Any wire strung harp players here?

[Elen]

Hi I'm Elen and I'm learning to play the wire harp, playing an Ardival Kilcoy with 19 strings and working through Ann Heymann's A Gaelic Harper's First Tunes, with all the correct damping techniques. Totally different instrument to nylon or gut. Any other wire players here?

Elen.

[dream soul]

Hi Elen
I'm also learning to play wire harp, also an Ardival one! all my harps are from there

Are you coming to Ardival's wire harp course in october? I'm planning on going, would be great to see you there!!! Blessings and music!!!

[Elen]

Hi Elen
I'm also learning to play wire harp, also an Ardival one! all my harps are from there
Are you coming to Ardival's wire harp course in october? I'm planning on going, would be great to see you there!!! Blessings and music!!!

Hi and greetings. It's great to meet another druidic wire harp player. Alas, I would love to go on one of their courses but I can't afford it, buying the harp has put me in hock for quite a while. It would have been really good, especially as this is my first musical instrument and there are no wire teachers in or near Oxford where i live. However, I joined the wire harp list on yahoo and they are really friendly and helpful; they seem willing to help me even though I'm totally new to reading music too and have only been playing the harp for five weeks.

Which Ardival harps do you have?

Warm Blessings,
Elen.

[dream soul]

ah that would have been good if you had come, but the courses (they do both gut and wire courses) are on every year, so I might see you there next year!!
I have a nineteen string Rosemarkie, thirty-four string dominie, and nineteen string kilcoy. And luckily I don't live that far away from Strathpeffer either, so there are other players fairly near by. I hope you find someone to play with! It's not as fun when you always have to play on your own, but I love playing!!

Blessings!

[Elen]

ah that would have been good if you had come, but the courses (they do both gut and wire courses) are on every year, so I might see you there next year!!
I have a nineteen string Rosemarkie, thirty-four string dominie, and nineteen string kilcoy. And luckily I don't live that far away from Strathpeffer either, so there are other players fairly near by. I hope you find someone to play with! It's not as fun when you always have to play on your own, but I love playing!!

Blessings!

Ah, so your other two are gut. Presumably you already play then and are not a total beginner like me? Do you find it hard learning wire after playing gut/nylon?

I would love to do one of their courses. I'll have to see how things are next year. i love my little Kilcoy but would really like to get together with others and see what they play and how their harps sound. Listening online isn't quite the same.

[dream soul]

yes, I've been playing for around 10 going on 11 years now but gut is my first harp, I'm still pretty new to the wire harp. I didn't find wire that hard to learn actually, it's mainly just different techniques for playing, and different damping of strings. What helped was Bill Taylor was my teacher from the beginning when I started to play, so I mostly play half-fingernail anyway I love going to the harp course!! It's great fun to play with others, and also means I'm aware of any mistakes I'm making, as playing solo all the time, means bad habits are easily picked up! Plus it's fantastic to be able to play with other people who understand your instrument. Online isn't the same as hearing and seeing it played in front of you at all, I prefer live music to recorded, though recorded means you can listen to it anytime.

Actually I've just started teaching gut harp at a feis near where I live I love it!!! It really brings home exactly how much I know, and how much I thought I knew! As well as making me think exactly how I play things. It's very fun and rewarding, and I also get to play in a group!!

Blessings, and much luck with your harping!!!

[Elen]

Thanks for the well wishes. I realise it would be better to have lessons but I just can't afford it at the moment, and there's nobody teaching or even playing wire here, as far as i know Hopefully I will be able to get up to the Ardival course next year. Meanwhile someone an hour or so from me, who plays wire harp and teaches music, has offered to have me over once to see how I'm doing and give me some pointers. Because I've only just started reading music as well, I get the timing a bit wrong sometimes, though thankfully I have MP3s of the first three tunes in the book I'm working from (Ann Heymann's Gaelic Harper's First tunes).

Thanks for your input and I hope you continue to enjoy your teaching and learning!
Meanwhile I'll harp on

Elen.