Are there any staples that I should play from memory?
I would recommend having at least an hour of music in your muscle memory at all times. I find that building a body of repertoire that you feel you know like the back of your hand makes being a gigging harpist much more enjoyable, and is worth every moment of practicing exercises that strengthen your musical memory. I began playing the harp at age 4. However, I didn’t learn how to read music until I was 14. In my most formative gig experiences, performing music automatically meant having it memorized. I am so grateful for that part of my upbringing, as it challenged me to internalize melodies and chord progressions early on.
My favorite staple pieces of classical repertoire are the Premiere Arabesque (Debussy) and La Source (Hasselmans), as they can both be either showy or subdued depending on the context of the performance. However, I would ultimately recommend that your memorized staples are whichever pieces are your favorite to play. I grew up in the lever harp world, and I still perform Celtic pieces that I learned in childhood quite often. Overall, I would say that memorizing large volumes of music comes from finding a way to enjoy every moment of it. It is of great value to find your voice as a gigging harpist through finding repertoire that deeply speaks to you.
Most of my memorized repertoire stays with me because I use it a lot. Having appropriate pieces for all of my typical gig situations means that I can play what I want at exactly the moment I need it. Since I use an iPad to read music, I have all of my music at my fingertips, but I like to avoid the awkward moment of me scrolling and possibly losing the audience. These impressions need to reflect music I love and connections I enjoy making.
I keep certain pieces in my memory for use at various occasions. For formal church services: La Source (Hasselmans); wedding selections: “Can’t Help Falling in Love” (Weiss), “Clocks” (Coldplay), “Peach, Plum, Pear” (Joanna Newsom) “Golden Hour” (JVKE), and Canon in D (Pachelbel); funerals: “Mon Ami” (Kim Robertson) and “Elegy” (Kathy Bundock Moore); background music set finisher: Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris medley (Gershwin arr. by Eleanor Fell); a few Christmas tunes; a cheeky sound check: “Stairway to Heaven” (Led Zeppelin), or “Get Lucky” (Daft Punk); a charming sound check: “Here Comes the Sun” (George Harrison).
If I know that I’m going to work with a certain artist or at a particular event, I will also memorize music by that artist or for the circumstance.
There’s no hard and fast rule for having a certain amount of music memorized. It’s really up to the individual harpist. I know professional harpists that play almost exclusively from memory and those that prefer to have music in front of them most of the time. If you want to set yourself a goal of having a certain amount of music by memory, you can start with a half hour to an hour’s worth of music by memory. That might be a useful amount for playing solo background music jobs. Then you can add to the list as you memorize more pieces. Being able to improvise is also a very useful skill for a harpist to develop to increase their repertoire.
As for staple pieces you should have from memory, a piece written for the harp that really shows off the typical harp sonorities like Hasselmans’ La Source or something very recognizable like Debussy’s Clair de lune is good to have by memory for many different occasions. If you play in church situations or weddings, maybe a group of favorite hymn tunes would be good to have by heart. •
