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Now I think about it, I didn’t play between the ages of 12 -14 so when I resumed playing I never noticed the stretch, but these players below find it a struggle:
http://www.harpcolumn.com/forums/amateur-harpists/posts/47381
whilst we’re on this topic, how do you play a LH octave with the top note a harmonic, in the Watkins Nocturne, I think I do the Godefroid as a quick spread. Anyone use the pinky little finger ?
Not yet 12, her parents are shorter than average I’d say but children usually outgrow their parents don’t they ? I’ve never measured an octave span with a ruler !! She couldn’t really reach the LH flat octave very well either. For what it’s worth I find an 11th tricky but doable in my LH and a 10th in my RH an inconvenience on a Salvi. On a Pleyel piano I couldn’t stretch a 10th so good job I don’t play piano much…….. anyway this is not about me…….
Dorian mode, isn’t that just in naturals, so starting from a C it’s simply tuned in C major, only your bottom note isn’t exactly a C so it sounds like Dorian mode from anywhere else. Beware of taking it up a fourth, if the soundboard has to take added tension. Dorian theory here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorian_mode#Modern_Dorian_mode
I had to learn to accept it & manage it, prefer an automatic car with a busman’s knob on the steering wheel, I lightened up the playing, as I am not a pro, which hampered my progress, although I still did weddings and have since learnt La Source but the Godefroid can be too much sometimes. I try to avoid carrying heavy stuff , using gardening tools and grippping the hoover tube really aggravates it, as do bicycle brakes, the I-pad and smartphone usage. I use the PC mouse with my left hand, which is easier. Washing up sometimes actually gives variety which helps….. but sports with racquets are to be avoided, all the gripping and forearm work aggravate the soreness. Certain pieces with RH stretches in 10ths make the tendons on the top of the hand & forearm sore. A complete break from playing for 6-9 months in 2009 also helped when I’d sprained my ankle.
I played like that all my teens, thinking I needed a crab like hand to approach the harp, obviously it went unnoticed, and when I resumed playing I carried on in the same way then got RSI big time due to my car’s heavy steering and in a bad way late 90’s, and on the PC all day. My tutor tried to showed me how to relax at the steering wheel but my brain didn’t know how to let go..I squeezed anything I held. and I concluded the Salzedo approach wasn’t helping me, so I think it takes ages, years to unlearn this automatic tension, and now I’m fine and can draw an analogy with motor skills for washing up or using a screwdriver . You pick something up, then when you apply pressure to clean/screw but you mustn’t FIX and force the tension in your hand or forearm, that’s what gets stuck and can hurt momentarily and if repeated becomes the injury. I couldn’t hold a cup or write & concluded I’d give up the harp. My Salvi too seemed hard to play with this attitude, even with ‘light’ strings at which point I wished for an L&H. Now that I’m okay, a note can be played with a confident light action closing properly into the palm, no ADDED work is necessary, no forcing from the shoulder thro’ the elbow. My chiropractor helped the most, you should also use the little-finger-to-thumb pull test, which indicates whether the elbow tendons through the carpal tunnel are ‘working’ properly in the muscular-skeleto system, requiring simple wrist bones manipulation and neck too. Perhaps tinkling on the piano would be a better way to retrain your action whilst you are ‘off’ the harp, because you don’t have to place ahead, which I think is the seed of misuse, so don’t lose all hope, I know it took ages to correct and I am still sensitive to overuse and tendon soreness.
Thank you both, I hadn’t realised Sioned had reproduced Bach at all, knew only the Parry Sonatas. Playing Bach is growing on me, I could only listen before, aside from no 3, perhaps my articulation is improving. If they sold the rights maybe there’s a pile of spare copies somewhere.
Mine too, I can see I bought it many years ago and coincidentally heard it played from memory after I’d just read thro’ it again recently so, whilst I listened all the more attentively I don’t think I could memorise it. It really is a lovely piece, worth having however I don’t know anything about the Pastorale, is that a prelude to the piece ?
Thanks to you both, so if they are Zingel’s edits, that makes sense. Anyway I inked them all in, easier to play & think I can sort out fingering, mostly done. How come the plates are missing, since I bought a new copy about 15 years ago or are you saying it must have been a reproduction. This is my second trip on this piece, my musicality has improved lately, but I doubt I could memorize it all, & find accuracy in ‘predictable’ classical period works more problematic than pieces without variations & cadences, because I get sucked in by the ‘simplicity’ of the development. How was this even playable in Handel’s time, before single actions, surely not a lever harp- it starts in G minor then to Bb major, with many accidentals ?
I see now, the comments on the back page about the work’ s provenance, the original in the Prussian State library ie Berlin archives disappearing and the only known copy being reprinted so all credit to Zingel, I shall look him up. so Herausgegeben means published and Urtext means original…….!!that’s helpful & yes I’ve seen those ads too, so I have phoned Pilgrim and they have a fleet of hire instruments, so we can wait. Not keen on pedal extenders and mine are very long (horiz) and need substituting with shorter ones, as G# hits the floor – I need to get them changed. The instrument has always seemed heavy to me and whilst I think the mechanism and metalwork are very sturdy, it has a different balance to other harps. It’s too small and cramped for my height (5’7”) so uncomfortable, but I can do useful work with it.
There are 9 or so individual titles and 7 volumes of his listed in Holywell’s catalogue. Charades, not listed, are well structured studies for beginner /intermediate without sounding like studies. Elegie for Death of a Berger is more advanced about grade 6-7. Duke is a jazzy, syncopated piece, perhaps an arrangement of a well known song, can’t remember.
http://www.holywellmusic.co.uk/music-catalogue.phpHi Tacye. Can I just check, that at the age of 12 and 4ft something you didn’t find the string spacing of the Progress too much of a stretch, nor the pedals too far away, or awkward…. I am having to think quite carefully about what to propose for a new pupil, luckily I have a PPP myself although I use it as a handy second practice-harp, weekends away and occasionally in lightweight rehearsals but never in concerts so hadn’t thought it had the potential for youngsters & exams even though I always regard it as a teenage harp. At some point I will try the pupil for size on harps. Also I know mine is HEAVY, was that ever a problem ? thanks, Alison
I am not partic knowledgeble and happy to delete this posting…….
Listen to Bloch’s Schelomo -(my spelling is questionable), oh and Schindler’s List (film music) unless you specifically don’t require other compositions; sounds like you want a real theme to start from.well for two reasons, a) so that I can listen to them in their original form and look at the original editions for the violin or piano and register their original form, dynamics and key signature;
b) revise the fingering, or even play from the original, unless that proves too difficult………but also so that I don’t have to read a forced left hand split into the lower stave (my pet hate)…..I’m not trying to waste time…. mine nor yours ! Actually I hadn’t noticed they are ALL for violin in the Fischer volume, because I got hung up on their minimal descriptions.
