Harps

I have two lever harps that I absolutely love and play regularly. One is a large 39 string cherry wood harp made by Australian harp maker Rick Hickman. I designed this harp myself and Rick brought the drawings I made to life. The harp is strung with high tension nylon and gut and has Loveland levers. This harp is now over twenty years old and still sounds terrific. Unfortunately Rick doesn’t make harps anymore so if you have a Hickman harp you are very lucky!

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My other harp is an historic instrument made by James McFall in Belfast, Ireland, in ~1903 just before it was brought to Australia. It is an early bardic model with brass ring stops to change pitch and beautiful Celtic knotwork burned into the soundboard and painted. When I bought the harp it had not been played in decades as the neck had broken. The harp has now been repaired by Australian harp restorer Bob Ballinger and is sounding lovely.

3 thoughts on “Harps”

  1. Hi Frances
    I have a Rick Hickman harp too. Very stable and reliable 🙂 What do you do for strings? He gave me spares but I’m wondering what to do when I run out.

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    1. Hi Yvette, I re-strung my Hickman harp completely in Bow Brand for the gut and nylon strings but for the most part Rick used Klipspringer for the gut strings and Bow Brand for the nylon strings. He used pedal gauge strings on my harp and I am pretty sure most of his harps are too but you may want to check yours is as well. You can get them from Carter Harps Australia – http://carterharpsaustralia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/STRING-PRICE-LIST-2019.pdf. Rick hand-made his own bass wire strings, so they have an amazing sound. They rarely break though so you probably won’t need to replace them. I have a spare set of bass strings that Rick made but if I had to replace them I would look at changing all of the bass strings to Pirastro or Bow Brand wires. The main thing is not to mix and match your string brands as they are all slightly different. Consistency is important for a good sound. Hickman harps are wonderful and I hope you have many years of joy playing yours! Fran

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      1. Hi Fran
        Thank you for that information, that’s really helpful.
        None of by bass strings have broken yet thankfully. When I run out of my spare gut and nylon strings I’ll do as you suggest.
        They are beautiful harps. Happy playing too
        Yvette

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