Opinions on thumb-under or thumb-over

[Karen Johns]

Thanks Fearghal!

I am self-taught but I relied heavily on both Sylvia Woods and Pamela Bruner’s teaching series. They both support the thumbs-up technique, thank goodness. If your interested, this harpist plays the song “The Wild Geese”. I think that is the video where I saw her thumb-under technique. I still think she does a fine job of it regardless, but then I don’t have an educated ear for these things. I just liked what I heard.

Karen

[Fearghal McCartan]

Found the vid. First hit up using ‘Wild Geese Harp’. The ‘thumb-under’ playing leads to odd ‘flick-outs’ of the hand as well (see about 11 or 12 sec in) where if the thumb is resting on

[Briggsie B. Peawiggle]

She doesn’t sound as good as she could if she had a decent technique. Her hands look like claws instead of nicely relaxed and closing to the palm.

[Liam M]

Thanks Karen… I’ve been about but trying not to irritate anyone. By the way, checkout or builders group on face book. The link is on my thread to Michael and Bernhard, just getting started, but two very innovative builders have shown up already.

I must not be meant to have opposing thumbs, mine just never seem to get with the program, up or down.

[Briggsie B. Peawiggle]

Liam, personally I find much more stability and warmer tone to think more about index down than thinking of thumbs up. Your index finger will give you a lot of stability on the strings if you keep it aimed downward.

Briggsie

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

Thumb-under playing, as far as I know, is something some so-called “experts” in early music developed by copying paintings from medieval periods, as though those were faithful documentation of how people played the harp then. But then, some harpers back then only used three fingers to play. It has found its way into some sources as a “legitimate” technique because quite a few people have decided to play this way rather than study with an actual harpist. I can’t stand Andrew Lawrence-King, for example, because he is self-taught, and though he has found wonderful music to play or created it, when I heard him in concert, his harp had the ugliest sound I have ever heard. It barked like a dog. I think it partly due to tuning very low and very loose strings. I think it was also not a harp made with fine wood or the best proportions.

[Fearghal McCartan]

I would agree with the first part there but not with the second bit about Andrew Lawrence-King. I have most of his recordings and heard him live at the European Harp Symposium in Cardiff ’07 when I was working there for the week. His playing was faultless and the tone was excellent. I have heard others play the same works as he has and their tone was dire! I will see if I can find out which harps he is using on the recordings I have (& at that performance) because I’ve never heard them sound like you describe. What harp was he using when you heard him?

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

It was in New York on the Musica Sacra series, so I don’t know if he borrowed the instrument from someone like Cheryl Fulton or brought it over from England. It was a reconstruction of a don’t-remember-if it was a triple harp or a Spanish-type. It was very unpleasant.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

The one

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