Practiced Musician, New Harpist?

[HBrock25]

Hello! My name is Natalie, and I have been playing the harp since September. I did play it for a few months back in the 3rd grade, but my teacher was too far away so I had to stop. I am now in the 8th grade and really want to pursue harp as a career. I have five years of vocal experience, four years of piano, and one year of guitar. My question to you is what are some good

[Tacye]

Hi Natalie,
There are many great places to study harp if you are interested in pedal harp, especially primarily classical music (Paris, New York…) but fewer places offer folk or historical performance.
Not studying harp at university need not prevent you becoming a professional harpist- you just need to play well: three of my university friends who are now professional harpists studied respectively Celtic studies, biology and teaching.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

What kind of standards do you want to have for yourself? Are you comfortable calling yourself a professional if you are not well-trained and highly skilled? What position do you want to have in your profession? It is not easy for most harpists to make a living, and it doesn’t help if there are a lot of amateurs or semi-professionals taking gigs, and it doesn’t help the harp if they are not truly capable. A lot of problems can ensue, like professionals often being called in at the last minute to cover for someone faced with something beyond them. That can happen a lot. I suggest that you either make it your focus, your dream, and go for it, or just do it for pleasure alone. Your teacher should be able to guide you toward schools. The training you get up until college will point you in certain directions. Most of the big U.S. cities have a good music school and a good harp teacher. Your previous experience is good and will help, and you have enough time to become very good before going to college, if you work at it. I recommend that you look into summer programs to supplement your studies and get some concentrated work done. Interlochen is an excellent example of such a program.

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