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Jenny- If you’re going to practice this piece, sit with the music at the kitchen table(away from the harp) and count the beats aloud while you sing or tap the rhythm of the notes. When you can do that, then go to the harp and again, counting aloud, count the beats while you play the notes. You might count aloud and just play the melody until the rhythm feels secure. Do this at whatever tempo you can do it correctly, no matter how slow that is.
I first heard this piece played by Emily Mitchell on an opening recital at a harp conference years ago and loved it. Many years later I finally took the time to learn it. I found I was constantly sticking an extra beat in or taking a beat out without realizing it. I would practice a page and then when I went back to it the next day realize I had altered the rhythm. I called Emily just to vent my frustration and to see if she had any suggestions. She burst into gales of laughter and said that she had had exactly the same experience when she learned the piece. “That piece does not want to be in 5” she said. She told me that she would practice a section of the piece and then take it to her lesson with Marissa Robles who would then point out how she wasn’t playing the rhythm correctly. So you’re not the first person to have problems with the rhythm of this piece.
There are two things that make the Guiridi more difficult to learn. One is the fact that it is in 5/8(or is it 5/4?), whatever, and let me tell you, that piece does not like to be in 5. If you do choose to learn it, be extremely careful that you in fact have 5 beats in each measure.
The second thing that makes it difficult is the fact that it was not written by a harpist. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a wonderful piece, and I’ve used it on concerts many times. But there’s an awkwardness to the piece that will always be there, no matter how well you know it. I’ve never played the Petit Suite. But since it was written by a very fine harpist, I suspect that it fits the hand much better.
Elizabeth- Did you slap your knee hard every time you screamed s%#t because of the difficulty of the music? Maybe that’s the reason it hurts.
Elizabeth- I agree with everything you say. The point to me is, gestures and body language/movement on any instrument are very personal and vary from one player to another. For some players(again, on any type of instrument) it is part of their “getting into the music” and helps them find the core of the music. For that reason alone, I don’t see how gestures can be taught, or insisted upon as being a part of a school of technique.
The people who raise-and you know who you are-often explain it as a way of “relaxing.” Years ago I was at a harp conference and there was a workshop by a doctor who specialized in sports and musicians injuries. In the question and answer session towards the end of the lecture, one young woman explained how her teacher had taught her to raise as a way of relaxing the hands and arms. The doctor listened politely and then calmly explained that if the hands and arms were relaxing, they would drop to the player’s sides, not raise up.
Sylvia- You really really should work from a contract. Without one you have nothing to fall back on for that 1 out of 200 clients-from-hell. You can always stray from the contracted conditions as you did on this overtime gig. But at least you would have some kind of structure when it is called for. Sooner or later you’re going to have a client who is going to walk all over you and without a contract you’re at their mercy. Also, if you ever have to take a client to court to get paid, you won’t have a leg to stand on without a contract.
You’re absolutely right Tony. The soundboard,i.e., the material it is made of and the dimensions it is worked to, is only one of many factors that affect the sound and how it is projected. All of the other things you mentioned are, to one degree or another, contributing factors. The one item that is always left out of any of these discussions about sound is the person playing the instrument. That is far and away the most important factor in the type of sound the instrument projects. It is also the most important factor in how the sound develops in a new instrument. A harpist with a beautiful full rich sound will make any instrument sound good and sound different from another harpist who is incapable of creating that kind of sound.
Have you tried Geraldine McMahon? Her web site is http://www.affairsoftheharp.com
You might look for a gilder or antiques restorer who could patch in the damaged area with bronze powders and then tone it to match the surrounding area.
What hasn’t been mentioned at all so far, concerning the tone that an instrument produces, is the ability of the harpist playing it. I’m not talking about virtuosity or level at which the harpist plays, but rather simply the way an individual harpist prepares and then plucks the string. To me, that is overwhelmingly the most important factor concerning the sound of the instrument. Everything else comes in a distant second to that.
I’m not picky at all about the sound of one instrument or another or for that matter about one brand of string or another because the way I sound when I play any harp comes primarily from how I play the instrument. For this reason, whenever I have an instrument for sale and I get questions about its sound, I always tell the potential buyer that they have to come and try the instrument out for themselves. I can vouch for the structural integrity of the instrument, but I never get involved with issues of sound, because everyone has their own concept of good and bad sound, and everyone produces a slightly different sound on the same instrument.
I just received a long email from Basel. At first I was going to just paste the whole thing here. But I’m afraid that information in there could put him and his family at risk. All I’ll say here is that he and his family are now safe. They managed to get out of Homs, but had to leave everything behind. Basel of course is terrified that all his music and his two beautiful Venus harps will be gone or destroyed when he can finally return. But at least he is safe now. He said that he couldn’t get anyone to move the harps because it would have drawn attention to them and they could have been shot. Let’s hope that the place where he is now will stay safe.
Tacye- I’m sure that the theory you are talking about, from a purely scientific standpoint, is correct. But the differences in the string angle from one make of harp to another, or the changing string angle as the soundboard pulls up over time, do not I believe have a significant effect on the sound of the instrument.
I know from my experience as a harp builder and repairer that there are many factors that contribute to the sound of a harp, the soundboard being only one. The thickness of the soundboard, whether it is veneered or not, whether it is tapered center to side as well as bottom to top, and of course the type of wood used, are all contributing factors. But then there is the overall weight of the instrument, the shape and size of the pedestal, the thickness and weight of the neck. All of these things contribute as well to the sound. I was just making the point that a pedal harp builder is concerned first and foremost that the action be able to produce exact half step increases when it is engaged.
Even there most of the harp manufacturers of the last 130 years made mistakes in their engineering calculations. They worked out the pure theory in terms of scientific calculation, where the discs had to be positioned in order to get these half step changes. But none of them accounted for the increased pressure of the disc engaging with the string, nor for the immediate shortening of the overall string length on a brand new harp when it is pulled up to tension and the neck warps down and the soundboard up.
There are two elements that contribute to the pitch of the string when the action is engaged: The distance that the string is shortened when the disc engages, and the amount of pressure the disc exerts on the string. At the bass end of the instrument, the added pressure of the disc has almost no effect. But at the treble end it has an enormous effect. When regulating the strings in the 1st and 2nd octaves, often the adjustments are made entirely by adjusting the amount of pressure the disc exerts on the string.
So I come back full circle to the original point of my post: that the maker of an instrument must, above and beyond anything else, have an action that works for the string lengths on the instrument, OR, that he has string lengths that will work for the action he has built. If he hasn’t got that correctly worked out, nothing else matters.
