[barbara-brundage]

One thing that L&H usually suggests you want to stay far away from, and that’s the touch-

up pen they were pushing for a while (don’t know if they still do). It is not gold, but gold

paint, and in a couple of months the areas you use it on will look much worse than the

dings did.

[barbara-brundage]

Carl is totally right that for big cleaning you need a pro.

I have had some success with getting rid of surface dirt by using the old-fashioned

method–bread. Get a loaf of icky white squishy wonderbread type bread (Not good strong

bread, like sandwich bread), and tear off a small piece of the white part. Press this very

gently onto the gilding and it will bring some of the dirt and dust with it when you pick it

back up. Be very, very careful and try it on a very inconspicuous place first. If the gesso is

damp, you can pick up the gold as well as the dirt, so utmost caution is advised. It’s very

labor intensive, but it does help a bit. A soft untreated (most dusters have endust type

junk in them these days, so investigate before buying) feather duster or a very soft

makeup brush will brush out any crumbs. Don’t use a duster that has feathers with

pronounced spines in the feathers, and not a lambswool duster.

This isn’t going to do anything about fingerprints or big dirt, and frankly, most places will

suggest

[barbara-brundage]

I should have added, never, never touch the gold. Wear gloves when you do this, because

it’s just human nature to reach for the column when you need to turn the harp or resituate

yourself.

[barbara-brundage]

Well it has a lot to do with how advanced she is. Nancy Gustafson has a couple of pieces in

The Magic Road that use a lot of effects. If she’s really advanced, the Epices by Bernard

Andres are effects-intensive and playable on a lever harp. There are lots of others as well.

Can you tell us the kind of stuff she’s currently working on? That would help narrow it

down a little.

[barbara-brundage]

Another one that I forgot to mention is the Godefroid “Romance sans paroles (Bois
solitaire)”, which works very well indeed if you transpose it up a step. There are just two or
three places where you have to leave out the bottom note of an octave.

[barbara-brundage]

The song you’re looking for is called “Welcome Christmas.” It’s available in the Christmas
book in the Showstoppers series, for one source.

[barbara-brundage]

I should perhaps have mentioned that it’s not particularly lever-friendly, although it’s a
pretty easy tune on pedal harp.

[barbara-brundage]

For the Handel Concerto you might also look at the edition by Ank van Campen that Salvi
publishes. It’s a bit fuller. (You can play the first and third mvts of the Grandjany edition if
you omit the enharmonice doublings and subsitutions.)

[barbara-brundage]

Hi, Anita. Besides my stuff there is “Telynn” by Houdy, Epices and Danses d’Automne by
Andres, a good deal of Hovahness, St. George’s Watch by Laura Zaerr. She has a piece in
‘Dancing with the Stars’ which is based on the big arpeggios in Au Matin. The 6th book of
‘Classiques de la harpe’ by Bouchaud includes “The Harmonious Blacksmith” and some
Bach and Sweelinck.

There is a huge amount of baroque music that can be adapted as well. Just listen to
someone like John Manno. Some of the pieces from the first stage of Israel last time were
written for hook harp and are quite playable on a lever harp although I personally find
them musically a bit tedious.

Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of big classical pieces published specifically for lever harp
yet. You’ll be surprised what you can do if you put your mind to it, but you’ll probably have
to do some arranging/adapting to get that amount of advanced music.

Other advanced arrangements of mine are the Loeillet and the Haydn Theme and
Variations (in 18th century music) and Rumores de la Caleta by Albeniz, which is in
Classics on Request 3.

[barbara-brundage]

Oh, I forgot to say that Anne Marie O’Farrell plays “Watching the Wheat” by John Thomas,
although I don’t know how. “The Minstrel’s Adieu’ is adaptable, of course. Also forgot to
mention the Glinka Variations if you drop the one in harmonics.

[barbara-brundage]

Oh, and don’t overlook the transcription of Soeur Monique in “Medieval to Modern.”

[barbara-brundage]

Thanks for the clarification. There is a paid ad slot (the most expensive) at the top,

though, FWIW. The side ads are usually more general–google your name and you’ll see

“get best deals on zen sojourner” or “find zen sojourner on ebay.com”. The top slot is

tailored to the search terms, and that’s what they have.

If you think it’s worth paying to get a link from there, well, that’s anyone’s personal

decision. On Mac browsers it has a colored bar behind it to differentiate it from search

results. I don’t let my windows computer online

so I can’t say how it looks in IE for pc.

$24 a year is a lot more reasonable, but I personally wouldn’t do it. Chacun a son gout.

[barbara-brundage]

>At $24 a month, its not onerously expensive.

Are you kidding? That’s very, very

[barbara-brundage]

I might have mentioned also that google ranking goes by how you are linked from other

high-ranking sites (except for the ads, of course), so unless other places are linking to this

site, it’s not going to come up at the top of the list anyway.

[barbara-brundage]

Sorry, my last post wasn’t clear. That site comes up as a paid ad, not as the first google

listing. I myself never click the ad listings

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