put the string on today, since I don't work on Mondays and everybody else (except the kittycat, of course) is out of the house.
Now, let's talk about harp strings for a minute. As you know, I play wire harps. These are strung mostly with brass wire. Some wire harps are strung with phospher bronze, but I think brass sounds better, and I won't go into the historical arguments about which is better than what. Now, in some of the historical harp literature, and certainly in stories and legend, there is talk of harps that are strung with gold and silver. And I'd heard talk of this, but, much like I dismissed the old man I met in my youth who wistfully told me about the gold E string he had for his violin once, I truly thought this must be some sort of a fairytale idea-- I mean, who would string an instrument with a precious metal? I love the sound of my yellow brass strings, and when properly cleaned and polished, they look like gold. There's been speculation that what those stories were talking about was really properly polished brass (or bronze alloy) wires, but some people continue to insist on gold. Now, lots of the people who continue to insist that they really were strung with gold are-- hm, let me put this politely-- nutters. And you find a lot of nutters in the harp world. There are people out there who believe that their harps are going to get them into heaven or fairyland -- or maybe even Disneyland; who knows? But some of the people who put strings made of precious metal on their harps are Ann Heymann. And I recall Allison Kinnaird saying that someone (probably Ann) had given her a silver or gold string for one of her wire harps at one point and that she really liked it.
But, ih. I have really resisted, over the years, resisted very strongly, being in the flower and fairytales camp regarding harps and harping. I know that might make some of you giggle, since I have written songs about fairies before. But the fact is, I think that to draw attention to the fact that you believe your harp is really the spirit of a dryad that shaped itself (while deftly manipulating the luthier's tools) into the perfect harp just for you is a wee bit over the top. For a long time I resisted naming musical instruments. Even now, the only one of my instruments that has a name is Heretic, the big ash Cunningham wire harp. And he has a name for a reason, not because he whispered it into my dreams one night only I have to figure out how to pronounce the Gaelic so I'm going to post a message to a harp mailing list with 8,000 subscribers to see if anybody can tell me how to pronounce my harp's mystical name, which surprisingly enough is the same as the name of Brian Boru's own personal harp, upon which he composed his own march, which we still play today. *headdesk* Heck, I will even cop to once having written a snarky-disguised-as-tongue-in-cheek message to this selfsame harp list entitled, "What our harps might really say, if indeed they could talk." It included things like, "Hey! You! My name is not Peaseblossom! It's Butch! Got it? Butch!" and (after a harp workshop with Sue Richards during which Sue played an example piece on the speaking harp) "Hey! Why do I have to go home with you? I want to go home with her!"
sailing_harper is an engineer, see. She designs computer crisps or something. And she knows a whole big assload more about physics and mathematics than I will ever know or want to know. And, at some point during the time she was here, she explained to me, in words I could almost understand, why having a silver string on my harp in that position would be less thuddy than the brass equivalent. But I can't explain it to you now; perhaps she'll comment and all you people out there in maths-and-physics land can have a high old time discussing the whole concept using words like "tensile" and "psi" and "critical tension". Or something like that. Anyway, she convinced me. And so today I put that string on my harp.
Oh. My. God.
In the past, I've shied away from arrangements that highlighted the lower five strings of this harp because I didn't like that slightly sour sound of the string not being perfectly tensioned for the note it needed to sound. Now I am putting lots of low Cs in everything I can think of and nearly kicking myself for being so disappointed with another Witcher lap harp I had awhile back because it had a thuddy G fifth below that low C. A silver string would have fixed that, too. I'm sold. I love this sound. It's sweet and resonant and bright. So this afternoon, after I phoned
sailing_harper to squee at her over the phone, I emailed Ann Heymann about putting four more of those strings, the entire bottom fifth, in silver (far, far, far less expensive than I imagined it would be, by the way). And wouldn't you know, the email bounced because her mailbox is over capacity, so I'll have to find another way. I'm still enough of a fangrrl that I'm nervous to phone her, even though I know it would be all right. I tried emailing again later today, but apparently she just doesn't check that email address very often, alas. But, little whinge aside, I'm sitting here thinking how altogether beautiful this harp is once again. And how it sounds even better now. Make no mistake, this harp, true to its maker's name, is sweet and compelling and completely engaging. To make it sound better, well, that is quite a gift. Quite a gift.
