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One thing you could do is try to find out when your neighbors are out and the building is empty or almost empty and try to do the bulk of your practicing then. I don’t know where you live, but if you’ve been practicing all summer with the windows open then a lot of your practicing may be reaching everyone else via the open windows. Can you practice with the windows closed and maybe air condition that room? Carpeting and as much sound absorbing material in the room as possible can also help a lot. One friend of mine, a very well known European harpist, moved into an apartment at one point and had to rent a portable soundproof booth to do her practicing. I don’t know if that is an option.
OK everybody!!! All harps have to be regulated from time to time. ALL OF THEM. And while it is a very good idea to understand as much as you can about how the mechanism works, it’s best to have a professional regulate the harp. They can do it faster and much more accurately than you can. They also carry an endless list of spare parts to make the regulation better. So yes, buy my book, A GUIDE FOR HARPISTS, and read it. Learn the standard terms for parts and learn how the whole thing works, and occasionally, do an emergency repair yourself, like changing a rod or a disc, fixing a buzz, etc. But leave the regulating to the professionals.
Patricia- You’re right about Starke. The whole story is that he was hired away from Lyon & Healy to Wurlitzer when they decided to start making harps. One of his conditions to Wurlitzer was that all Wurlitzer actions have his name on them. Thus the Starke Model. It has nothing at all to do with the model of the instrument as we think of it(size, decoration, etc.). Starke eventually went back to Lyon & Healy, and when he left Wurlitzer his name was no longer included on the action plate.
Starke must have had a laundry list of things he wanted to change about the action when he went to Wurlitzer, and starting a manufacturing concern from scratch allowed him to make those changes. The Wurlitzer action, while based on the original Lyon & Healy patents, has subtle differences that make it work smoother and last longer than the Lyon & Healy action. That is why, when I started Swanson Harp Company, I copied the Wurlitzer action exactly.
As a teacher I’ve been down it many times. Life sometimes gets in the way of good intentions. The best way to get back on track is to just go in for a lesson, figure out where you are and what you need to work on, and move on from there. Stop beating yourself up!
I don’t play weddings, but I have heard many stories like this from harpists who do. It seems to me that the most important thing you can put in the contract is the time period that the bride is paying for, like 2PM to 4PM. That’s the window that you have reserved for them. They can do anything they want during that window, but when 4PM arrives, you’re out of there. The problem with not stating in the contract a specific end time(like 4PM) is that the bride thinks that she has got you for an hour and a half or two hours, and that the clock starts running when you start playing. WRONG! The clock starts when the start time arrives(2PM) and if she decides at the last minute to delay your services for an hour or more, then she simply gets less playing time, OR, has to pay overtime, starting at the stated end time.
Kimberly- If you find yourself in Paris, the good music stores there have whole walls of Solfege materials. Writing melodic and/or rhythmic exercises books was a whole industry in France. I don’t know if any of that stuff can be found on line. I studied solfege privately many years ago, and my teacher had a number of these books. I’ve got a few of them and I honestly don’t remember where I bought them. Maybe you could look on line or check a university book store to see what they’ve got.
Seoid- One of the best advantages to going to harp conferences is the exhibit room. For the duration of the conference you have a harp and harp accessories department store where you can try different makes of harps for as long as you want, and browse through endless boxes of music. If I were you, I’d try to attend some of these events occasionally.
Tayce- Thankyouthankyouthankyou for referring (correctly) to this sonata as the c minor sonata of Dussek. I was going to point that out earlier but got busy.
Julie- The guidelines you list in your two posts are something only an objective professional could hold to. The person in the middle of an ethical dilema simply doesn’t see the same situation objectively. And 10 other people standing on the sidelines observing what has happened between two people are likely to take sides, which colors their final judgement as to what happened. Just look at what happens to family and friends when a couple divorce. If you then add to that common personality disorders such as narcissism(as I outlined in another thread) then things get warped even further.
I don’t want to flog a dead horse here, but as an example, a narcissist looks at his own behavior as being very caring, and he/she will tell anyone who will listen that he/she loves to ‘help’ people. To anybody watching what the narcissist is doing, or who is the unfortunate target of the narcissists ‘help,’ the narcissist is simply a meddlesome busybody who can never mind his/her own business. The point that I’m getting at is that ethical behavior exists largly in the eye of the beholder.
