Hi all,

Sorry for arriving late, but hell, it looks like you didn't need me after all (grin).

My 34 string lever harp was made by a local instrument maker from the Cambria harp kit sold by Mountain Glenn harps from their Markwood range.

Mountain Glen Harps mtglen@aol.com http://hometown.aol.com/mtglen/harps.htm - go to the Markwood or Cambria sections of the site

I'm super-pleased with this harp. I've had it since 1992. The Markwood strings are wonderful. They are light, flexible, easy to play and have a warm vibrant tone. Laurie Hill at Markwood has a string analysis computer program and she charges a small fee to run the details of individual harps through and get the best string design - composition, gauge etc. They do mail order.

My 28 string was made by a man in Canberra, Oz, and I made contact with him through the e-mail harplist which Julia mentioned.

As for playing, my best advice is probably to find a teacher who likes or understands your style of music and who is knowledgable about teaching adults.

Once you learn the chord shapes you can get stuck into it, and knowing guitar chord notes will help there. It can work much like a guitar, as you said, usually with melody in the right hand and chords/rhythm accompaniment in the left, but melody-left and chords-right is also acceptable.

More complex accompaniments can also be done - I'm not up to that stage so far, and may never move past the chords stage because it works quite nicely enough for me.

It's more similar to playing a keyboard/piano except that the right hand is going in a different direction to the piano, i.e. high notes are thumb, index, lower notes are middle and fourth finger. On a piano low are thumb etc. so whatever type of general accompaniment arrangements which work on a piano are similar to what will work on a harp except for the need for changing levers for accidentals. That's why folk and Celtic music works so well on the harp because there are lots of tunes with no accidentals.

Sylvia Woods Harp Centre has a huge selection of harp CD's and music, and other gear. She also does mail order. I haven't checked out Dusty Strings (Hi John, has Eileen recovered from her near miss in the earthquake, yet?) but they have an excellent reputation.

Finally, join the e-mail harplist - lovely bunch of folks, (classical, folky, traditional, Celtic, new age, healing, you name it) and very welcoming, knowledgable and helpful.

Helen