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Well, it just happened again. I was at a concert of Thomas Hampson and a string quartet. As he was about to start a song, some old bag’s cell phone went off, with a loud Rumba kind of beat no less!!! It took her a minute to find the phone(it always does). Then, less than 30 seconds later, her companion’s phone went off! The audience groaned, and the woman directly in front of the two offenders(both women, both in their 70’s) told them to get out. They left. During all of this, Thomas Hampson simply walked around the stage waiting for it to end. I wanted to stand up an apologize to him, but I was afraid that people would think that I was the offender.
Rudeness and lack of consideration are nothing new. My aunt Margaret, who died last year at 93, wen to the Metropolitan Opera to see all of the productions each season, from 1939 to 1966. She told me that when the performance was of an Italian or French opera, there was noticeable talking in the auditorium, people would arrive late, etc. When the production was a German opera, you could hear a pin drop. There was total silence, and everyone was in their seat on time. The audience for German opera was always better behaved.
Dearest Kim and others- I wasn’t making an accusation. I was asking a question based on the experiences I had had. I can’t say I’m glad to hear stories of male owned phones going off inappropriately. It’ awful no matter who the owner is. There is equipment that can block cell phone signals over different size areas(50 feet, 100 feet, and more). But for the moment it is illegal. I’m sincerely hoping the day will come, soon, when it will be standard in theaters and concert halls.
Oh my God Donna! Your post has triggered my rage over cell phones. My partner is a critic in Boston(goggle The Hub Review. That’ him). We go to many live performances during the season: plays, opera, ballet, period instrument orchestra, celebrity performers, etc. You get the picture. I could go on all day about the cell phone incidents that have made me want to kill someone at a performance. Here are a few: At a Dawn Upshaw recital two years ago, an old bag in a designer suite MADE A CALL during one of the encores to tell her chauffeur to come pick her up. She was two rows directly behind me. I decided that when the encore was over and the applause started, I was going to let this woman have it. When I turned around to scream at her, the woman directly behind me(and directly in front of the offender) said to me “How much will you pay me to punch her in the nose??” A number of times, people have turned their cell phones on during intermission and then neglected to turn them off when the second half started. One time a woman next to me had her phone go off in the first half of a concert and again in the second half! People text during performances as well, which if very annoying and distracting.
I was talking to my partner about this again last night and I’m going to say something here which is probably going to anger many of you. But when I think of all of the times that a phone has gone off during a performance, when someone has been talking(and talking, and talking) during a performance until I have to tell them to stop, when someone is texting during a performance, when someone is eating M & M’s from a crinkly bag during a performance, it is always, always a woman who is doing it. It’s never a man. Now, I’d like an explanation as to why that is…
Elizabeth- I have to disagree with you on Salzedo’s solution to the pedal nightmare. He completely eliminates the left hand, and then eliminates critical notes in the right hand part(now divided between left and right hands) so that the diminished harmony is lost. The Jamet solution-which he may possibly have gotten from Renie- leaves out only one note in the sequence, and the pedals, while fast, are not difficult.
I didn’t know that Fabrice Pierre had made his own edition. I wonder what he changed from the Renie edition. The original of course was written for the Chromatic harp. So Renie had to make some changes to make it playable on pedal harp. The worst section of the piece is the pedal nightmare in the second dance. I published an article on this several years ago in the AHS Journal, showing 3 versions of the pedal nightmare that Renie had made, and one made by Pierre Jamet, which is the one that works best. If you need a copy of that, email me privately and I’ll email it to you.
It’s true that some harps produce better harmonics than others. I’m not talking brands, just individual instruments. I think that nylon strings generally produce better harmonics than gut. Maybe others can comment on that. In any event, the trick is to find the middle of the string to place the heal of your hand or knuckle, and then, when you pluck the string, get off it as quickly as possible. You wanna see a harmonics nightmare? Look at the first (full) page of the Parish-Alvars Serenade! The left hand is playing two and sometimes three harmonics simultaneously! I nearly got tendonitis practicing that.
Sylvia- I don’t do gigs, so I’m not making the following comments from personal experience. But as a technician/ regulator/ rebuilder who talks to a lot of harpists(A LOT) the complaint I most often hear from harpists I chat with is that when they hand work they can’t take to someone else, that someone else never reciprocates. I can’t tell you how many harpists I’ve had tell me that they have given so-and-so several gigs, but have never received a job or referral from that person. So I’d be careful. I think I would also keep a score sheet for my own use. When you give a job to someone else, write down the details(date, type of gig, amount, and who you gave it to). Also write down the same details when someone gives you a gig. Then look over that list after a year or two and see how it all adds up. You may find that some of the people you handed jobs to do reciprocate and others don’t. You can then decide who it is worth working with. Also, armed with that list, if any harpist complains to you that you no longer give them work, you can answer back with the information on that list.
