harpists for obama!?!?

http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/HarpistsforObama

very cool!

speaking of lost causes (or, if you love me, you will buy me this harp...)

This one may be a lost cause, although from the looks of it, it would do a perfectly good job sitting in the corner of someone's livingroom.....
Pictured here, a beautiful Erat harp on ebay. It is beautiful. I don't think I've seen an Erat up close and personal before. Gold harps are nice but i am not dying to have one...but this harp has no strings and just gold thread instead.....which I find gaudy and gorgeous all at once.

It's a rare beauty, but no telling what playing shape it's in, and if any of the work probably done over the years to keep it pretty has harmed it. It's got the 8th pedal, which operates the swell doors. A neat little trick that never quite caught on, and I think modern ears wouldn't pick up the subtle changes it produces in the sound. I think I read somewhere that the doors also had a tendency to squeak.
But many of the pianos I've banged out songs on over the years, or those beat-up old public school bassoons made funny noises, so I would be used to it. I'd just be so thrilled to have it sitting in my living room...
..okay, not my living room. Not enough space, although antique harps are smaller. Most likely it would be in my mom's living room with my fullsized pedal harp and my brother's upright bass. She wouldn't be too happy about that, seeing as she already has an old Dodd in the dining room awaiting extensive repairs. It's collecting dust, but it's not nearly as pretty to look at as the Erat. Someone at some point decided to cover what was left of the gilding in GOLD PAINT. A sin, a sin, a sin indeed! Plus it's a bit wounded here and there.

Disclaimer....
Oh and of course I don't expect my loved ones to go out and purchase this harp for me. That would just be silly.

harp and nun

Nun with harp (1899 colorized photograph by JI Austin & Co)

now i've read a bit about nuns and harps. its been awhile so the details are fuzzy, but many did play and would teach the girls in the catholic schools.
a few years back i played for some event, a nun's anniversary of some sort i believe, and while i was eating afterwards i saw a crowd of folks around my harp. usually that would make me nervous (especially after that kid kicked my harp at the four seasons hotel in philly), but it was a bunch of nuns so i could only smile. they were telling me at their convent there was an old harp no one touched that had belong to someone. i wish i could have seen it, i have quite the fascination for old harps, especially those who are lonely, beat up, and all-around lost causes.

flying harps

my small harp doesn't meet the size requirements to go in the overhead bin/carry-on for a plane. when i got it ages ago, we thought it would fit. but things were less strict back then. now i'm contemplating acquiring another harp that would travel well. but it technically is 'too big' although it has flown successfully for other harpists. i see guitarists in airports and i wonder, how do they do it?

now my 'baby harp' has a case i could put it in. it's a heavy duty small harp shipping trunk i picked up on ebay last year that was for a Clark Irish Harp (no longer made, however a few months after I got the trunk I found a harp to fit it on ebay-bad shape, though). the baby harp, in its protective gig bag, fits nice and snug in the trunk.

and of course the trunk weighs a ton. i dont want to think how much they'd charge me to put it on a plane. i had to pay $15 for my suitcase a few weeks ago on USAir. This time I'm flying Southwest.

it's quite simple really. i want to play harp for my great aunt, who i rarely see, and who turns 75 next month. but seeing as how all my harps are on the east coast and she is on the west coast....
if there was a major harp store in downtown LA i could just run down there in a taxi with her and play the harps in the store. but harp stores aren't in the places you'd expect them to be. even in manhattan, the place where i bought my pedal harp, International Music, closed down and moved to Florida. I think there's harps for sale in Brooklyn maybe, but by appt. only...i'm sure the antique or music shop here or there might have a small harp, but there's a lack of serious harp shops out there.