Daniel Schmitt – Diamond Harps Canada – BC
Daniel Schmitt – Harp builder
DIAMOND HARPS CANADA
Daniel was raised on a small farm in Ontario, where taking equipment apart and putting it back together on the kitchen table was thrilling for a young boy! He carried the love of tools and a crowded, dusty workshop through to his adult life.
Surprisingly, his sense of design began with stonemasonry. He had developed a flourishing business in Salmon Arm, BC, when one day the request came for stonemasons in Haifa, Israel, at the Baha’i Gardens and Terraces. He jumped at the opportunity to work in marble and limestone and to help with the overall installation, perfection and polishing of thousands of pieces for the masterful construction of the archways, fountains, and staircases of a kilometre of terraces and gardens rising up the slope of Mount Carmel. Nearing the end of his 3 year term, he was honoured with the task of finishing with hand tools the filigree of a large, curved marble headstone in one of the monument gardens.
But upon his return to the Okanagan, he found no such artistic stonework employment available to him. However, this is where his life took an unexpected turn towards the Harp World! Daniel married harpist Caroline Mackay in 2001, and we made our home in West Kelowna, where he saw a need for rental harps in his new wife’s teaching business. Still in possession of a wonderful dusty workshop, he set about experimenting with 2 different harp kits from MusicMakers and with solving a design problem for one of Lori Pappajohn’s rental instruments.
From these initial investigations, Daniel began to establish his first designs for HIGH SPIRITS HARPS. He enthusiastically engaged himself in addressing the many challenges of harp building, both in the workshop – devising an invincible neck-pillar joint, developing templates, customizing his tools, and sourcing supplies – and also in finding ways to make them aesthetically pleasing, comfortable and practical for women, his main group of clients.
Typically, sitting with a cup of instant coffee getting cold in his small office behind the harp shop, he pored over every back issue of the Folk Harp Journals that Caroline had collected for a decade (those beautiful hard copies!), searching for answers to the physics and geometry of the instruments. Over the next while, the couple also spent time together seeking out the most beautiful woods. We looked for great boards with a lovely chatoyance, the quality of reflecting light with dramatic highlights and shadows. Our favourites were figured maple, birch, and walnut, and we also adored working with the richness of cherry, mahogany and bubinga.
Daniel tried several types of soundboards, and eventually settled on using Englemann Spruce, as it is a local softwood from the Interior of BC. He built templates for the layering of the quarter sawn pieces, so that they would become incrementally narrower and thinner moving up from the base of the harp. This gave a beautiful resonance and an even tone. He chose to create curving lines for both the sides and top of the soundbox, which made for an exquisite appearance, and helped the soundboard develop properly. A veneer was also selected for each soundboard, to match the hardwood that had been chosen for the main body, neck and pillar.
Five designs of his own emerged from the dust and cold coffee of those seasons… in the end, Daniel built about 130 harps over 18 years!
MAGDALENE is the large 36-string professional model beginning with a low A. This harp has that beautiful ear-candy sound whenever the low strings are played, and a bright or a warm alto and soprano section, depending on the wood chosen.
CARMEL, named after his days on the mountain in Haifa, has 34 strings, with a low C, and is 3 inches shorter that the Magdalene.
The LASSIE model is the one that is most practical for lessons and for traveling as it is somewhat more compact and lighter than the other models; it also has 34 strings, and sounds rich and joyful.
Smaller harps came later on.
The WEE BONNY for the serious harpist who needs a 30-string instrument with removable legs and full levers to take on holiday, and which has the same string spacing as the large harps; and
The WEE LADDIES, the tiny ones for Caroline’s children’s classes. This is an amazing-sounding set of 8 colourful little harps in yellow, red and white. We remember looking out the kitchen window and seeing them hanging cheerfully from the branches of the cherry tree in our back garden while the paint dried!
Erelong Daniel added embellishments to the large professional models: an inlay of 24 carat gold leaf around the edges of the larger harps, and a Canadian diamond installed into a custom carving on the pillar. He had a phenomenal ability to design and craft this carving by special request of the client. This is when he renamed his business DIAMOND HARPS CANADA. After 10 years he had clearly become a master craftsman, each Harp a work of art. The owners and players he has served often exclaim that their harps rarely go out of tune, and that they can feel the effect of his spirit when they hold their instrument.
Our master craftsman was a quiet and very generous soul, often showing up at the Harp Circles and Annual Workshops to take a look at people’s harp issues, change strings, sort out tuning and lever regulation, and otherwise be our friendly Harp Doctor. He gave no thought to himself, but preferred always to be of service to others. In 2019 he shook off the dust of this earthly life, departing in the same way he had lived, with dignity and a calm assured spirit. His musical legacy is lively here, though, as his harps are still ringing through the Valley.
CM for DANIEL SCHMITT
Harp, Oh Canada 