Wotan harps

[Jana]

Hello to all!
I would like to know your opinnion about Aoyama - Wotan harps and your experience with them. I found there something in german and Josef translated few senteces for me (THANK YOU . But I am still curious. I have now curently hired Pinokkio with 31 strings for half of year. (It's because I still didnt save enough to have new harp, but I need to play in front of the people and it's difficult without levers) My teacher has school Adantino which has 34 strings, more wider string spacing. It's much better and confortable for playing and there are less troubles with levers buzzing than little harp. Also I am curious why is white harp more expensive than brown .... diffrent wood, better quality, diffrent levers?
Also I was curious who makes this harps. They are Aoyamas, but I didnt find any model like this in Aoyama offer, but both Adantion and pinokkio look very similar to some Morley harps. ..... as I said I am just curious

[merit]

Dear Jana, I played a Wotan for about seven years, partly parallel to Pedal Harp.

I would surely not recommend this type of harp - whatever music You are planning to play on it. It has - in my opinion - all disadvantages of both Pedal harps and lever harps.

-One good thing: I remember the levers because they were good to operate and looked good. But I do not know if Aoyama still uses the same type of levers.

-The string tension is higher than it was on the Pedal harp I played on. You need much, much power in the fingers to pluck the strings heavyly enough to get a convincing sound (which leads to much power in the fingers - at least an advantage ;-)

-The harp is - due to iron rings in the soundbox - extremely heavy for its size.

-The sound is kind of dull - without much overtones but also without the "noble" Pedal harp sound.

-The surface is very touchy to everything because it has a very polished laquer.

One good thing in the end: Some harpmakers told me that You could take this type of harp with You if You go swimming!

Best wishes and love to Prague, Merit

[Jana]

Hello Merit
Thank you very much. I wasnt sure and I didnt want to be unpolite specialy to my wanderful teacher who helped me to hire this harp and that great people from company who did it. (They do great job bringing harps to czech at least via this renting programe) Finaly it was very good offer and hiring price is fantastic, so I was able to do it, but as I said it's only for half of year maybe year before I will safe enough for my own and I already know one harp of my dreams, but it's not Aoyama So finaly I have target and slowly work on it
You are very right about sound. I have to use big power to get strong tone. That made me crazy first few weeks. Upper strigns are ringing, middle range ... good, but bas tones has not response I expected and harp has very quiet and unsure sound. It also didnt hold tunning very well. But what was my suprise when we had band rehearsal at my home. My friend who usually play pedal harp played this Wotan and was back to my old hook harp ... AND???? Big suprise. My tone improved radicaly.
Hmmm ... levers. I fight with them. They looks much better than Lovelands, but they buzz very often. People from company told me how to repair buzzing, but I am scared to use power, because harp is not mine and I dont want to hurt it. Anyway I am happy at least for this harp, because of levers. It was frustrating still retune my old harp infront of audience while my friends used pedals and levers fastly. Hi hi .. you can imagine me first day madly running around this harp. Next weekend rest of family had heavy headache because I was playing from morning till evening :-)

Hi hi ... I think I will not go swimming with this harp, of course if I will not swimm in my own sweat during playing for audience.