Dowdy Harps

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

Do you have a dowdy harp? Do I? What does a dowdy harp look like? The New York Times Sunday Magazine’s profile on Joanna Newsome compares the harp before her advent to a “dowdy, drawing-room instrument.” Maybe they meant an old Erard? Or were they thinking of harpists? Are you dowdy? Am I? Tough questions to answer. Well, I issued them a challenge on the home page of the Festival, http://www.harpmusicfest.com.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

And that’s not all: the writer says the harp has no meaningful lineage in popular music!

[carl-swanson]

Every time a non-musician writer writes about the harp or worse, a harpist, they try to compliment the harpist they’re writing about by saying things like that. The he/she took a dowdy instrument and turned it into something of real value. Or that they took it from behind the potted palms and made it into an instrument to reckon with. These half-wits are just showing their ignorance.

I went to a play last week in which one of the characters makes reference to ‘a Bohemian’ to which the other character asks, “What’s a Bohemian?” “It’s someone who wants to be an artist but who has no talent” is her response. The same could be said of many critics and people who write about music and musicians.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

Well said, Carl.

[jessica-wolff]

An old Erard is totally gorgeous to my mind. I have one, not in playing condition, but just to look at it inspires me.

[Author]

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