About my harps St. Thomas & Grace Weekly Digest
Welcome to those of you who came here after clicking the link in our Weekly Digest! This is a WordPress blog I’ve been maintaining on and off and I hope to continue writing occasional material for our weekly church newsletter with a link to here if there’s interest. I’ve enjoyed playing my harps for you […]
King David’s Psalms What he might have actually played...
In my continuing research for interesting liturgical music to play on my three Irish wire-strung harps in church, I recently came across the work of the late French archaeomusicologist and organist Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura (1912-2000). She is best known for her book La Musique de la Bible revélée (1st ed.: 1976), a study in which the cantillation […]
Polish Liturgical Music on Wire Harp Roman Catholic Hymn Collection
In recent months I’ve become aware of a fantastic collection of kolady (Christmas carols) and hymns and service music for Mass on the website of the Polish American Liturgical Center at Orchard, Lake Michigan. Under Śpiewnik (hymnal) you will find a fabulous collection of Polish language hymns in PDF format to download! As I am […]
Truitt levers on Argent Fox Double Wire Harp
My new Argent Fox double strung wire harp has a full set of Truitt sharping levers with delrin fret pins. Here are some photos of them on my harp! A nice, brief article introducing the concept of levers: Types of Harp Sharping Levers
In time for Christmas services… my third wire harp! Argent Fox Double Strung Wire Harp
On November 16, 2022 George and I drove out to Hampton Beach, NH to meet Dan Speer of Argent Fox Harps and pick up my third wire-strung harp, a double strung with a full set of Truitt sharping levers. Dan packed her up and took her on the Amtrak train to NH, where he was […]
The Episcopal Hymnal(s) 1916 to 1982 arranged for wire harp
Currently I’m working on arranging selected hymns from the Episcopal Hymnals of 1916, 1940 and 1982 for my large Triplett Luna harp, for Sunday morning service use. Some hymns are in keys which are not friendly to my aging harp, which has been in the key of F (one flat) for as long as I […]
How to: Playing a Simple Melody Hymn tune: This is My Father's World
Here’s a brief recording of me playing the opening lines of “This is my Father’s World” (Terra Patris) on my Triplett Luna harp: For comparison, here is the original hymn in four parts. I transposed it to F so it would work better on my harp. Source: Hymnary.org As you can see, I took just […]
New to the Wire Harp? (non-historical wire-strung harp)
If you’ve just discovered the wire harp (or heard one being played), for starters it’s good to know that most folks in the overall world of harps (Classical, Celtic) tend to think of historical Irish wire-strung harp when this branch of the harp family comes up. That is, replica instruments of period harps made in […]
Photos of Triplett Luna Wire Harp
Here are some recent photos of my Triplett Luna wire harp this summer. After I got back from playing in church I didn’t take Luna harp into the house right away. I decided to have a Sunday photo session in the back yard. I posed my harp in some unlikely but attractive green corners […]
Irish wire harp… cross-strung! Stoney End Esabelle
In 2015 my second Irish wire harp was built for me by Gary Stone of Stoney End Harps, Red Wing, MN. His Esabelle model is normally strung with nylon strings, and accordingly is lightly built. When I asked Gary to build this harp as a wire model, a lot of things needed to be changed […]