knicker elastic

Well, I'm just about managing to write this blog once a week! So much going on but mostly very mundane. I have however managed to produce this amazing-sounding harp after making all the treble strings. The sound improves with every week that goes by. The next step is to hang the tubular bells inside the strings. I am looking for some very strong and very thin elastic - hence the title! Don't worry I intend to buy it from the market, not raid the knicker drawer... It is not going to be easy but I am aiming at having 6 bells on each of the quad harps.

I will eventually have a separate carrillon that will work with foot pedals on the floor. Alot of the music has been arranged to include the tubular bells and my husband's research has proved that there were such harps around at least a couple of thousand years ago. Much more on this when my husband finishes his book and I am not bound by copyright!

The oldest harp came from Ur being 2,500 BC. They still play the same design in Ethiopia today and I have just added a tune from that region to my repertoire.

I played at Phoenix School last Monday. Everything was going well until someone brought in the School's percussion trolley ... It only takes one extremely noisy drum and everything is drowned out and alas, this is what happenned! Eventually our 'drummer' got bored and wandered off and we played native American songs, South American and Irish Jigs, not forgetting Manuel Flavia's wonderful tune from 1492. It only moves one note at a time so all I have to do is make sure everyone starts on the same harp string and knows which way is 'up' or 'down' as I shout out 'commands'!