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Mildred tended to embellish stories or incidents. That’s just the way she was. So I wouldn’t take any of that literally.
Nancy- Somewhere I have one or two of Mildred’s Christmas letters too. I got put on her list in the last year or two of her life. They are several pages long. I would love it if you could put one or two of them up here. If that’s not too much work. If you can mail me a photocopy I would be willing to type them in here. They are a fascinating look into her world.
I emailed earthlink, but they said they don’t have access to that. Is it possible that a computer geek could go into my computer and find it? If not, at least I was able to retrieve one.
Kreig- That occurred to me after reading Patricia’s email. I went into Sent messages(which I never delete) and got the address of one of them at least. I think I deleted the other one before responding to her. In addition, she was someplace in asia.
Patricia- The problem is that I got both of these emails in the past two weeks and just last week went through all my emails and deleted probably 1,000 emails and then emptied the delete folder. I may contact a computer retrieval service and see if they can recover deleted files.
Yes, I’m addicted too. And I’ll tell you something else. I love the heated discussions that come up once in a while, especially between me and Saul. You might think that Saul and I hate each others guts. But we’re friends and talk on the phone occasionally. It’s just that we disagree about some things, which makes for some of the livelier discussions here.
Bernhard- I agree with you entirely. Given what the pedal harp has to do, and how dependable it is, it would be very difficult to come up with a better system. And Saul, I agree totally with you too. The Wurlitzer action was the best action design ever, bar none. By the time Wurlitzer started building harps(because the original Lyon & Healy patents had expired) Lyon & Healy had been building harps for almost 20 years. Wurlitzer hired their head technician and I suspect it was he who improved the Lyon & Healy design. It’s so sad that they did not continue to build harps.
Here’s a little more information about the summer course in Nice. I asked Emmanuel a few questions about the course, and this is what he wrote back.
The age of the students ranges from 14 to 30. But all students must play at a high level. Each student has a practice room with a harp for 3 hours a day (they organize their schedules amongst themselves). They work on whatever pieces they want. It can be either repertoire or orchestra parts or a concerto.
Students coming to this summer course should have at least 3 different works prepared(learned and memorized), totaling 20 to 25 minutes of music. The students each week can decide if they want to focus on specific pieces of music. It’s organized with the teacher when the week starts.
The best students will be chosen to play one piece in an afternoon public concert at the conservatoire the day before the end of the week. Every student gets at least 3 hours with the teacher in private (or 2 hours private+1hour group session). It can be more depending on the teacher’s schedule. There can be a masterclass if the students show an interest in a particular work. Once again it’s up to them.
One of the major harp makers just called me and told me that someone told him that my business is up for sale. It is not. It didn’t occur to me when I put the above post that people would think I was selling my business. I am not. I’m very busy with pedal harp repairs and building and plan on continuing that.
There’s a wonderful play about Florence Foster Jenkins called Souvenir. Try to see it if you get a chance. It was on Broadway about 4 years ago and I saw it there. Then there was a local (professional) production in Boston which in some ways was better than the Broadway production.
Good teaching does not require demeaning or making fun of the way other harpists play. I had 4 teachers in my student years, and not one of them ever denigrated other schools of playing.
I never criticized Joshes technique, nor what he was teaching on the video. What I did criticize was his taking the time to make snide remarks about how ‘other’ harpists play, and then to represent that wrongly.
A good teacher focuses exclusively on teaching a student technique that works. From watching the video, it seems that Josh is more concerned with communicating that what he does is better than other methods of playing.
