Do harp strings break easily
 

I thought they were strong. I been seeing a lot of them breaking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fhlq8vo1uSw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Kq-y3fP-wY

A set of harp strings will run you around $500.

One would hope they don't break easily.

http://www.harpconnection.com/store/...23A500-111-708

The bottom C string in the top video seemed to snap for no reason. Maybe it was just an old string.

My wife is a harpist and I am a designated harp string changer. Typically harp strings last a long time, I recently changed all the stings on a celtic harp (36). The set was probably 6-7 years old. Some of the highest strings had been changed during that time.

$500 is about what the entire set costs but for the higher pitches you get enough string to cover several changes.

It's odd that this came up. Last year, I built a Musicmaker Belle harp for my wife (she needed it in a hurry, so I didn't have the time tobuild one from scratch.)

Once we got the harp built, we had a hell of a problem with breaking strings. They'd break after only a month or two. I confirmed that we were bringing them up to the right pitch. I would replace the broken strings with ones that I've taken off other harps or had as spares, and the replacement strings would work just fine without breaking.

I don't know who their supplier is, or whether we just got a bad batch of strings. But I've never had such short string life with any of the other strings I've had experience with. FWIW, I've had as many as three nylon-strung harps around at a time over the past ten years, and usually the strings only need replacing every four or five years, and usually only because their tone is starting to degrade. I've always bought my strings from Markwood and never had problems with them.