Unusual harp playing style..??

[unknown-user]

Is this a very different style of harp playing? I’m not sure if the video was taken in a mirror and we see the reflection? I’ve just never seen or know anyone to play on the “opposite” side of a harp before… Is this usual? Is this a South American style? I think the video is in Italian though – it says something about “Roma” and “celtic arpa”… Sorry for my ignorance here – any answers/thoughts would be appreciated!

[jennifer-buehler]

Wow.

[Briggsie B. Peawiggle]

He sure is. I took a screen shot of it and flipped it so that it was the opposite direction. The harp shows on his right shoulder but is backwards with the tuning pegs on the wrong side…..so he IS playing it on the opposite shoulder from normal. Weird!

Briggsie

[Chris Asmann]

Playing on the left shouder is in the Gaelic tradition, and these players usually use their fingernails rather than the pads of their fingers.

I

[Geri McQuillen]

Yes, the Gaelic wire-harp tradition is to play with the harp resting on the left shoulder, playing treble with left hand and bass with the right.

[Tacye]

Some Welsh players in the 19th century would apparently play pedal harps on the right shoulder.

[Tacye]

I seem to have a problem telling left from right- oops!

[Mel Sandberg]

Tacye This issue has been raised in a thread before, but I don’t remember who posted it.

[Sidney Dharmavaram]

Robin Huw Bowen plays his triple harp on his left shoulder.

[katerina]

That is normal. I once made a harp for the left-hander, already not a child, who wanted to play but felt hopeless with normal instrument. He is happy now.
I play my triple harp on right shoulder (being originally left-hander), but sometimes train to play oppositely. Very nice exersise for coordination and thinking. And nice joking trick on the stage.

[Giulio Care]

Dear William, my name is giulio carè and I come from rome. About unusual harp to play harp I can say something; I used to play for 7 year and I learn to play in the opposite side. I want to say that I take the harp with the bass chords near my body and treble far; with my head on the right and harp on left shoulder. Am I a fool ? May be. But it works. I let you a very bad video that is the only on you tube. Let me know your comments…
Best
From Giulio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGXMRdmzDSQ

[laurie-rasmussen]

The harpist in this video is an Italian, Andrea Piazza. He lives in San Gimignano where he can frequently be found playing in the main piazza. I got to know him when I lived in Florence a few years back. He plays a single-action Tyrolean harp. He does have a unique style of playing on the left shoulder but he doesn’t switch the hands so the right still plays treble and left plays the bass. I can’t remember why he does this but I believe he was influenced by Rüdiger Oppermann who also plays this way.

[laurie-rasmussen]

I forgot to add… Andrea Piazza’s single-action Tyrolean harp is made by Fischer:

http://www.musikhaus-fackler.de/fisherharps/startpage/startframe.htm

[Giulio Care]

I knew Andrea Piazza too, in San Gimignano. I used to play with him a strange kind of “four hands harp performance”, as I take the harp on the other side.

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