Musical comedy

[shoshanna-godber]

The artistic director at the Consevatory I teach at has decided that one of our faculty concerts will have a musical comedy theme. Help! I have no ideas for musical comedy on the harp! Does anyone have any suggestions? I tried googling various things and only came up with a couple of comedian harpists. It could be for solo (lever) harp, harp/voice, harp/flute, harp/cello or harp/violin or any combination of the aforementioned instruments. Any ideas would be gratefully received!

Thanks!

[brian-noel]

If your teacher lets you add piano, you could do any of the numbers from “The Fantasticks”.

[shoshanna-godber]

Thanks for the idea Brian-noel! I forgot piano in my list of possible instruments – that wouldn’t be a problem. I had a look online for the music though, and all I can find is piano/vocal/guitar books and one medley for three harps. Any idea how to find sheet music for harp/piano? Thanks!

[kreig-kitts]

I’d suggest finding a buddy and dueling progressively cheesy but virtuosic variations on “Anything You Can Do”.

[melissa-gallant]

You might look up Eleanor Fell’s “Be a Showoff.” You may be able to play it for comedic effect.

[Alison]

I can’t think of anything except the obvious from the 1940’s “I took my harp to party, but nobody asked me to play” – is quite funny but VERY dated & perhaps would be better if delivered with an upbeat diction and a more agreable accent ……. When I was aged 8-10 my mother used to carry the school harp home thro’ town and passers by used to quote the first few words; being so young I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about……and nobody explained. You can find this on youtube and the words are somewhere too.

[shoshanna-godber]

Thanks for all the ideas! I’d never heard “I took my harp to party…” before. Definitely worth a listen:)

[Angela Biggs]

If you sing (although the voice part on this isn’t very difficult), Blythe Tait’s “You Can’t Get Into Heaven if You Don’t Play the Harp” is very funny. The voice part looks like it’s written an octave up from where she’s singing it, so don’t let that stop you!

Sheet music here, video here.

[elinor-niemisto]

See if you can find “American Folk Song Trio” by Dewey Owens. It includes Mr. Froggie went ‘a courtin’ and Pop goes the Weasel.

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