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Biagio- Very thoughtful response, which I agree with entirely. The bottom line is: A negative approach to anything is non-productive and makes the recipient perform worse, not better. I could go on for hours with examples to illustrate this. This doesn’t mean that the teacher has to lower his/her standards. it simply means framing the teaching in a positive rather than negative light.
The saddest case of this concerns a relatively recent winner(1st prize!!) of a major harp competition. She was a child prodigy and enormously talented. But her mother sat next to her every time she practiced, and if she did something wrong or made a mistake, would hit her! A friend of mine who knew her and her story told me this. A few years after winning the competition, the girl entered a convent, giving up the harp! You can see videos on youtube of this incredible girl playing, and she’s truly astonishing. What a sad ending…
Elizabeth- I just heard back from my friend. Here’s what she sent me.
Found it !
it’s the 3rd bar, page 8
Bernard wants the left hand to muffle the F octave before the pedal changes from natural to flat.I hope that makes sense and answers your question.
Elizabeth- I just had a French couple staying with me the last 4 days, and the wife studied with Bernard Andres and knows him well. I just emailed your post to her. Hopefully she will know what it means. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear something.
You didn’t say what the notes are above the muffling sign. But I’m wondering if he means for you to muffle specific notes, possibly while playing, rather than just a flat hand muffle.
Jerusha- You’re so sweet!! I hope you enjoy the book and get a lot of use out of it.
My editor at Carl Fischer told me today that the lever harp edition should be released next Monday or Tuesday. If that’s the case, then it will be available for purchase at all the usual places-Amazon.com, sheetmusicplus.com, swansonharp.com, Vanderbilt, Lyon & Healy, hopefully Melody Music and Sylvia Woods- the first or second week of December. Just in time for Christmas!!!
To everyone interested in the new Bochsa Revisited: I just got an email from a lever harpist who is anxious to get the lever version. She said that she had looked at the samples of the pedal version on my web site, http://www.swansonharp.com, and that they all looked playable on lever harp. So she asked me if she should wait for the lever version or just get the pedal version now.
Most of the differences between the pedal and lever versions occur later in each etude and etude variation, and the differences at times are substantial. I can’t tell you how much time it took to arrange all 20 original etudes and 20 etude variations for lever harp. Thank God Judy Ross was there to help me. She plays both lever and pedal harp, but more importantly, she knows everything there is to know about harmony and theory. The lever version has all of the lever flips written in, just as the pedal version has all of the pedal changes written in. So if you are a lever harpist, wait for the lever edition to come out, hopefully in about 2 to 3 weeks.
Rachel- Thank you so much for your interest in this.I will let you know as soon as I get some copies of the lever harp edition. I was planning on contacting Melody about this. If there are other places where the lever harp players buy their music, then let me know and I’ll contact them too. Strictly speaking, marketing is not my job at Carl Fischer Music. But it does no good to have them send an announcement out to their 1500 distributors if none of those places are where harpists buy their music. So I’ve unofficially given myself the job of helping get the word out on these harp publications, to the places where harpists shop. The pedal edition of Bochsa Revisited is already up on http://www.amazon.com and http://www.sheetmusicplus.com, as well as my own web site, http://www.swansonharp.com. It should be available at Lyon & Healy and Vanderbilt as well. In Europe, I believe it is available at Magasin de la Harpe in Paris and CAMAC too.
Rachel- Cynthia Artish has already volunteered to review it. In fact, she’s seen the second galleys and loves it. You’ll have to fill me in on the Yahoo harplist. I’m a caveman when it comes to getting around online. If there is something that I could put up there then let me know, and also tell me how to do it! My main concern is just getting word out that the two volumes exist(Bochsa Revisited for pedal harp, and BR for lever harp). It does no good at all to have a major music publisher like Carl Fischer Music publish music for harp if it is just going to sit on the store shelf because no one knows its there.
I tried uploading the cover for the lever harp edition here but I can’t figure out how to do it. Oh well…
Jerusha- So nice to hear that you ordered it. I hope you like it. I just finished proofing the final galleys for the lever harp edition of this book. My editor at Carl Fischer Music said he thinks it might be ready for distribution around November 20. I’ll let everyone know here when it is out.
Elinor- What great advice! I think that if I were to teach any adult who was just starting out, my first question would be “What do you want to play?” In other words, do they want to play folk tunes, pop tunes, religious music, classical? Once I had a picture of what they liked musically, and what motivated them to start harp lessons, my goal would be to help them achieve that. I would not use the standard classic technical approach on them. It would just be way too frustrating, for them and for me.
Bianca- It’s nice to hear that you found the Bochsa 40 easy etudes useful. They’re a great way to learn technique. You can find my new edition of them, which is sooooooooo much easier to read, and which has all of the pedals already written in, by going to http://www.amazon.com, http://www.sheetmusicplus.com, or http://www.swansonharp.com and typing in Bochsa 318.
Patricia- That is absolutely stellar advice. I wish everyone starting the harp would follow it. To anyone who is thinking of starting the harp at whatever age, I say: Find the teacher first and have a long talk with him/her about what you want to do, what you should get for an instrument, and then rent for a while to see if everything is going to work out as you had hoped.
Biagio- I will let everyone here know. I’m proofing the final galleys right now. It will hopefully go to the printer next week. I may be wrong, but I don’t think there is anything like this available for lever harp. It’s a wonderful technique building set of etudes that the pedal harpists have been using for the last 200 years.
Lauren- I mentioned this on another thread here recently, but I’ll mention it again here. I have just had a wonderful set of etudes published by Carl Fischer Music. The book is called BOCHSA REVISITED, op. 318, 40 easy etudes. You can go to my web site, http://www.swansonharp.com to read about it. The pedal harp version just came out. The edition for lever harp will be out by the end of November. I promise you, if you spend a little time playing those etudes, everything you play is going to be easier and quicker to learn. Working on technique is the best way to develop speed and agility for everything you want to play.
Elizabeth-If you changed the notes in the Salzedo edition back to the original, do the Salzedo fingerings still work??
Sam Milligan told me a story about a harpist who shall remain nameless who, having gotten all(and I mean all) her training from Salzedo teachers and Salzedo himself, got a Fulbright to study in France with Lilly Laskine. Part way through the year Laskine suggested they work on the Mozart, and the harpist in question, having learned it already with Salzedo, brought that version to her next lesson. Laskine looked at it, flipping through the pages, and then looked up and said “Honey, this isn’t the Mozart!”
