I'd only had my harp for about 2 weeks and then, one Friday, I'm in my room doing homework and I hear a loud twang! from the closet. (I keep my harp in my closet because my cat is very destructive and I don't want anything to happen to my precious harp!!!) I nearly jumped out of my skin because the house was so quiet and the noise startled me.
In my research about harps, I'd read that when a string breaks, it makes a loud twanging noise, so I knew immediately that a string had just broken. A few days after I'd gotten the harp home, I noticed that the 5th string, a D (one of the very high strings), had a little nick in it near the tuning peg. Naturally, I assumed that was the string that had broken. Imagine my surprise when I opened my closet and found that it was the string below the D that had broken! (String #6: C)
My mom emailed Harp Connection and told them which string had broken and asked if they would send us a replacement for free since I'd only had the harp for about 2 weeks, and I hadn't even played it much. They emailed us back and basically said that string breakage is a part of harp playing, but since the instrument was new and I hadn't had it long, they'd send a replacement for free just this once.
I'll have to take the harp to my next lesson so Bill can show me how to put on the new string!
~Shelby
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