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 04:19 am (UTC)Never had the opportunity to try solid silver. Hmm.
Neep Alert!
Date: 2006-03-28 06:34 am (UTC)I have an Argent Fox 26. The lowest string is the B below the C an octave below middle C. I NEVER used that note, but found that in A minor pieces it came in really handy to lower that one string by one whole tone to get the A. And in G or D Major pieces, lowering it another whole tone to the G was just what the tune needed. But I didn't like the thuddy sound I got from it. For the last several years, I've been hearing about the experiments that a couple of very serious wire-strung harpers had been doing with soft, heavy metals... which also happen to be the precious metals. Last summer, I attended the Ohio Scottish Arts School (http://www.ohioscottishartsschool.org/harp.htm) where Ann Heymann (http://www.clarsach.net/Ann_Heymann/biography.htm) and I tried a little experiment by swapping out that lowest brass string for a "Screaming-Hard Silver" string. The sound was BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!
When Gwen made mention of her thuddy string, I couldn't get the improvement Ann had made in my harp out of my mind. I actually bugged Gwen about it before I knew I was coming to England. I was hoping the silver would arrive before I left, but by my last night in England, I'd given up, so I spilled the beans. Gwen was playing the Witcher (quite beautifully, I might add) and I was showing J a spreadsheet that I've put together. I'd measured all the strings on Gwen's harp the previous weekend.
Here comes the neepey bit. Sorry if it makes your eyes glaze over. Feel free to skip ahead if need be.
So I've been fooling with this spreadsheet for a while now. I've measuered some Ardivals, Argent Foxes, Hobroughs, Triplett's and now a Witcher. I've come up with some interesting results.
First some definitions: "Tension" is the pull on a string. "Stress" is the pull on a string divided by the cross-sectional area of the string... in other words, the amount of pull shared among the molecules that make up the string. "Ultimate Tensile Strength" (UTS) is the stress at which the string breaks. It's constant no matter how large the wire is, because if you make it fatter, it gets stronger and takes more tension to break it, but that tension is spread over a larger cross-sectional area, so your stress is back where you started, more tension divided by more area makes the same stress.
A string's note is inversely proportional to the tension... looser strings are lower. The string's note is inversely proportional to the diameter (actually, mass per length, the linear density) ... fatter strings are lower. A string's note is proportional to its length ... longer strings are lower. Here's where it gets interesting: If you change a string on a harp to a larger diameter, it takes more tension to get back to the same note. The stress hasn't changed.
OK, I've made some interesting correlations with this spreadsheet, even if I don't fully have the theory worked out, yet. Here's the most interesting one. Harp string sound thuddy if the stress is less than about 30% of the UTS. I dunno why, but they all seem to behave that way. But putting on a larger string of the same material doesn't change the stress, so it still sounds thuddy. What you need is a material with a higher linear density (heavier material) and a lower UTS (softer material).
(OK, those of you who skipped the neepery can join back in now)
And I was just at this point of explaining this little quirk of physics to J when I turned to Gwen and said...
"Something like the Sterling Silver string I've ordered for you that hasn't arrived yet would be perfect."
Gwen's face about exploded as she yelled at me "You did WHAT?????"
After convincing her it wasn't really THAT expensive and that she could consider it an experiment and take it off if she didn't like it, she calmed down a bit.
I'm SO glad the experiment worked :)
no subject
Date: 2006-03-30 10:52 pm (UTC)Fawning Fangirl
Date: 2006-03-28 06:36 am (UTC)BTW: You sure can make me blush with all your goings on about me, Gwen ;) I may be the one who's initiated the staying-in-touch thing from time-to-time, but only 'cause you're so cool ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 04:42 pm (UTC)...and on the matter of naming instruments, only two of mine have names. The blue guitar is called Trouble, and the nylon Stoney End kit became Imp before he was even complete.
As for harps talking, well "Hey! Why do I have to go home with you? I want to go home with her!" sounds just like the kind of thing my little brass-strung would say...