Highly Requested Pop Songs for Harp

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This topic has 22 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 8 months ago by unknown-user.

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July 22, 2009 at 2:07 am #151704

unknown-user
Participant

Hi all–this is my first post here on harpcolumn.com!

I’m in the process of putting together my professional website, and I want to put a recording of me playing a pop song or two on the site.

What song(s) do you recommend?

July 22, 2009 at 12:56 pm #151705

Pat Eisenberger
Participant

I think anything from the movies is good (themes from Titanic and Somewhere in Time come to mind), because

July 22, 2009 at 1:08 pm #151706

Christian Frederick
Participant

This subject keeps popping up, and rightfully so! I’ve noticed a HUGE shift in the requests for music on the harp…. HUGE. Seldom do I get a request for those so-called “standards”. Just last night I got requests for Fleetwood Mac and The Beetles. There seems to be a huge generational shift going on right now.

July 22, 2009 at 3:04 pm #151707

tony-morosco
Participant

I will tell you, as much of a joke as it is often meant to be the most requested song I get asked to play is Stairway To Heaven. And although it is often requested as a joke when I actually play it I get the most compliments and positive response.

Another piece that sounds wonderful on harp and is a big crowd pleaser is Clocks by Coldplay. I know two different arrangements of it, one for pedal and one for lever harp. It is a nice piece, lots of younger and hip older folks know it, and it just works so well on

July 22, 2009 at 3:54 pm #151708

Jerusha Amado
Participant

This is a wonderful post, Tony, with some terrific suggestions!

I would love to be able to hear you play these great songs.

July 22, 2009 at 3:57 pm #151709

Jerusha Amado
Participant

Christian,

This is very interesting… What specifically did the audience want to hear from Mac and from the Beatles?

July 22, 2009 at 5:23 pm #151710

gorman-jones
Participant

I realize I’m highjacking to an unrelated issue, but the mention of “Puff the Magic Dragon” reminded me that it fits prefectly over the Pachelbel Canon.

July 22, 2009 at 6:12 pm #151711

Christian Frederick
Participant

I don’t “wing it”. So if I don’t know it, I often offer something else in the genre. I don’t know any Fleetwood Mac…. yet. I know a few Beetles tunes and am in the process of memorizing more. I’m working on Let It Be, and George Harrison’s My Guitar Gently Weeps is VERY cool on the harp. Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to play Light My Fire by The Doors without music, but I’ll put the music on the music stand just in case I go blank.

July 22, 2009 at 6:21 pm #151712

Jerusha Amado
Participant

Sounds wonderful!

July 22, 2009 at 11:37 pm #151713

carl-swanson
Participant

Thanks guys for these suggestions. I’m old enough so I don’t know any of these things. Keep the suggestions coming!

July 23, 2009 at 12:15 am #151714

tony-morosco
Participant

I doubt I would try to sell anything. That aspect of the music business is just not my thing, although I would like to record some stuff just for friends and family. It just takes so much work.

I recently tried recording just a simple Celtic piece, only about one and a half minutes long. Playing it was no problem but getting the recording to sound the way I want is a different story. I have been working on it for almost a month and I still am not pleased with the results.

Perhaps once I get my recording chops down enough to actually get something presentable in a reasonable amount of time I will think about it.

July 23, 2009 at 2:07 pm #151715

Christian Frederick
Participant

Another CD is in my long term plans….

but for short term plans, I am in the beginning stages of designing my website and having daily control over it, connecting it to Facebook, etc. I will definitely have video on the website. So….. it took me almost a half century to gain enough confidence to even be able to imagine having video of me on available. Oh, I love growing older!

By the way, has anyone here had experience with iWeb 08 and iWeb 09 ? …. or should I start another thread about this….

July 23, 2009 at 2:18 pm #151716

tony-morosco
Participant

I have been playing around with iWeb. I used to have a web site but my hosting service went under. I have been trying to redesign my site using iWeb before hosting it someplace else.

In some ways it is a very easy program, but it seems that some things that should be fairly simple are actually hard to figure out. Prior to this I was using Dreamweaver, which is a bit more complex, but the simple things remain simple to do it in.

July 23, 2009 at 2:33 pm #151717

Jerusha Amado
Participant

Tony,

I can understand how hard it is to be satisfied with one’s recorded music.

July 23, 2009 at 9:05 pm #151718

unknown-user
Participant

Thank you for your suggestions.
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