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Julieanne- I agree that follow through motion is very very important to playing. That’s why virtually all schools of playing(Salzedo, French, Russian, and god knows what else) preach a fingers-into-the-palm motion. You get no argument from me on that. But when a harpist plays a chord for example, there is necessarily a force away from the strings as the fingers release the strings. In most methods, and certainly in the French approach, that force away from the strings is absorbed in a wrist motion. In a very good French trained harpist(and Russian for that matter too) the wrist is supple and in constant motion, but the hand and fingers stay, for the most part, very close to the strings. Maybe I’m misinterpreting the Salzedo raising gesture here, but I’m assuming that the principal purpose of the raise is to absorbe that force away from the strings I was talking about.
And Rosemary- you crafty little harp policewoman!!-let me correct what I said to the two mystery harpists in the context of what I just said here. What I said to them was that, at the advanced level, Salzedo method is very similar to French method. In other words, there are more similarities than differences. The finger motion is certainly the same(into the palm). Both these mystery harpists had lower forearms and elbows(not as low as a French or Russian harpist, but lower nevertheless). They both played with lower thumbs than what is taught in Salzedo method at the lower levels, and there is more use of the wrist and less(much MUCH less) gesturing or raising. That makes it quite similar to French method. But as I said, only at the advanced level.
Rosemary- When I said what I said to the two mystery harpists(individually. They were not in Camden at the same time), I did do it knowing in advance that I would get a negative response, but I was very diplomatic and friendly about it. If somebody came up to me and said that what I was doing on the harp was very similar to Salzedo method, Russian method, or any other method, MY response would be to ask how. I’d be curious to see what they had to say. I wouldn’t take it negatively or as a put down. The mere fact that they both reacted in the exact same way tells me that they have a very negative view of French method. And my real question then is, where did that negative view come from? I’ve had discussions with other harpists over the various approaches within French method, Russian method, Eastern European method, etc. The discussions were never about which one is better. They were simply about how different harpists get around on the instrument.
Why would saying that Salzedo method, at the advanced level, is very similar to French method be undervaluing or undermining Salzedo method. Maybe there’s something here I don’t quite get. In Salzedo method, do you raise? Or do you raze?
Julienne and Rosemary- Bravo to you both. You’ve both articulated exactly the complexity of teaching technique. Dogma really has no place in teaching and can tie the student into knots.
One of my harpist friends was an army brat. Her father was a career military man and so she moved from base to base 5 or 6 times during her childhood. She started harp with Salzedo method, and every time the family moved, her parents made sure that she found another Salzedo teacher. “The problem I had,” she told me,” was that no one could agree on what Salzedo method was. So every time I changed teachers, I was starting over. The first teacher who was able and willing to work with what I was doing was Grandjany.” The point is, there is no single approach to either Salzedo method or “French method.” Because of the way each persons hand works, there are variations within each approach to fit the individual harpist. The burden is then on that harp teacher to see the big picture and contour the instruction that he/she gives to the individual student. But there are many teachers who are absolutely adamant about the tiny details, and this does not help the student.
When I teach, I constantly ask my self as I watch the student play, if they are doing anything that is ineficient and which will get in the way as they advance to harder repertoire. I also listen of course for such fundamental things as evenness of tone and dynamic control in each finger. Most of the time, I simply have to point out the problem(weak second finger in that passage, etc.) and the student fixes it without my having to go into a didactic explanation of what he/she is doing wrong or how to fix it my way. When a student transfers over to me, which is the only type of student I now take, I ask them to play something very easy at the beginning of the first lesson so I can see what their hands are doing. I’m not looking to see how their technique differs from mine. I’m looking to see if their hands are working easily and efficiently and what kind of control they have over the sound. I’m also making a mental list of problem areas. Then my instruction is tailored to that list.
I know that some ‘French’ harp teachers play with the first knuckle flattened. Grandjany did and encouraged his students to do it, but he didn’t insist. Marie-Claire Jamet, my own teacher’s daughter, plays that way and said her father did too. This is unbelievable to me, but I have no recollection of that. He never once mentioned it to me or even suggested that I do it. Maybe I didn’t even notice it when he demonstrated at the harp because I had never heard of it before and since he didn’t bring it up I didn’t ask about it. Marie-Claire told me she does it exclusively to avoid buzzing. Susan Jolles, who also plays with flattened fingers, told me it warms the sound, but I think that depends on the fleshiness of the individual harpists fingers. The point is, teachers have to be flexible and be able to tailor their teaching to the needs of each student.
I think rocking back and forth is simply a bad habit that the harpist is probably not even aware of. Someone should say something to people who have irritating habits like that.
I agree that Harpo certainly played the harp and played it well in a unique style. That’s why I don’t understand why Gail Laughton would have been used some of the time. I’m not a huge Marx Brothers fan(not my kind of humor) so I can’t say I’ve seen any of their movies recently or that I’ve seen all of them. I do remember seeing one or two movies though where it seemed clear that Harpo was really playing, but it didn’t match what I was hearing on the soundtrack. It could have been a ligistics thing, where sound recording on the set was so difficult that they decided to re-record Harpo under better conditions, and it may be that he never played the same thing twice in the same way. They may have timed his playing on the set, then told him(or Gail Laughton) to play for exactly that same amount of time in a sound booth, so that Harpo or Gail(whoever was playing in the booth) couldn’t even see what the movie footage showed. I’m just guessing here.
What’s curious about the whole Harpo issue is that in 5 of the 6 films that the Marx Brothers made, the harp playing that you hear in the harp solo scene is not Harpo. It’s Gail Laughton. Both Jack Nebergal and John Escosa told me that. It’s perfectly obvious too to a harpist because Harpo’s hands are not in the right place for what you are hearing. I had originally thought that he had recorded the harp soundtrack first and that the scene was just badly syncronized. But it’s not even the same arrangement. I don’t know, and have never heard an explanation, why Harpo didn’t play those scenes himself. He apparently did play in one of the movies, and I’m sure he played on I love Lucy and other TV appearances. Of course, Gail Laughton never got any official credit for this. But he was a well known Hollywood studio harpist and jazz harpist of the day, and maybe the sound editor just wanted something much more virtuoso than Harpo could do. I don’t know.
Laura- I don’t know of any technique on any instrument where gestures are taught. Yes, every one developes movements that help them to get into the music in their own personal way. Pianists will use a grand gesture at the begining or end of a phrase. Other musicians will move their bodies in a personal expression of some aspect of the music. But that is very different from teaching a student gestures that are extranious to the actual playing of the notes.
Two years ago I was the guest artist at a mini-conference in Florida. I gave a solo recital and the next day a masterclass. One student who played for me played a piece where the left hand had a pattern of octave, chord, octave, chord, with a two octave skip from the low octave to the chord in the 4th octave, and he was having problems getting to the chord on time because after the octave he would raise his left hand way up and then come down for the chord. I said to him(in front of 35 people)that I didn’t want to get involved in discussions about technique, but that the shortest distance between the low octave and the chord was a straight line, and that by doing this huge arch he was loosing a lot of time and missing the notes. I have seen other harp students for whom this whole raising thing is so ingrained that when they tried to play something fast they looked like they were chopping carrots.
Any method should be able to stand up to close scrutiny. I’m sorry you took offense at my comments. I did not make them to offend anyone. I was simply pointing out the seeming contradictions. I also wanted to provide an opposing point of view to anyone reading this who is new to the harp.
I frankly find that, at the advanced level, there is very little difference between Salzedo method and classic French method. I told two very well known Salzedo harpists exactly that and they hissed like snakes that it wasn’t true.
I knew they would. The obvious question then is: What is it about classic French method that Salzedo harpists despise?
++Frequently it(the raising gesture) is used to release tension when playing especially fast and physically exhausting passages.++
There was a workshop at a harp conference many years ago that was given by a physical therepist who was offering tips on relaxation and avoiding tension in playing. When he took questions and comments from the audience, one college age girl explained that in HER method of playing, she raises as a means of releasing tension. He explained quite calmly that raising does not and cannot release tension. “If you were going to release tension after leaving the strings,” he said,”your arms would drop to your sides.”
Cathy- If you use the silver ones with color coded C’s and F’s, then those color coded strings are nickel plated, and therefore would sound different. I think that the sound difference between silver and nickel is, first of all, very subtle, and secondly, may possibly only be evident when sitting at the harp, as opposed to being 10 feet or more out in front of it.
I certainly agree that a follow through motion is important. We all do it in bringing the fingers, in a downward motion, into the palm of the hand as much as the music permits. Renie identifies three different articulations: a long(down into the palm), medium(basically half way towards the palm, and a short. They are all different degrees of the same motion and are used as the music dictates, meaning that the faster the music, the shorter the articulation. But even on a short articulation there is a follow through motion. In the French approach, the follow through motion is entirely in the fingers and the wrist, allowing the hands to remain close to the strings for efficient movement. My problem with the Salzedo school explanation of raising is that if, by your own definition, it affects sound, then that would lead to an inconsistancy in sound production, based on whether or not there is time to raise.
When I said that any technique will feel natural and comfortable, I simply meant that by repeating a movement often enough, muscle memory sets in, and that makes the movement feel ‘right.’ When I get a student with what I perceive as a bad habit or movement, it’s bad because it will hinder the student as he/she tries to move into more difficult repertoire. The question I always ask myself as I teach someone is; is anything they are doing now going to get in the way in more difficult repertoire.
Changing technique, especially any big change, takes time and cannot be forced because of this issue of muscle memory. The old muscle memory has to fade before a new muscle memory can replace it.
I think that there are many things that we think we hear that in fact are simply not there. I swear that silver coated wire strings sound clearer than the tarnish resistant, but my good friend Elenor Fell at Vanderbilt music company said that they have done endless ‘blind’ tests, with harpists listening to, but not able to see, wire strings being played by different harpists on different instruments, and no one can discern the difference. No one.
I gave a workshop at the Boston conference in 1994 in which the audience had to make critical judgements about 4 harps behind a screen. They did not know that they were listening to four harps of different sizes,(a concert grand, a semi-grand, a straight soundboard semi-grand, and a small straight board instrument). When I gave a little quiz at the end of the sound tests, and asked them which harp was the concert grand, no one got it right. One of the harps was completely strung in nylon(the concert grand), and no one got that one either. So the things we think we hear are often based on our own subconscious judgements. But if something you do with your hands makes you think that the sound is better, then maybe it enhances your performance in other ways without you realizing it.
++ Salzedo had a reason for every gesture and did not want any extraneous motions to detract from the performance of the composition. The deeper you go into his method the more brilliant you see the design of his technique.++
You might be interested to know that Salzedo himself did not raise or make gestures of any kind. As one of his former students, who had studied with him at Curtis in the 1930’s said, “He played the way he was taught.” In other words, he played with classic French technique, the technique he learned from Hasselmans. His elbows and thumbs were lower, and his hands stayed close to the strings at all times. There are many other harpists, old enough to have either studied with him or who had seen him play, who can attest to this fact.
