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You suddenly start noticing how many sound tracks have harp in them once you begin learning harp yourself.
Briggsie
Yes, Sherry….they are called organ master shoes…organ shoes. I found the pedals on a Clio to tight for my taste — but then the Clio is just too small for me anyway — 5’11” tall.
Briggsie
Yes, I found it very tempting to play in my socks. I mentioned it to my very fine teacher who warned me about that. I do not want to go to gigs in a gown and play in my stocking or bare feet. I think it looks awful. I saw professional harpists play in a tux with bare feet and it just looked really bad to me….as if the harpist couldn’t adapt to playing with shoes.
The same thing happens to organists. I know personally of two who were adamant about playing without shoes until a certain teacher convinced them it was better with shoes. My own organ teacher told me what shoes to get, I did, and I never wanted to play without shoes.
Since I started wearing a good shoe at the harp,
I bought the plain black ones and put one on each C and F tuning peg on the back of my harp. I never have to search for the right pin to tune, and you can’t even see them.
These are a great little invention.
Briggsie
I need one of those little tuner holders that straps onto the harp, a tuner with a microphone (Stephanie Curcio’s is a good one), good chair, music stand, gig bag, a notebook to keep track of my studies — what to work on that week, and a good lamp next to the music.
Briggsie
I am being taught that the more I know the music intimately — the melodic and harmonic structure — the better I know the music in order to memorize it, and thus I won’t be looking at the page. If I look at my strings/hands I am getting a good playing position, can concentrate on the actual musicality and not be locked onto a page. I find I can “finger memorize” rather easily, but that doesn’t help when you get rattled in performance, nor does it help when you don’t play that particular piece for several months and go back to it. If you truly memorized it — that is learned the music intimately — it really doesn’t go away quite so thoroughly and comes back quickly. I can stare at the page and play quite handily, but not always correctly — thus, not making the best sound. I’m forcing myself to do it right….it’s not easy, and I know music quite well, possessing a master of music degree which I worked hard to earn and tried to learn thoroughly as I got both my degrees as an adult who understood that learning is not paying tuition alone. Still, learning a complex piece completely is not a simple task….but in the long run, I believe it is well worth it.
Just my 2 cents….
Briggsie
Thanks, but I’m not available this Sunday. I did, however, go to Laura’s graduation recital from O.U. and it was just a delight! We are both lucky to have such a great teacher, too. 🙂
Briggsie
If you want your harp to be out of tune for the concert you can….but I sure wouldn’t. It takes me awhile for my strings to settle in. Two weeks isn’t enough time. Also, won’t that change the regulation….especially if you switch from guts to nylons? Why did you put nylons on your harp?
Briggsie
An excellent suggestion….and sometimes they will let you take the car home and try to load the harp there. The dealer allowed that with mine.
Be very careful when loading/unloading into a strange car. There are things around tailgates which are unique to each car which can be in the way when you load. I found that out on my Element. There is a metal “clip” of sorts that juts out at the back which my kneeblock caught. I ended up with a minor (but oh it freaked me out so bad I had a technician look at it)
When you engage a lever, it shortens the string so that the string plays 1/2 step higher. It enables the player to play in different keys without having to retune the harp for each key. I think you should read as much as possible about lever harps and levers. There are sites on line which discuss different types of levers and what they are used for. Do a google search. There are different tunings for lever harps so that you can get optimum usage with various configurations of the levers.
Personally, I would look at other harps besides the “sicle” harps. They are okay if you have no strength in your hands, but the tension is very very floppy. As I understand them, they come unlevered (harpsicle), levered with selected levers for flat keys (flatsicle) and levered with selected levers for sharp keys (sharpsicle) and then there is one with full levers (fullsicle). They all have the same loose tension from what I have read recently.
Briggs
Not normal. I’ve had my harp for 3 years. Once my 0G broke while I was on vacation and it was a hot summer. My top strings are nylons. Are yours?
Briggsie
I wouldn’t do it without calling the other musician to warn them immediately upon hanging up….however, it might be worthwhile to set up an arrangement with a colleague so that when they say your rates are too high, and you refer them to the colleague, the colleague then quotes a higher fee. Personally, however, I would just tell them I wasn’t able to accomodate them and let THEM search for someone else, thus breathing a sigh of relief that I didn’t have to deal with it.
Briggsie
