Thoughts on playing a cross-strung wire harp How you can play one too!
Since my double strung harp is out of commission for the time being, I’ve been relying on my lightweight (10 lbs.!) Esabelle harp to come to church with me every Sunday. Playing her on a weekly basis has certainly helped improved my technique! Cross-strung (X) harps are usually not wire; they normally have nylon strings instead […]
Restringing my Double Wire Harp, part II half done...
My last batch of replacement wires have arrived for my harp and I’ve learned from my string maker Laurie at Markwood Strings (highly recommended by the way!!) that the old strings which were breaking so much are bronze only. My new ones are copper phosphor bronze alloy and Laurie very kindly provides them with the […]
Restringing my double wire harp A followup to my Frequently Breaking Strings post
I’ve started the long, slow, tedious process of changing all the strings on my double-strung wire harp. If you haven’t read my earlier post on my difficulties with its strings, please feel free to read here. I made a list of all the strings that needed replacing, that is, the ones that are original to […]
Pipe Organ and Wire Harp A How-to for Your Church!
Almost every Sunday, unless husband George has to be away (substituting at another church, playing the carillon for Convocation or Commencement at either of his two colleges), he’s playing the historic pipe organ at our church. Preludes, postludes and hymns. With, of course, wire harp accompaniment! If you happen to have a spouse, friend […]
Frequently Breaking Harp Strings Restringing my harp...
At the moment my now-primary church harp is Esabelle, my cross-strung wire harp. Here she is: She’ll need to be my prelude/postlude/Communion/hymn accompaniment harp for the foreseeable future, because: 1. She’s lightweight 2. She can be quickly carried in a nice green weatherproof bag for those torrential rainy Vermont mornings (see #1) 3. In the […]
Creation Care Season & Feast of St. Francis
“But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5: 24) Culling, Curfews and Caps: Australia ‘Declares War’ on Its Cat Problem A departure from my usual posts here on liturgical harp. May we pray and seek to defend God’s creatures and His Creation from cruel and unnecessary predation by […]
Irish Wire Harp at Communion Source of Melody...
My favorite time to play my harp during Sunday morning church service is at Communion. At our church, members are invited to come up and gather in a circle around the altar after our visiting priest (we don’t have a permanent rector) elevates the Host, breaks it and begins to distribute it to each in […]
My Paraguayan Harp Mi Arpa Paraguaya
Here is my Paraguayan harp. It actually belongs to my husband George Matthew Jr., who bought it at a church fundraiser some years ago when he was living in CT. I’ve done some research on it and discovered it was built by Adelio Ovelar of Asunción, Paraguay sometime in the early 1980’s. It was my […]
Sacred vs. Secular (and music that really doesn't work for me...)
Let me open this post by clearing the air (as it were), by noting first it’s been a while since my last post – April of this year to be exact. We’ve had some rough weather here in Vermont with the floods and the wildfire smoke and that hasn’t exactly been conducive to thoughtful writing. […]
Українські Великодні Піснеспіви Ukrainian Easter Hymns
Accompanying my recent collection of Polish Easter hymns, here’s a comparable set of Ukrainian hymns, 23 in total. I’ve loosely translated their titles and provided an index at the beginning. You can download this pdf collection and print them at the UPS Store and have them spiral bound, as I like to do, so they’ll […]