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Childhood Dream Came True!
I don't often talk about my past on here but I'm so freaking excited I'm going to delve into my past life a wee bit. I've updated and pruned my pinned post enough times that it no longer even mentions music anymore. It used to mention how I was a retired professional harpist.
I began playing harp pre-puberty and three years after I began lessons I had my first paid gig. I continued performing all through my teenaged years and it paid entirely for my first college degree. My Mom saved up for an entire year to purchase the harp I still have, a Blevins Encore 34 in Walnut with a full set of levers.
He's my most precious possession and my oldest friend. In case of house fire, he's the only thing I'm saving that isn't a human being. When all else fails, he is the life skill that will put food in my belly and clothes on my back. I love him. He's been moved across the country repeatedly and his body bears scars from all kinds of situations.
I retired from professional performance in 2018. While lucrative, I do not have the soul of a performer. I never overcame stage-fright and I got so stressed out I once had to go to the hospital for nothing more than nerves (we didn't know that at the time).
I hated all the preparations for performing even though I actually liked the performances I gave. I liked meeting people and letting little children play the harp. I liked taking photos and answering questions and occasionally getting to network with other harpists. I liked the clients I had who consistently hired me over the years (14 years to be exact).
But I hated being a performer. I hated having to price out the craft and having to deal with skin-flints who didn't want to pay the rates they agreed to. I hated working with people who changed the repertoire on a whim or who flat out cancelled an entire event and didn't tell me until the day of, as I was unpacking.
I was so happy to retire, I do not regret it one bit. What I do regret is that as soon as I retired I stopped playing entirely. That was never my intention. 2018-2019 saw me flying back and forth between the two coasts and it just wasn't feasible to move the harp with me. I am not putting him in the belly of an airplane and taking my chances. Hell no. So, he stayed behind as I traveled.
Then we settled on the east coast but our stuff was still on the west coast. And then, the 'Rona hit. I went through 3 years of lockdown without my harp.
Either harp, I have two.
The one I've had since I was a kid is the Blevins and his name is Alphie. His little sister is a Dusty Strings Allegro 26 (I think she has 26 strings, might be 24) in Sapele (Brazilian hardwood, stunningly beautiful, has an iridescent sheen to it). She also has a full set of levers and detachable legs to make her a wee bit taller. Her name is Aoife.
I did not name either one. And neither one was with me during lockdown. All that stress and terror and I had no harp to play to soothe my soul or nerves. I had never missed music so much in my entire life. I was eventually reunited with both harps but new strings were desperately needed for Alphie.
Mom did buy me a full set of strings in 2021 and it's taken me until today in 2023 to get him fully restrung. At first I was embarrassed because I had forgotten entirely how to do it. I hadn't seen my harps in years, much less touched them. My callouses are all gone along with theory, technique, repertoire, and musculature. Still have strong hands though!
Well, Mom tracked down a Harp Center that's less than 2 hours from where we live. We went there today and the young lady showed both myself and Mom how to tie the strings and then we managed to restring all but the last four. We got some new music books too because my repertoire is stale at this point. I need new tunes for my own personal sanity.
I am not coming out of retirement. I spent the entire time I played harp, playing for others. Playing what they want, when the want, for as long as they want. Now, I play for me. I play what I want, how I want, when I want, as many times as I want.
That was my goal going to the Harp Center. I wanted to string up Alphie and get new music. That was it. My harp bench that I performed on was broken in our move. Thankfully, my trusty music stand George is still intact.
Mom has insisted I get a new bench, which we'll do in two weeks. When we return to the Center to pick up Apollo.
Yeah, I got a new harp. That wasn't on my agenda. Dad had me play a bunch of different ones and he liked one in particular which I also happened to like in particular and he decided then and there to buy it.
It is a beautiful Salvi Concert Harp, which means it has all 47 strings and pedals instead of levers. Gut strings instead of nylon. It's bigger, it's rich in sound, and he's easy on the eyes.
I have wanted a pedal harp since I was a teenager and I resigned myself to never having one because they just cost too much. This harp had been lowered in price twice and people were now afraid to buy it because now they questioned why it had dropped twice. The Center called it a cursed harp.
I got lucky. Everyone liked it but were all too afraid to buy it. My Dad fears very little. He bought it and we pick it up in two weeks. My childhood dream of owning a concert harp is now a reality. I fell in love with the instrument because of Harpo Marx and his guest spot on the I Love Lucy show. He played Take Me Out to the Ballgame and it moved me to tears.
Apollo was made in 1982 so he has a rich, mature sound. I finally got to name a harp, did it on the drive home. Apollo. He is the Greek god of music. When the Romans got their hands on the pantheon, they left his name alone but altered* what he was god of. To the Romans, he is god of the sun. Apollo the harp is the palest harp I'll now own, he's the oldest, he's the richest in sound, and he's a concert harp.
He is a Harp God. Thus, I am naming him Apollo. I then realized that all three harps' names start with the letter "A" and all three names end in vowels. That is just a very happy coincidence.
*The Greek/Roman gods were often patron deities of many things. Apollo wasn't god of the sun in Greek mythology as they had a sun god named Helios. Apollo is traditionally the god of music, poetry, archery, medicine, and disease.
So yeah, my childhood dream of owning a concert harp came true on a whim of my father's. It hasn't fully sunk in because if it had, this post would be riddled with exclamation points.