Journal Entries!

Sunday September 30, 2007 (8:04 – 10:07 AM, 2 ¹/₂₀ hours, 35 ¹³/₁₅ hours total)

Today, I worked on trimming the soundboard and gluing it on. After hard work, a nasty head cold that dulled my mind, and a lot of frustration, I glued the trimmed soundboard to the soundbox. When I next work on the project, I will power brad the soundboard into place for extra security.

Friday October 12, 2007 (1:36 – 5:47 PM, 4 ¹¹/₆₀ hours, 40 ¹/₂₀ hours total)

Today I visited Dusty Strings again. I talked to Eileen, who was again immensely helpful. Now that I am building a harp, I marvel at their expert craftsmanship. They are simply amazing – I hope I can create such beautiful structures. I signed up for the Harp Symposium, which will take place on November 2 – 4, which means that I will miss Friday’s school. It is a worthy cause, though. I simply can not wait.

I volunteered to be a “Harp Vallet”, which is more lovingly called a “Harp Monkey”. They cut the $200 fee in half if I come early and carry harps up and down the stairs. I can not wait to do it, and to keep my skills in check, I rented a harp from Dusty Strings. A 32-string harp, which was the closest to the 33-string harp I am building (it is just missing the highest string). A link to it can be seen here: http://dustystrings.com/building/fh32.shtml .

Week of October 12 – 19, 2007 (1 ¹/₃ hours, 41 23/60 hours total)

I have practiced religiously on the rented harp. It is such a beautiful sound; I almost melted when I heard it. I can not wait to be a better harpist/harper so that I can make the sound truly worthy of the instrument.