A Christmas gift for everyone: "Bleak Midwinter" arrgt

[Janis Cortese]

Just a little giftie for everyone because I’m so happy to have started messing around with the harp. I can almost make it through this slowly, so I’m pretty sure that a harpist/harper who actually knows what they’re doing 🙂 can probably play it fairly handily:

In the Bleak Midwinter — for lever or pedal harp (PDF)

There’s one mid-piece lever flip near the end in the coda for a C#. If you are dead-set against it, you can replace it with a third-space E in the bass staff, but it’s not bad and it sounds really nice as long as it’s muffled immediately afterwards. I linked a “no flip” version in my blog.

There are also a few instances of stem oddities where the stems on various notes are not in the direction you might expect. These are to indicate where you might want to take a few notes in the other hand for the sake of convenience. (Again though, a harpist who can actually play might not find this necessary.)

Anyhow, have fun 🙂

[emma-graham]

Thank you Janis. Merry Christmas.

[ruth-harper]

Dear Janis

Thank you so much for sharing your delightful arrangement of “In The Bleak Midwinter”. The music created a blessed morning for me before going to church.

I was unable to find the “no-flip version” in your blog, where is it located?

God bless – Ruth Harper

[Janis Cortese]

Did you see the PDF in the post that I linked to? I’ll direct-link it here:

https://italianfolkharp.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/in_the_bleak_midwinter_noleverflip.pdf

I also put up a video of me playing it (and experiencing an episode of “Bzuh? Oh, that’s right, I’m playing the harp!” forgetfulness near the middle).

Glad you liked it!

[Gretchen Cover]

Janis, you are very thoughtful and generous to share your arrangement of “In the Bleak Midwinter.” I played it, and thought you did an excellent job. The C# adds interest and is worth flipping a lever (or making a pedal change). Thank you for sharing your music.

[Janis Cortese]

Gretchen, I’m so glad people like it and are finding that it sits well on the instrument. As a newbie, it really means a lot to me that people with far more experience than I think that it works well and enjoy it. 🙂 Thanks for the kind words!

[Andelin]

Thank you for your arrangement. I was thinking about this song just last week, thinking how much I like it and how I don’t have an arrangement of it.

I also watched the video of you playing it. I thought you did well. There was some commotion (as there always is at my house) so I may not have been watching as closely as I ought to have been, but I can honestly say I did not notice your “bzuh” moment. It was very nice music. Instead of pointing out what you thought was the worst moment, next time point out the best one, so that’s what people will watch for instead. 🙂

Thank you. It is simple and beautiful.

[Author]

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