Oh Sleep, My Pretty Baby (traditional)

[carl-swanson]

Louise- I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like C-C#, in other words, indcating both where the pedal presently is and where it has to go.

The most unreadible, overly marked up part I ever played was Ariadne auf Noxos of Strauss. There were two pages in particular that had each pedal marked 5 or 6 times in every way and color possible. And the pages consisted of nothing more than endless fragments taped together with scotch tape. But I was a sophomore in college with 2 years of harp study under my belt(yes, 2!) and I was way over my head with this part. I never should have been playing it. If the same thing were to happen now, I would immediately take the score to the conductor or orchestra manager and demand that they get a better copy.

[carl-swanson]

One more note to Clinton-

When you have this part set, make the printed pedal letters the same size as the hand written pedal markings that the harpist who edited the part hand wrote into the part you are working from.

[andy-b]

Hi, Elizabeth:

When I need to change the size of the pedal marking in Sibelius 5, I click on the pedal marking to hightlight it, go to Window on the Toolbar, click on Properties, and go down to Text in the

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

I will try that! I usually write my pedals in Technique language, so I can determine the type size, usually 10, apart from the Expression language. I can’t change the accidentals, though. That is a pain.

[Elizabeth Volpé Bligh]

Thanks! This works like a charm! I am so glad I mentioned it.

[Elizabeth Volpé Bligh]

I forgot to mention that I cannot handle pedal changes if they are written in left over right. I was trained to write them in right over left, and it certainly helps avoid confusion if you’re consistent.

[louise-vickerman]

Lucky You! I have seen this phenomenon too many times to count (mostly in contemporary music).

[Ian McVoy]

Louise, I write and arrange a lot of jazz, and, while the C-C# may not be useful to classical harpists, I find it wonderful to have there in case of a pedal slide, especially if there are a lot of them very close together.

[David Ice]

Carl, I can agree with you on Ariadne auf Naxos……I was supposed to play it on ONE harp, reading two different scores simultaneously.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

What is good about Tournier’s not writing it as played is that you can see what he is doing harmonically. Many pieces, you would not have a clue if they were written only as played. It’s a bind.

[carl-swanson]

I understand that argument Saul. A friend of mine here in Boston who is a superb musician(Doctorate in Piano, but also a harpist) wants to see what the harmony is in the piece. So she doesn’t like my edition of Une Chatelaine en sa Tour… for example because I wrote a few notes enharmonically and that makes it difficult to figure out the harmony. But to leave those notes written as double flats or double sharps, or to leave a G# when in fact you have to play an A flat is to me just as confusing and much less practical.

[barbara-kraichy–2]

I agree with most all the comments posted here. They are all well-founded, even though they differ some. My violinist partner Ron Erickson consults with me on harp notation, and he also gets advice from other experienced orchestra and solo harpists for his editions of ensemble music. We all differ to some extent on a standard approach, but he has concluded that an editor should follow a consistent standard and vary it only ad hoc to improve readability. He stays with Salzedo’s direction to place left pedal marks under the right pedals. A serif font is more readable than sans-serif. He places the marks between the staves to help those with less-than-optimal eyesight, but size depends on how much space there is. A crowded page is no fun. The biggest question is where to place them in relation to the notes. Always somewhat before the note, unless that note is a change of accidental. Harpists need to be notation-literate with the rest of the musical world, rather than “re-invent the wheel,” as Carl says.

[carl-swanson]

I thought I would give you an update on this. Clinton sent me a copy of his edition of Daphnis to look over. He had done an excellent by-the-book job of writing in pedals and placing pedal diagrams. He had incorporated some ideas from at least two parts that belonged to seasoned orchestra harpists. Still, I ended up moving a lot of stuff around, not to suit my personal taste, but to better suite the needs of the part and the harpist who would be playing it. The experience gave me a better insight into indicating pedal changes in orchestra parts and how that differs from solo parts. I thought I would share my thoughts here.

Orchestra parts in general, and Daphnis… in particular, have passages of playing and then tacets, sometimes only a few measures, sometimes many measures. Daphnis is particularly ornery to edit because the pedals are almost never in a key, and there are lots(and lots) of glisses. So, even though Clinton had many pedal diagrams, I added more. And I moved around existing pedal diagrams so that in all cases they were right next to the beginning of a passage, rather than at the end of the previous passage or in the empty measures in between passages. I felt that in this piece, the harpist would always want to know the pedal settings right at the start of a passage and would not want to have to look frantically around for the diagram or written pedal changes for the passage about to be played.

I also eliminated a couple of lines after a written pedal change(G#- for example)if the next change(-G flat) was in the next passage, with empty measures in between. I felt that the harpist would always begin each passage by checking all of the pedals against the pedal diagram and therefore a line after or before a pedal change would be unnecessary and pointless.

The point here is that because orchestra parts are usually in fragments, rather than constant playing as in solo repertoire, each fragment has to be treated as an independent piece, with it’s own start and finish. Pedal sequences do not carry over well from one passage to another when there are long tacets in between. In Daphnis, very often all 7 pedals have to be moved at the end of one passage to prepare for the next. Writing the pedal changes(G# etc.) tells the harpist how to get to the next pedal arrangement. The pedal diagram tells the harpist the arrangement at a particular point. So these two different ways of indicating pedals give the harpist different information.

Pedal indications in orchestra parts serve two purposes. One is to get the harpist through the performance, indicating clearly all of the pedal changes. But the other, equally important, is to allow the harpist to start at almost any point in the piece in practice or more importantly, in rehearsal. A friend of mine was one of 4 harpists in a recent all Wagner program here in Boston. She had pedal diagrams all over her music. But two of the harpists did not, and in rehearsal made a huge mess once or twice because they could not get the pedals set quickly enough because they didn’t have enough diagrams in their music.

I told Clinton that there are never too many diagrams, and that redundancy is not a crime. Pedal changes should be written out(G# etc.) but then reinforced with a pedal diagram.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

You make excellent points, Carl. One never knows where the conductor will be in the score. It is important that our rests and tacets not only match the score, but have cues of what is happening

[laurel]

I have a copy of

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