Agreed. Talk with your teacher. My first teacher as an adult beginner was used to teaching grammar school girls. I liked her very much then, and now, but as a nearly 40 year old man then, found it difficult to learn any harp.

There is much literature out there that does not involve nursery rhymes for beginners. Some of it may not be your favorite, but you should be able to find some you really like, even if it isn’t all Celtic.

If you find your teacher willing to work with other literature, you may need to get recommendations here, and bring them to him/her.

For very early beginners, unless you already read music well, choices will be limited. If you already read, Salzedo has sets of short teaching pieces beginning with Tiny Tales. And the McDonald/Wood Graded Recital Series. And Kathryn Cater’s books make a graded series, though they are not numbered in an order. I also found Kathy Bundock Moore’s Thumbs Up to be good for an adult. And don’t overlook Grossi.

Learning to read music, and learning harp, and doing both as an adult is a triple play. Be patient with yourself and with your teacher. Until you are easily reading (and placing) 2 or 3 notes in both hands at the same time, you will have some limitations on literature.

But you do have to play music you enjoy playing, else what is the point? That’s one difference with teaching adult beginners–“play this because I say so” is not a very useful approach for adults. One thing that may help both you and your teacher is for him/her to explain with each piece what technical skills you are working on while learning that piece.

If you don’t mind, which book are you using, and where are you in it? That may help some of the people on here be more helpful at suggesting literature that might interest you.

Ah. Personally I know little about that method, except that I understand it is based on ear training, and is often described as a way to teach children too young to learn to read music.

I don’t think it has made many inroads into the harp world. At least I have rarely heard of it being used for harp.

Harp, like organ, is traditionally taught as a second instrument after some piano.

Celtic music is often also ear based, so it may serve you well.

If you want to start a discussion, start a thread asking about opinions on the Suzuki method for harp. But remember there are a number of distinct methods for harp, each with their proponents.

Frankly, I wonder whether your teacher hasn’t shown you Pamela Bruner’s series “Play the Harp Beautifully” I-III), as it contains a lot of folk music and is very suitable for adult learners. For the first 2 Volumes there’s a DVD available.
It’s a well-known method.

@MOCAM1993, you wrote e.g.: “I’m feeling really frustrated that my repertoire is made up almost entirely of nursery songs! I am trying to trust the process, especially in the critical first years, but I’m very frustrated that I’m not learning music I actually like.”

I think a student should be enthousiast or even a bit excited after most of one’s harp lessons, even when the actual exercising of a new technique or tackling a difficulty was hard. In your message, I read no enthousiasme at all. And, even worse, your are ‘trying to trust the process”. “Trying to trust” sounds so much different from “trusting”, but I may be wrong whether you really mean this big difference.

You also speak of “I also have been doing a lot of quizzes for sight reading which I hope will allow me to begin playing more music on my own. Right now, I have to really think about it and write in the notes on my music.” Frankly, I think it’s so much better at this stage of your learning to have the support of your teacher for the pieces you want to study. By the way, writing the notes in your sheet music is generally considered to be a bad habit which will hamper your advance later on.

You also speak of the “critical first years”. May I ask how long have you been taking harp lessons from this teacher?

When a teacher is teaching a student who has never studied an instrument before, that teacher has two big things to teach. 1) how to read music, and 2) how to play the instrument. That’s a lot for both the teacher and the student to tackle. You are very limited right now in what you can play because you are working very hard on both of these issues.

Does your teacher know what kind of music you are ultimately interested in playing? If not, you might take the time to discuss that with him/her. If it is possible, your teacher might be able to find some pieces that you like that are within your skill level. I would also suggest that you consider, if it is available someplace and you can find the time and money to do it, taking a music theory course. That way, you can learn music reading away from the harp, and that might provide more time at your harp lesson to work on pieces. Is there a center for adult education near you? You might find a course there.