The other complaint I have heard over and over again is that, if there are a number of harpists working in one area, there is always one who will charge 1/4 or 1/3 of what everyone else will just to get the job. That person is never NEVER going to give work to someone else. So I think I would try to develop a list of harpists to hand work to who are going to reciprocate and who are not going to undercut you. Just my thoughts from observations.
I’m curious to know how you would react if someone wrote to you asking you questions about repairing a violin(to sell no less) that clearly indicated that they didn’t know what they were doing. That’s what your post indicates to me. You don’t know anything about harp repair. You’re going to do a major repair on it and certainly get a whole bunch of things wrong. And then, you’re going to sell it. And at some point down the road, the buyer is going to bring the instrument to me or some other repairman and ask me or them why it has problems and what it will take to fix it. If you are a competent violin repairman, I would think you would cringe at the idea of an amateur repairing a violin. Well, that’s my reaction to your post.
I agree with Catherine. I would add that any technician trying to find and fix this is going to go through his shopping list of possible sources until, hopefully, he finds it. There are two things you should consider. One, the source of the buzz may be right where you hear it. In other words, It could be the string or the stationary nut it is leaning on. Two, the source of the buzz could be someplace else on the harp, anyplace, but sound like it’s coming from the string. In that case, it could be a pedal cap screw, a string knot on the underside of the soundboard, etc. I would suggest you start closest to where the buzz sounds like it is coming from and work outward from there. It might be where the string leans against the stationary nut. So try loosening the string enough to put a layer or two of paper towel(very very small) between the string and the nut and then tune up the string again. Did that get rid of it, or at least change it? If not, start looking elsewhere. It would help to have a helper, with one of you sitting at the harp playing the string and the other going around touching and/or pressing on one thing or another. If touching something changes the buzz, then you are probably getting closer to the source. 99%
of the job of fixing buzzes is finding what is causing them. Once you’ve done that, the fix is easy.Lynn- Of course the student should be enjoying the lesson and the pieces she is playing. Especially a 7 year old child. But just like my posting about etudes and technique elsewhere on this site, it is important to instill good habits early. The longer bad habits are left in place the harder it is to change them. I wouldn’t suggest spending a whole lesson on theory. How about using the piece that the student wants to learn as the basis for the theory lesson? On the day the piece is assigned, the teacher could talk through the piece with the student, quizzing her on the rhythm, pointing out notes at random and asking her to play or say the note, etc. so that by the time the student takes the piece home to practice, she has a pretty fair idea of how it is put together, AND, she has had her theory lesson on that piece.
Oh Alison- Make absolutely sure that this kid learns to read both clefs easily. Work mostly on that until she gets it, and then go back to learning to play the instrument. If you don’t, she will invent her own “method” for figuring out lines and spaces, and it will bring her to a complete halt later on. I had a student a few years ago who came to me after 3 years of piano lessons. Oh good, I thought, she can read music. I can focus entirely on teaching her to play the harp. WRONG!!!! Her piano teacher I don’t think had ever taken the time to make this kid memorize and instantly identify the lines and spaces. So she was figuring out the notes by counting up from the bottom each time. I tried working with her on it. But she had done it for so long that that was her default position. I finally passed her on to another harp teacher who’s specialty, and career, was spent teaching theory and solfege. I understand she’s doing better now.
Just an additional thought on this subject. We keep talking about “correct” technique. But what is correct technique? What is the difference between correct and incorrect technique?
Correct technique is any technique that allows you to play any note at any speed at any dynamic. When you are first learning to play the harp, you are playing things that are slow, easy, and mostly in the middle of the instrument. You can have a lot of wasted or inefficient motion, your fingers can pull any way at all, and in short you can get away with murder, because the pieces are slow, easy, and in an octave or two in the middle of the harp. But your teacher, if he or she is good, will use this time to make you use your fingers, hands, and arms in a way that will work for harder pieces that use more of the instrument. Your teacher should be a drill sergeant who insists that you use a technique at this beginner level that will work for anything that you will ever play. You shouldn’t have to modify or alter your technique as you move into harder repertoire because what you were doing at a lower level doesn’t work now. So if you use exercises or etudes to improve your technique, you will only achieve that goal by working with a teacher who can teach you the correct way to play each etude.
It’s great that you want to improve your technique and that you are aware of exercises and etudes. Those are a wonderful way of improving technique. HOWEVER, they are only a format for improving your technique, and are useless without a teacher who can use them to guide you. Simply playing etudes and/or etudes without the guidance of a teacher is pointless, and could even do more harm than good. That’s because, without a teacher, you could as easily learn bad habits as well as good. The etude or exercise will not teach you good technique. Only your teacher can do that, using etudes or exercises as the medium.
