I had Gilligan for about a year before he started to have problems with buzzing noise every time I plucked the Middle C string on the harp while I was practicing. So, I told Kelly about it and Kelly offered to replace Gilligan with Mary Ann at least until Gilligan is fixed which took about a year because Kelly was often busy with other things which includes caring for her mother because she’s often stricken with a severe case of arthritis or something. That’s the reason why she moved from Sterling Heights to Clawson, Michigan in the first place. So she can be near her elderly mother to care for her whenever she needs it.
Just as much I enjoy Gilligan, I enjoyed Mary Ann as well even though I wanted Gilligan back more than ever because he is the very first pedal harp I ever got and played on.
Mary Ann was a Lyon & Healy Style 14 gold plated pedal harp.
A tad smaller than Gilligan, but a wonderful instrument to look at.
Unlike Gilligan, who was all in a natural finish,
Everybody who are big fans of classic TV knows Gilligan’s Island all too well. There’s Gilligan, The Skipper, too, The Millionaire and his wife, The Movie Star, The Professor, and Mary Ann here on Gilligan’s Isle! Well, what does Gilligan’s Island have to do with the harp? 2 harps. A Lyon & Healy Style 15 pedal harp I named “Gilligan” and a Lyon & Healy Style 14 gold plated pedal harp I named “Mary Ann.” Both came from the Michigan Harp Center. Both I played on, both I loved and both I rented from the harp center a few years ago.
It began at church in 2001 when one of my Sunday School teachers whose name is Paul Banas, offered to actively get involved in helping me to get a harp. Searching many phone books for music stores that sells harps, he found a music store in Lansing (I think) where it sells harps. But when we got there to check it out, I found that the store only sells lever harps which is very disappointed. However, I told Paul about th
I have an honest confession. I have a jealous heart. I’m jealous of people who own pedal harps while I either had a lever harp or no harp at all. I would bawl and cry nearly every time I see and hear a harp. I will even turn away every time I hear a harp being played in a live performance because I could not bear to see someone else play a pedal harp while I don’t have a pedal harp just like what other harpists have!
Enter: Greg Buchanan. Now here’s a man who went through a period of alcohol and drug abuse until he was converted to Christianity in the early 1980s’ and have been playing the harp ever since he was 9 years old. He is a caring, loving big man who owns a few harps including the modern version of a lyre. But he never lift one finger to help me get a harp despite his testimonies on how was he blessed by the Lord after his conversion to Christianity and how he was soon delivered from the dark side of booze, pills, and devils and into the presence of the
It’s very thrilling and exciting for me to see a harp on TV whether I see it on Mork and Mindy, The Monkees, Batman, or on I love Lucy like I saw today where Ricky was singing as a Lyon & Healy Style 23 was being played right in front of him during one of his shows. I always get a kick out of seeing images of the harp in dictionaries and encyclopedias, too. But that’s nothing compared to actually seeing, playing, and most of all, owning one of these babies. That’s what I’m striving to do. Like in a famous oldies song from Dusty Springfield, Wishin’ and Hopin’, I too was “wishin’ and hopin’, thinkin’ and prayin’, plannin’ and dreamin’..”, I did them all. I was highly persistent in my efforts to try to figure out a way to play and even own a harp.
The only major problem is that these instruments are so expensive! They are right up there where houses, cars, boats, motor homes, and trailer vans are at.
Before I talked about my struggle with jealousy, I would like to tell you about what prompt me to dream about playing the harp. It has to do with a Bible story about David, my favorite character from the Bible, who was sent to soothe King Saul who was sickened with madness caused by an evil spirit as told in I Samuel 16:14-23. David in fact played the kinnor or lyre, a harp shaped instrument very similar to the Greek Lyre. The lyre David played was a small box-shaped frame with 10 strings stretched which across it as referenced here.
Just like the harp, it was played with fingers. The reason David is often depicted with a harp is because of a mistranslation of the word “kinnor” made by the translators of the King James Bible who mistaken the word “kinnor” for a harp and pictured David behind a harp similar to that of these Celtic harps below.
Over many centuries, David is pictured as a harpist and is mostly seen playing either a Celtic harp or a harp similar to that of these E
This blog pays homage to C.O.P.S. TV series. In syndication, they rename the series CyberCOPS to avoid confusion with the popular live action series. To me, they should have rename the entire series, C.O.P.S. N’ C.R.O.O.K.S. And have the entire toy and comic book series be exactly in the format as seen in the animated series and made to promote the show! But that’s not all what this blog is all about. Not only does this blog pays homage to C.O.P.S. but it’s also also a harp lover’s blog as well.
Ever since I was a little girl, I always wanted to play the harp. Throughout the years, I babble on and on about how I would play the harp, how I will handle it and how I would make it my most prize possession. However, at one point in my childhood, whenever I looked at harps or glimpsed at a harp on TV, I would deliberately turn away due to either it was too much excitement for me to handle or too ashamed to look at it. I never even bothered to tell anyone about the har
