harp maker’s

Here’s hoping that someone can help 🙂

I’m hoping to buy a new harp for (currently play a Paddy Cafferky harp but have to share this with my sister and I’m finally ready to buy my own!!)

Having tried many out, I would love to order a Larry Egar harp however I haven’t managed to find any contact details (not helped much by being overseas!). Does anyone have any information that could help? I’ve heard the waiting list is huge but not much else. Anyone have any experience of these harps?

Cheers,
Goldie

I can dig up the contact for you. The waiting list was three years long as of August 2003, and is probably close to five years now from what I’ve heard. I’ve also heard that Mr. Egar has been having some health problems in the last year or so and thus production on the harps has slowed considerably. So you might have a very long wait ahead of you.

I can’t tell from your post whether you’ve ever played an Egar harp or not, but here’s my $.02 on them. They are very popular in Ireland. They are quite lightly strung, with relatively close spacing as I recall, and lightweight to carry, and if you’ve heard any of Grainne Hambly’s recordings, you know how they sound. They feel very different from any harp that comes near to pedal harp spacing or tension, including “lighter” lever harps like the Salvi Livia. I have not played them extensively, but the times I have played them I liked them well enough. It wasn’t, however, a “eureka!” moment where suddenly no other harp could compare. One of my teenage students, however, loves the Egars and is on the waiting list now. I suspect that in her case part of this is wanting to jump on the bandwagon since so many of the Irish kids have these harps, and I think that she will have to modify her technique to get the best sound out of a harp that’s much lighter than anything she’s used to. But I’m certainly not going to discourage her, and if it’s worth it to her in the end, great. If not, she can always sell it--there seems to be such a high demand in relation to the supply that I’m sure reselling it would be very easy. It would be a a big disappointment though, after waiting for so long, if it didn’t turn out to be “The One.”

So if you know you love ’em, go ahead, get on the waiting list. I’ll send you the details within the week. Have you done any searches for used ones? It’s probably a long shot, since they are so popular, but actually from what I’ve heard Mr. Egar himself gets used harps in sometimes, and you can get lucky if you happen to call at the right time. Unless you want a lot of custom work, I don’t think you’d be sacrificing anything with a used one except for the waiting time.

Good luck…