pet peeve?

[Sylvia]

Any pet peeves?

[jessica-wolff]

Reminds me of an instrument repairman’s response when I said (this about 50 years ago) wistfully how much I would like to play the harp: “It’s such a limited instrument.

Hello, limited? Fortunately I ignored him.

[harp guy]

I have a LH Prelude 38, and I hate it when people say ‘it’s a baby harp!’ No it’s not. It’s actually a VERY big, and VERY heavy lever harp. And in my opinion, the tone is better than a lot of pedal harps made by the same company (albeit a smaller and more compact sound).

Or when they ask: ‘Can I touch it?’

No.

And then they do it anyway.

[Tacye]

The use of language in which a purely instrumental piece of music becomes a ‘song’.

[carl-swanson]

Thank you Tacye. That one has been bugging me for a long time but I didn’t say anything about it.

Technicians pet peeve? When a harpist says to me, my B(or whatever note) is buzzing. B what!!!??? I want to scream at them. Tell me ‘4th octave B natural,” or ‘3rd octave B sharp.’ Not B. It happens 100% of the time.

[Seoid OC]

I really hate when people are over-familiar with any of my harps.

[sherry-lenox]

THANK YOU! And also, a Beethoven Symphony isn’t a really great SONG!

Rogers and Hammerstein (I forget which one was the lyricist) put it so well

“A song’s not a song ’till you sing it”…….

Music intended to be without words is a piece, selection, composition, tune, work, etc. My third graders got that when I was teaching general music, so the concept is not at all exclusive.

[deb-l]

Oh my I do that all the time.

[Sylvia]

Composers who write in pedal markings.

[carl-swanson]

Sylvia-Unfortunately, the manner of writing pedals is very personal and not at all standardized. We’ve had other discussions about this on this forum. But that’s life. I would suggest to any harpist that they try to adjust to reading whatever pedals are written in(provided of course that they are correct) without whiting them out just to have them written in the way they are used to seeing them. It will make rental parts much cleaner in the long run, and will reduce your work load by a lot. So sometime, when you get a part with the pedals already written in, grit your teeth and try to learn the part using whatever pedal indications are already there. You may find that you can learn to read other peoples markings without too much trouble. Along the same lines, try to get used to seeing left over right and visa versa, pedals between the staves and also below, etc. After all, the needed information is there. It’s just not where you are used to seeing it.

[Tacye]

I agree with Carl that it is easier in the long run to learn to read different styles of pedalling rather than do it all again.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

My peeves would be people who think a harp solo recital would be boring, people who don’t go, even though they love the harp, and most of all, the harpists who don’t go.

I think we need to develop an association of harp lovers, not harpists, of people who will go to harp events for the love of it. Like a fan club. Considering that it is the favorite instrument of most people, I don’t understand why they don’t go.

[deb-l]

this was posted on a cello forum, it’s very tongue in cheek, has many of the pet peeves that are shared between cello and harp.

you SHOULD take cello lessons

[Sylvia]

I was referring to composers writing in pedals.

[kay-lister]

People who think of the harp as a womans instrument. Where did that notion come from anyway.

[Author]

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