Tango for lever harp

[Sophie Liebregts]

Hello everyone,

I’m an harpist and tango dancer who has sadly broken her foot. No dancing for me, so I thought I would channel my one passion through my other one. I have recently the tango and milonga written by Alfredo Ortiz and really enjoyed them, especially the milonga. However, I’m having trouble finding anything else. I would love to play a traditional tango from the existing repertoire and am open to adapting piano scores. I’d say I’m a decent intermediate player,I’m pretty good at on-the-fly lever changes and I am also able to change or adapt pieces to get around my harp’s limitations, but of course things have to stay within the realm of the possible, both level-wise and accidentals-wise. Unfortunately, I do have plenty of time to practice with this broken foot, so any ideas welcome.

• This topic was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Sophie Liebregts.

[Biagio]

Well here’s one that I know: Adio Querida. It is in a harmonic minor key and I’ve seen the score published somewhere, though you will have to search for it. If you want to try playing by ear it is fairly simple: tune to C major and preset G#. Here is a Youtube of it by “Flamenco Sepharad”:

Biagio

[balfour-knight]

Hello Biagio, my friend! You are missing “all the fun” on the thread “Pedal Harp String Spacing!” We need your input there, if you are interested. Watch all the videos that John Leclerc has posted. You will not believe what 93-year-old Mr. Chaing did to that lovely L&H 85 P pedal harp! Harp Attack! John is trying to repair it.
Harp Hugs,
Balfour

[Biagio]

Balfour buddy I have been out of circulation for a while so the thread had gone quite a long way before I caught up. It seems though that you, Charles, and Carl pretty much covered anything I could say. But for what it’s worth I’d just start from the beginning i.e. try to save the box/frame, then think long and hard before committing the time and $$ to any sort of restoration. Which he seems to be doing so “bravo and good luck”!

Biagio

[balfour-knight]

Hello Sophie and Biagio!

First of all, Sophie, I want to apologize for using your thread to alert Biagio about the other thread. Thanks for your patience here! I also wanted to recommend “Blue Tango” to you. It has been the most often-requested tango during my long career of playing both harp and piano for dancing. I play it by ear, and it is very diatonic. If you do not know it already, I think you will enjoy it!

Biagio, thanks for your response here, and if you think of anything that will help John with restoring that pedal harp, please post it there. I know he appreciates all the information we can give him. It took me 20 years to build my pipe organ, and I had a couple of organists and organ builders who answered a lot of my questions back then. I did not know about Charles Nix then, but he would have been a wonderful help to me, I am sure!

Best wishes, all,
Balfour

[Sophie Liebregts]

Hi everyone,

Don’t worry about the hijacking and thanks for your replies.

Adios Querido I actually know, but I’ve never thought of that as a tango. I will try it!

Blue Tango I’ve never heard in my life. I guess what I should have specified is that I dance Argentinian tango, which has it own repertoire and which is what I was looking for. The whole world of ballroom had completely slipped my mind!

[balfour-knight]

You might enjoy “Blue Tango” by Leroy Anderson. You could probably get piano sheet music or a PDF of it, and arrange it yourself for your lever harp. Hope you can find other Argentinian tangos!

Good luck!
Balfour

[Sophie Liebregts]

I will look for it!

The “problem” with the Argentian stuff is that it is often super chromatic. I actually consider myself a good lever flipper, but there is a limit unless you’re, say, Julie Rokseth (see video). Though perhaps now that I know it can be done, I should just start practicing! Might try some Carlos Gardel first.
Julie and Andreas, this is just stunning in my opinion:

[Sophie Liebregts]

Deleted duplicate post.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Sophie Liebregts.

[Sophie Liebregts]

P.s. Just to clarify, I do realise that this is a waltz, but during evenings of Argentinian tango dancing, they usually play three types of music: tango, tango waltz and milonga. The above piece is commonly played and danced to in tango salons.

[balfour-knight]

Thanks for posting this–very enjoyable!

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