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Yes, this happens to everyone, so don’t be discouraged. It means you’ve got the piece really about half-learned. When you really *know* a piece, you know it in your fingers (which you’ve got–that’s the hardest part) and in your head, too. You need to go back now and practice with the music in front of you: practice starting in all different places and playing by memory from those spots.
Believe me, there’s no more horrible feeling than getting on stage with music, having a memory slip and not being able to get any help from the score because you don’t know where you are.
These points to start from are generally known as “repair points.” How many you need depends on how complex the music is and what you’re playing it for. If you were learning a major work for a competition, say, you’d want one at least every couple of measures, for example. For something you’re just going to play in a casual situation, you’d probably need a lot fewer.
I’m not defending them, Tony. I think it’s a stupid attitude. But it does mean that it may be difficult to find a commercial studio that will undertake such a project.
I would just point out that they are doubtless still under copyright to the record label. There’s a reason why more things don’t become available, you know, and it’s not slackness on the part of the folks who have the tools.
Anyone with a usb turntable (available almost anywhere–check amazon), a copy of soundsoap or equivalent program to clean up the noise, and a computer can do this. It’s just mostly not legal to do it, except for home use and technically not even then, really.
You won’t find any more people using music in recital at something like an AHS concert than you would in any piano conference, but a historical group is a completely different thing.
And I’m sorry, but if you think anyone can learn, say the Brahms B-flat concerto totally by ear, well, I’d like to meet that person. I never met anyone in the keyboard or violin programs at Eastman who didn’t use music to learn that level of piece, however good their ears may have been. When you are in the Darwinian world of bigtime classical performance where a single wrong note can cost a prize or an audition, you don’t try to learn the notes by ear only.
Hello, Chris. Well, for one thing:
>Last week I saw many great individual performances at the HHS conference in Boston and I was very suprised to see all but three performers (of about 20) performed music they had not committed to memory.
This is historical practice. The idea that everything has to be memorized didn’t appear till the Romantic pianists put it out there, so if you want to be historically correct it’s quite okay to use music.
The actual decay time will vary depending on the instrument, how new the strings are, the quality of strings, etc. If you are writing for the harp in an orchestral setting, I would not count on anyone hearing anything much after the attack in most circumstances. Most harps ring a very long time, but the sound drops significantly quite quickly.
> The blind musicians memorize all their music because both hands have to be on their instruments.
Yes, I was talking about while learning, to check things. Sorry if I wasn’t clear.
If you want to get ideas for your area, just ask around. If there aren’t other harpists ask guitarists and pianists. You should get at least as much as they do.
If you want to pay bills, you have to charge enough to live. Since we can’t gig 40 hours a week, that means the hourly rate is usually quite a lot higher than someone who has full time work with benefits will get.
I live in what is currently the third most economically depressed area in the US, incidentally. Flint Michigan is doing better.
I wouldn’t put a lot of faith in those articles, incidentally. Most working harpists think those surveys are nobody’s business and either don’t answer or give quasi-bogus answers.
Incidentally, I didn’t mean of course the doctor didn’t object because he was getting a bargain. I just meant of course he didn’t object. He hired a professional service and there was a charge for it. Doctors can understand that. 🙂
> The groom is a doctor and didn’t flinch when I said it would be $225
Of course not. In most parts of the country that was a steal for him. Where I am it would have been at least $400.
If you present yourself professionally, they won’t assume it’s free. Just have confidence in yourself and don’t hesitate to deal with at the time they book you. You’ll get used to it and it will stop feeling awkward. If you don’t feel awkward about discussing the subject, neither will they.
I should add, that sadly, the more advanced a student becomes, the more frustrating it evidently is. When I was in music school there were a couple of blind pianists there, and their frustration level was huge.
At home, they had become the best of the best, but now they were up against people who had ears as good as theirs plus sight, and they bitterly felt the speed difference when it came to learning/reading. At that level even the second or two more it takes to stop and find the place in braille music, compared to being able to look up at the score while playing for a sighted musician, was significant. It took great dedication to music as an art not to let natural competitiveness embitter them, and not all of them were able to avoid it.
I don’t really understand a lot of this thread, I must admit. I’ve never taught blind students, but I know several people who have. Pedal harp is much easier of course, since you don’t have to find levers to move, but whether lever or pedal, surely people who are blind and not deaf can find DO by running their fingers up and down the strings till they hear it?
i’ve never known anyone who found it necessary to add the kind of markers suggested in this thread. The challenge is establishing hand position and then, once a student begins to have some facility, finding music they can read. Braille harp music is not exactly abundant, and for those whose students went beyond a basic level this becomes a serious issue. It’s very hard to learn intermediate and higher level music totally by ear.