One point of view already expressed on this site is that there is nothing wrong with someone ‘fishing’ for students here. Is it therefore ethical for someone who knows that that teacher is not a good teacher, is difficult to deal with, who has created problems for past students on a number of levels, to warn prospective students?
Kimberly- The mention of Marion’s name almost brings tears to my eyes. She is the most gracious caring person I know. I had met her several times in the United States when she came to Masterclasses at Hartt College where I was a student. Then, at the end of my first year living in Paris, I spent the entire summer in Gargilesse and Marion was there for the August masterclass. Pierre Jamet had found me a room in the village that I got for free, but I was on my own as far as meals were concerned. When Marion showed up and checked into the Hotel des Artistes along with most of the other students, she quickly figured out my situation. The second day there she came to me and said that she had talked to the owner of the hotel and that starting that evening I was to come to the hotel every day for both lunch and dinner. I was speechless. This arrangement lasted for the whole 4 weeks of the summer course! At the end of the summer I gave her a record that I had found at the Paris flee market of Pierre Jamet playing the Mozart with his son-in-law Christian Larde, and the Handel Concerto. Marion didn’t want to take it but I assured her I could find another copy. Only after assuring her many times did she reluctantly take the record. I never did find another copy. Many years went by. Then about 4 years ago, a package arrived in the mail with Marion’s return address on it. I couldn’t imagine what she was sending me. It was the record. There was a note from Marion that said “I’ve had this long enough and have enjoyed it. Now it’s time to give it back to you.” This past summer she called me and we had a wonderful talk. When I think back on some of the most important people of my life, Marion is right up there.
Esmeralda- I think the public has a difficult time wrapping their minds around people having more than one career. I’m constantly facing that one by being a harp repairer and maker, and also being a harpist and harp teacher. For me they go together quite nicely, but I think in general I’m thought of as a repairer and maker first and harpist and teacher a distant second.
You will have to decide if you want to be known as a singer who also plays the harp or a harpist who happens to sing. You will not be taken seriously if you try to promote yourself equally in both areas. Whatever happened to the concept of the renaissance man/woman?
Elizabeth- You’re right that a side-effect of a forum like the HC site can be that students come your way. This is an excellent way for a potential student to learn about your ideas on teaching, method, etc. But you never come out and say that you’re looking for students, or worse, suggesting that another contributor come to you to study. That is what I would call ‘fishing’ for students.
Saul- What a wonderful discussion topic. This should be interesting. My greatest regret is that I didn’t learn solfege much much better than I did.
The solfege that is taught to French music students, from small children on up, goes way beyond simply using syllables to say the notes. The French use the syllables for absolutely everything. When they study rhythmic exercises, they say the syllabiles. They learn to read 15 clefs as part of their solfege graining(C clef, F clef, and G clef, all on every line of the staff!!). Where American musicians will sing a melody just saying la la la… the French always solfege it. When I began studying the Ravel Introduction and allegro with Pierre Jamet, he solfeged the opening arpeggio- the entire thing- at tempo! It’s the rigorous training in solfege that allows them to be such fantastic sight readers, and for the piano majors at the Conservatories to be able to transpose to any key. Kousavetski was the conductor of the Boston Symphony for something like 25 years, and he was very much into new music and commissioned a lot of new works for the orchestra(the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra being the most famous). But Kousavetski, a double bass player, could barely read open score, and it was Bernard Zighera, the harpist and pianist with the orchestra for 54 years who played the scores(open scores) for Kousavetski so he could learn them. That’s the huge advantage of that training.
There is an interesting aside to all of this. Jamet once told me that when foreign conductors conduct a French orchestra for the first time, they are astounded at how well the orchestra plays at the first rehearsal. “The tragedy” Jamet told me,”happens at the second rehearsal. Because that rehearsal sounds just like the first one, and the musicians are now bored with the music and want to move on to something else.”
A lot of the problem is that students encountering different dynamic levels for the first time don’t have the technique to make different dynamic levels. They usually start by playing anything that is marked soft(p, pp, mf) as soft as possible, and anything marked loud (f, ff) as loud as possible. Even more difficult is to make a gradual crescendo or decrescendo. They will make terrace dynamics, with abrupt changes in the dynamics. I think the thing to do is to start by using dynamic changes in exercises and etudes. The student has to learn how to make the dynamic change, and only then can they start applying them to a musical context.
