Their popularity has grown exponentially. However, it very quickly became clear that lever harps were not just for beginners, but a new form of affordable and easily transportable harp, and a genuine alternative to an expensive and heavy pedal harp. Nevertheless, the Troubadour harp was a great success because it was seen immediately as a less expensive alternative to a pedal harp for beginners. Secondly, the timbre of the stopped string was deadened slightly and its volume consequently decreased. Firstly, the sharpness of the notch wore down the strings, causing them to break more frequently than strings without levers. While allowing the desired sharpening effect with great ease, these original levers were unsatisfying in other respects. The lever was essentially L-shaped, the longer arm being the handle, and the shorter arm having a rounded slot in its edge which would catch the string and stop it when the lever was raised. In 1962, Lyon and Healy Harps in Chicago introduced their ‘Troubadour harp’, of ‘neo-Gothic’ shape, on which every string could be raised a semitone (and lowered back again) by means of a brass lever that could be flipped up with the performer's left thumb either before or (with planning) during a piece this was the first ‘lever harp’.
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