music for lever free folk harp

[melissa-gallant]

I’ve started working with a student who has a folk harp with no levers and am needing suggestions for music books that she can use. She had taken some lessons with a person associated with “The Harp School” and had worked on some of their materials. I have her working on Grossi exercises and a song from the first level the Suzuki harp book, and would like some ideas of what to try next. Thanks!

[Stephanie]

Depending on the genre(s) the student would like to learn, you can try books by:

Darlene Walton-she writes them in A or C with no accidentals-she has a Classical book as well as Gospel/Hymns and Celtic
or
The Tasty Harp Company-under their Songs for the Harpsicle series-these vary by musical genres (Classical, Celtic, Renaissance) and are suppose to not have any accidentals and again written in A or C.

[Briggsie B. Peawiggle]

Can she retune for various pieces? Andres has several books with really great little etudes in them and with no lever changes at all, but they are in various keys.

[jennifer-buehler]

A lot of stuff geared toward lap harp or therapy harp doesn’t have lever changes with in the pieces.

[unknown-user]

I learned to play on a lap harp with only F and C#’s. It eventually became difficult as I progressed. But in the beginning my teacher used Sylvia Woods’ books.

http://www.harpcenter.com/product/sylvia-woods-teach-yourself-folk-harp/

Teach Yourself to Play the Folk Harp was my first harp book. I learned out of it for years.

The arrangements are lever free (there might be one or two songs with lever changes but I don’t remember. I almost never used my levers so I imagine there weren’t any.).

Check out harpcenter.com, they have tons of books specifically for lever harp with little to no lever changes. I hope this helped!

— Natalie

[tony-morosco]

What the others said. If it is not an issue retuning to get into the right key to begin with, there are actually a lot of books of music that is diatonic. A very large chunk of Celtic and traditional folk music is diatonic.

You can try Sylvia Woods books of Celtic music. She has books of Scottish music, Irish Songs and Irish dance tunes. Most of them have two versions, one easier than the other, so they can accommodate both beginners and intermediate players.

[Anonymous]

I believe the books made for harpsicles don’t have any lever changes and the pieces are all in C (since the basic harpsicle can not have levers added).

[melissa-gallant]

Thanks for the suggestions! I particularly appreciate knowing there are “harpsicle” books

[priscilla-kleiner]

Cindy Kleinstuber Blevins has a Lap Harp Compendium that is in C, no levers needed. Pretty songs. Possibly other applicable books as well.

Priscilla

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