Help! I’m really trying to learn!

[Kathleen Clark]

Mel, you have hit the nail right on the head for me. I keep waiting for learning the harp to get easier and have been somewhat depressed that it seems to get harder and harder, and then I read your post and I realized the truth in what you say. Staying at the top level of what you have achieved, and then going a bit higher, that is where one experiences the difficulty. Wow, wow, wow. That is so true. And then you used the example of what you are learning now and how it was difficult just like when you did Fun From the First when you did that. Wow, wow. wow. I honestly have never taken the time to look at it this way and what you say is so true. Thanks for helping me see all of this in perspective. I feel like an enormous weight has been lifted off me.

[Anna Lea]

Kathleen,

[Liam M]

You too?

[barbara-dixon]

Gayle, you are certainly not alone!

[Mel Sandberg]

Hi Kathleen.

You are welcome.

[jennifer-buehler]

Kathleen,

Glad to see you back on the list!

[Kathleen Clark]

Hi Gayle, thank you for your words of encouragement. It has been an amazing journey for me on the harp. I have all sizes of harps now, they are my refuge and my life. As for my pedal harp, I immediately realized I had made the wrong decision because of the pedal and neck spacing, but I also realized that the music I wanted to play required more strings. There was a physical soundboard problem with the petite so we traded it in on warranty and upgraded to a full size 85. Within a year the 85 also had to go back to the factory on warranty and the problem was severe enough they gave me the option of building me a whole new harp or trading up to another harp. By that time I was doing well enough on the harp, better than I ever dreamed, so we took that opportunity to upgrade to a 23. My teacher went back to Chicago and played all the walnut 23s they had there and picked one out for me as financially that was a huge leap and commitment for us and this harp was going to be with me the rest of my life. So I now have a walnut Lyon & Healy Style 23 with a gold crown. She is the most beautiful harp I have ever seen or ever heard. I am so very grateful.

[Kathleen Clark]

Oh, Liam, I love the clarseach! I have more than one. Plus a large Triplett Luna, their big wire model, which I have named Nyellonde, which is Elvish for Haven of the Bells. So appropriate for a wire harp! In public (church, City of Hope) I play my walnut 36-string Dusty, because it is so portable (and it is what my teacher plays on his healing harp albums), but in private I love playing the pedal harp most because it is so therapeutic for me on so many levels. The pedals give my feet and legs a physical therapy workout as combining pedals and strings has retrained the coordination of my feet and hands. My stroke left me without use of either and I had to learn to walk and talk again and the big harp has helped most of all physically. Plus I love feeling its vibration along the whole length of my body. Those deep bass strings just resonate through me. I am a real harp hugger! I used to run around and hug trees. Now I hug my pedal harp and just let her resonate through every molecule of my body. It hurts and is hard sometimes to work the pedals but I keep trying. There is so much music I want to play!

[Kathleen Clark]

Well, aren’t you sweet as a button, Jennifer. You really missed me? I still have sound sensitivity. I still have huge sensory overload problems I am continually learning to live with now and make lifestyle adjustments for. That’s what happens when you lose part of your temporal lobe function. One thing is constant though: the more I can stay inside a nest of harps the better I survive and thrive.

[Anna Lea]

“One thing is constant though: the more I can stay inside a nest of harps the better I survive and thrive.”

Oh, Kathleen, you have done it again!

[Kathleen Clark]

Thanks, Gayle. When they had Harp Photo Day at the Sylvia Woods Harp Center last December that’s what I told the photographer: I wanted to be inside a nest of harps. So that is the photo I’ve put up as my portrait here on my bio page at Harp Column. We used a walnut Dusty Strings lever harp like mine and a blond pedal harp from off the floor for contrast and I’m in the middle like a happy little bird.

[Liam M]

Kathleen,

My first one has just arrived. In unfinished form at my request. A Chery Druid by Dreamsinger. Her name is Clarsita

[Kathleen Clark]

Your Dreamsinger harp sounds absolutely amazing. When you have finished your carving and she is all ready with strings and silver leaf I hope you will post pics so we all can dance with joy with you! Such beauty you are bringing into the world. Thanks so much for sharing this!

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