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Just to clarify, you mean the computerized hydraulic harp, right, Catherine?
Garnier worked on this for years before deciding that such a thing just wasn’t feasible, incidentally.
Well, he wrote the flute and harp concerto. 🙂
“La tartine de beurre” (the real name of the glissando waltz) is generally considered spurious Mozart, but is a popular beginning piano piece, too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq9A9U_2s60&feature=related
There’s no good evidence that he even wrote or transcribed this piece (a landler), let alone that he wrote it for harp, I’m afraid.
Wouldn’t it be a lot easier just to learn to play the pedal harp? (I can’t imagine it would be any more expensive than what you are suggesting.)
Jim Cowgill from VA Harp Center loves his. I don’t know that any of the Mazdas get very good mileage, though. The 6 sure doesn’t.
Well, Carl, it is certainly a lot harder on those harps, but gosh, as I said, it never stopped anyone else in all the years when pretty nearly everyone in this country played a L&H with a short first octave.
I’m not arguing that it’s not easier on a harp with decent amount of room up there, just that an awful lot of people have done it and survived. 🙂
> the answer is to play it on a harp that has sufficient room up in the first octave.
Or just deal with it, as the hundreds, maybe thousands, of harpists who’ve played this piece on older L&H harps do. It is much harder on a harp with a short first octave, but, like the Great Gate at Kiev, it can be done. It sure didn’t disappear from the literature during all those years when most people had a tricky first octave.
> Rhett Barnwell does a nice arrangment,
Yes, this is very beautiful, but it is an original version, not one that people will recognize. Also, it’s with voice, I think, not a solo.
Just one caveat: since you are posting in amateur harpists, Michelle, be aware that either the Schubert or the Bach Gounod have a lot of pedals/levers, so it may take a little practice to get this performance-ready.
I would be concerned about the stress put on the fulcrum point by your lever extenders. Those pakistani levers are plated pot metal, and they are not really designed to take a lot of strain. Particularly with the extra quick shoving needed to compensate for the longer throw, you might run an increased risk of snapping off the lever handle.
Sweet Home Alabama was also very popular. I must say, I did enjoy it when I went out to California for a a meeting with my publisher and some of their other writers.
At dinner they were going around the table making us all introduce ourselves and tell about what we did when not writing computer books. Of course all the the other people said things like, “I write an investments newsletter,” or “I do IT for a university,” and so on. It sure did bring things to a screeching halt when they got to me and I said, “I play the harp in a biker bar.”
Well, I did, every Sunday for a couple of years. It was in an area that had been a very downscale neighborhood and had become very upscale and the neighbors kept suing them for being too noisy, so they were forbidden to use amplified music at certain times. Initially I think it was meant as a joke–as a a harpist it’s kind of weird to set up in front of the Bucket o’ Bud 5 for 5 Dale Earnhart sign– but they actually liked it, so I stayed. The hurricanes put an end to it, finally.
In the meantime, it’s quite easy to play from the standard sheet music with a little reorganizing, even on lever harp. That was a big fave when I had that steady in the biker bar.
Correct link:
