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Balfour- You’ve inspired me to take a crack at it. I told my editor at Carl Fischer when he asked me to do this, that I’m not a composer. I don’t pretend to be. But then I told him that I thought a version for chorus with harp accompaniment would be nice. The only chorus version they now have is a cappella. So I made my arrangement from that, and only changed the choral part slightly. What I quickly learned is that the piece is so relentlessly fast that the harp part has to be very simple, without any busy work. After I had arranged the first couple of pages and then tried it out, I started eliminating a lot of stuff I had put in. I had a harpist friend look it over and she took more stuff out. But I think what we have sounds good. A solo harp arrangement is going to have many of the same issues.
Balfour- Are you talking about the Carol of the Bells? My editor at Carl Fischer Music has been on my case to make an arrangement of that for solo harp. I just made an arrangement for SATB chorus with harp accompaniment. They’re reviewing it now. Don’t know if it will get published or not. The reason for their interest in that particular song is that Carl Fischer owns the copyright to it!
By the way, my new edition of the Debussy Danses is now out and available, published by Carl Fischer Music. If you’re in the market for that piece, you should check it out. Go to my web site. http://www.swansonharp.com, to see a sample page.
I just tried emailing you and it bounced back. I tried a second time and I’m waiting now to see what happens. Could you email me at: swanharp@earthlink.net? Here’s the message I sent you:
<span style=”color: #000000; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;”>I am in Boston Massachusetts. So the spruce is here. It’s currently being stored about an hour from me. I need to go pick it up sometime soon. I can get an exact count of the number of sheets and the exact width as well. Once I have the dimensions, I can also get a price for sending it to you. I’m not looking to make a lot of money on this. I just want it to go to someone who can use it. It’s gorgeous veneer, from the same company that I get my veneer for pedal harps. It was initially bought in the 1990’s when I had my company that made pedal and lever harps. So it has been sitting around for probably 20 years.</span><br style=”color: #000000; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;” /><br style=”color: #000000; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;” /><span style=”color: #000000; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;”>Carl Swanson</span>
If I understand you correctly, the lever is not correctly lined up with the string, causing the string to first catch on the edge of the lever and then to slide into the groove. You have to loosen the screw or screws that hold the lever mechanism to the neck and reposition the lever so that the groove is exactly lined up with the string. Then tighten the screws back down again. That should take care of the problem.
I agree. Paul is the person to contact. The problem, as you describe it, is that the spring stud-the post that one arm of the spring is attached to- got bent, causing the spring to flip towards the body that way. The solution is to carefully bend the stud in the opposite direction. But you don’t want to break the stud, or loosen it where it is screwed into the wood. So call Paul. You don’t want to fool with this.
Loonatik- Actually I have. But not in the way that you are thinking. It was a horrifying event. A very good professional harpist who is gone now God rest her soul, was playing a concerto with orchestra, and about 45 seconds into the orchestra introduction, just at the point where she should have started playing, she suffered a cerebral aneurism! I saw the video of the event and even though I knew what was coming, it made me sick. She was sitting in profile to the audience at the edge of the stage. She had just pulled the harp back against her shoulder and raised her arms to start playing. Then, it was like an inflatable doll had sprung a leak. Her head slowly sank down onto her chest, her arms just slowly descended to her sides, and she and the harp fell over backwards. She hit the floor like a log and lay there unconscious while there was total chaos around her. Within maybe two minutes medics were there putting her on a stretcher. They took her off to the hospital and she had surgery to repair the damage. She completely recovered from the event and lived many years longer in good health. It was only a year later that her doctor told her that of all of the people that have cerebral hemorrhages, half die right then and there. Of the remaining half that make it to the hospital, half of those die in surgery. Of the ones who survive the surgery, half of those have some sort of compromise(paralysis, speech loss, etc.). She was one of the very lucky few who completely recover.
Gretchen- I just took a look at those etudes(20 melodies en form d’etude). They look interesting. I didn’t know about them.
Salzedo is a strange character when it comes to pedagogy. He of course studied with Hasselmans at the Paris Conservatory, and so played lots of etudes in his student days. But he never taught etudes, and really disparaged them, to the great loss of his students and his followers. Etudes are just so important to technical development.
Hi Gretchen- Yes, I do have them. The file is sitting right on my desktop. I just looked through them again. You’re right, they do treat both hands equally. But of course they are exercises, not etudes. Exercises, which are simply patterns of notes in different combinations, are good for coordination, and they certainly have their place. But my personal feeling is that that place is limited. Etudes are more like pieces of music, and use the pattern of that etude in a variety of ways and in larger areas of the instrument then most exercises. Also, exercises can get real boring real fast. So their use in learning technique is limited.
There’s a place in the U.K. called The Harp Studio that carries both Bochsa books (Lever and pedal editions). I don’t know what they sell for there. In the U.S. they are sold at many places for $35 plus shipping. To ship one book to you in the U.K. would cost about $13 additional. So if you want to order it from someone in the U.S., that may be the cheapest way.
I haven’t recorded any of them. Maybe I’ll ask my student to record a couple and put them up.
Are you specifically looking for a lever harp version of the Bochsa? The original Bochsa 40 easy etudes won’t work on lever harp. You can’t imagine how much work it was to adapt them for lever harp. But they work really well. The book is something like $35, and consists of over 80 pages of music, with an additional 12 pages of text about how to practice. In addition, all of the etudes and etude variations have all of the lever changes(or pedal changes in the pedal version) included, and each etude is engraved over 2 pages instead of 1 the way all other versions of these etudes are printed. That makes them much easier to read.
Patricia- I didn’t know about those etudes. Thanks for letting us know about them. What level of difficulty are they? Are they about the same level as Bochsa’s 40 easy etudes? Also, given the period in which they were written, are they mostly for the right hand? That was the biggest issue that I had with the Bochsa. While they are wonderful etudes with a lot of variation to the patterns, they are mostly right hand etudes, and that is the main reason I wrote each etude-variation. The etude-variation shifts all of the technical material in the original etude into the left hand.
It amazes me, when looking at all those etudes written in the 19th century, how they are for the most part right hand etudes. I currently have a very gifted student studying with me, and I’m taking her through the last set of 50 etudes by Bochsa(again, because I like the variety of patterns). But so many of those are right hand etudes as well. So very often, after she has learned the etude the way it is written, I have her work on it for another week or two playing the right hand part with the left hand. I recently looked at the Dizi etudes at the suggestion of a friend of mine. She had studied all of them at the Paris Conservatory under Jacqueline Borot. Again, every single one is a right hand etude, with virtually nothing for the left hand to do.
Allegra- It’s étude number 20 from Bochsa’s 40 Easy Etudes, Op. 318. That one is one of the few that can be played on lever harp with no adaptation. I haven’t got the music in front of me, but I think there are two lever changes in the whole piece, and each one at the end of a section of music. My edition, called Bochsa Revisited, ends with this etude and a companion etude variation. So there are 19 other original etudes and additional etude variations in the book as well. I don’t know where you are, but you can get Bochsa Revisited for lever harp(and a separate volume for pedal harp) at numerous places in the United States. It’s published by Carl Fischer Music. If you are in Europe, I know that Camac sells it, and probably Magasin de la Harpe in Paris as well.
David- I think that’s wonderful! That’s a lot of work and a big contribution to all harpists.
May I make one suggestion though. Try to make your pedal markings as big and as thick and black as space permits. I think that the major reason that harpists don’t like having the pedals printed in the music, aside from the fact that often they are wrong, is that they are printed in a typeface too small and thin to see easily. Carl Fischer Music just published my new edition of the Debussy Danses, with ALL the pedals marked in, and the pedal letters are 3/16 of an inch tall(which doesn’t sound like much, but is huge on the page). The letters are also thick(like bold typeface I guess) and that makes them very easy to see.
This is not exactly a followup to Karen’s original post, except that it is also a comment on a past article. In the issue before the current one, the issue with Suzanne McDonald on the cover, there is an article on one handed trills, in which Heidi Hernandez says: “Salzedo technique allows for wrist oscillation, where Grandjany calls for a stationery wrist and only closing of the fingers.”
First off, the opposite of Salzedo technique is NOT Grandjany technique. Grandjany would be horrified to hear his name attached to a school of playing. He did not attach his name to the way he played and taught the way Salzedo did. He was a disciple of the French school of playing and saw himself as one of many teachers of that school of playing. Secondly, to say that his method of playing calls for a stationery wrist and only closing of the fingers is flatly wrong. So please Miss Hernandez, if you are asked to explain a point of technique in the future, just explain how you do it and leave it at that. There is no need for remarks about any school of playing.
Another comment that I have is that the article did not fully explain all of the ways to play a one handed trill(one was left out) and the reasons for them.
There are 4 ways to play a one handed trill. The first is simply 1-2-1-2-1-2 etc. This is the most difficult and in Renie’s Method book she admits that some people can do it and some can’t. The second way is to alternate 2 and 3. So the fingering would be 2-1-3-1-2-1-3-1-2-1-3-1 etc. This is the way most of us who can’t do the first way do it. I can do a presentable one handed trill with this fingering. The third way is to use all 4 fingers, with a fingering of 4-3-2-1-4-3-2-1 etc. 4 plays the lower note and 3 plays the upper one. Then 2 plays the string 4 had played, and 1 plays the string 3 had played. If you go to youtube you can see Mildred Dilling doing this one brilliantly in the Zabel La Source. The last way, which was not mentioned in the article, is to brace the thumb on the next string above the upper of the two notes to be trilled and then strum the two notes 2-2-3-3-2-2-3-3-2-2-3-3 etc. I asked Xavier de Maistre to give me a lesson in one handed trill years ago when he stayed at my house. He told me he couldn’t do a one handed trill! This was right after winning the USA competition with the Boildieu Concerto!! He said that he had done all those first movement trills with the strumming technique. He then did it for me. It was gorgeous.
The queen of one handed trills is Janna Boscova, and she uses all of these techniques depending on where they are and what’s going on around them. So anyone who wants to really add one handed trills to their technique should learn all of these ways of playing them.
