Older begginer to become a professional

[angelica-vianna]

Hello,

There is a lady here that wants to start learning the harp with me. She might be 45 or so.

I have worked with a lot of older people with great results and I do enjoy working with people so enthusiastic about the harp. The

problem is that she intends to abandon her own career as she wants to become a professional harpist. She said she does not have

much money to treat it as a hobby (her family wouldn’t support this idea), and she really wants to speed up things to get all time she

already lost.

I don’t know what to tell her, since I think her chances to become a professional harpist and be able to compete for an orchestra place

or a school for teaching is very remote in my opinion. But, I might be wrong. I would like to listen to people that might have been in

this situation, both teachers and students. I hope, I can come back to her to tell her we will work together to make it real. But, can

anyone there convince me of it first!

Thank you,

Angelica

[angelica-vianna]

I forgot to mention. She does not own an instrument and can’t rent one.

[unknown-user]

While some people may say that anything is possible, becoming a professional harpist by beginning at age 45 with no instrument seems to be a stretch to me. It sounds like this woman does not understand the time, money, and commitment (emphasis on time) it takes to become a professional harpist. I am 26 years old and have been playing the harp for 12 years, and still have a hard time supporting myself on “harping” alone. If she is really serious about this, I would recommend giving her a realistic picture of how much time it will take before she can become a “professional” and definitely recommend that she NOT quit her current job. Also, tell her the financial commitment of purchasing or renting a harp is definitely necessary for any serious harpist.

[unknown-user]

I was wondering, does she play the piano or some other musical instrument?

[Author]

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