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Janelle- That certainly is a good idea. But our chapter is not that active at the moment, and I want to get rid of all this clutter. I’ll let someone else do that if they want with what I send them.
Elizabeth- The original edition would in all likelyhood not have had any pedals written in. Is it the pedal marking that is missing or the # sign next to the note?
Sylvain-My harp at the moment is at the house of another harpist, a very good friend of mine. I don’t have the number in front of me. But Francis Darigrand looked it up for me and told me that it was sold on May 6, 1892. It must have come directly to the United States and was played very little or not at all, and then spent the next 100 years in the wood trunk in storage. Because when I got it, it was clean, not as if someone had cleaned it, but as if it had not gotten dirty. The pedals had no wear at all, and the pedal slots showed no sign of use. The soundboard was tabletop flat. All of the decoration was there and in perfect condition, and there was no wear at all on the body where the hands touch the instrument. M. Darigrand told me that it was a special model, one of only 5 or 6 that I believe he said were slightly shorter than their standard model at the time. Don’t hold me to that. i may have misunderstood him.
I’m hoping to come to Paris in late March or April(or May). Not sure yet. I’ll contact you in advance to see when you’ll be there. In case you don’t know, I spent 3 years living in Paris many many years ago, studying with Pierre Jamet.
Another update- I’m getting swamped by requests for this music. I had no idea there would be so much interest. I will try this week to collect everything I’ve got together in one place and then start filling orders in the order they came in. I’ll keep you posted.
Well Sylvain- How nice to hear from you. I’m surprised it took so long for you to find and read these posts. You’re a wonderful harpist and I look forward to the next CD. I still have to get this one, which I have not done yet.
J’espere pouvoir vous rencontre a Paris a ma prochaine visite. J’espere que nous pouvons boire un coup ensemble. Votre connaisance de la harpe Erard m’interesse beaucoup. J’ai achete il y a 4 ans un Erard fabrique en 1892 en etat parfait(et jamais restaurait!). J’espere qu’un jour vous pouvais le voir.
Amicalement
Carl Swanson
Here’s an update on this post. I just received a long very informative private email from a reader here who suggested selling the music by the pound, and selling it basically sight unseen. In other words, you could buy 5 pounds of music at $7 per pound plus shipping cost and then go through the music when you get it and see what you’ve got. I’m not going to sort through to find specific titles or specific types of music for you. You’d be taking pot luck on what’s in the box. But if you do any teaching at all, or play the usual gigs(weddings, background,etc.) there will be plenty of stuff that you can use or pass on to your students. The woman who wrote me said she has bought music in bulk this way and then sold individual pieces on ebay. I haven’t got time or the interest in dealing with individual pieces or ebay. So someone else is welcome to do it. So I’m willing to sell music at $7 a pound with a 5 pound minimum and shipping costs extra, and if you buy 10 pounds or more in one order the price per pound drops to $5. Trust me, that will give you a lot of music at a deeply discounted rate.
The size of the room is probably the reason the humidity isn’t higher. If the humidifier is the type that puts out ‘invisible’ humidified air(in other words, not steam or visible vapor) then you can put it right next to the harp and let it blow on the instrument. It won’t leave condensation or hurt the instrument. The humidity is going to be highest close to the humidifier, and dissipate pretty quickly as you get farther away.
You’re doing all the right things. 40% to 60% is ideal, but 29% is not that bad. It’s better than 5% or 8%, which is what it would be without any humidification at all. Maybe you could try hanging your laundry to dry in the harp room!
Kay- I’ll try to make up a list over the next month or so. I ended up with a lot of this stuff because every time I bought a harp, there was a box of music to go with it. I’m in the mood to start a big time clean out of everything I don’t use and am never going to use. I may list it on my web site.
Kay- Do people sell harp music on ebay?? I must have the equivalent of 8 or 10 boxes of music I’ve inherited over the years that I don’t want. A lot of it is music that I already have. Some is pop music or classical that I’m never going to play. I’d love to see it go to someone who can use it. I’m going to have to learn to sell stuff on ebay.
I think Julietta is on the right track. It’s not enough to simply say, “This part is unplayable!” That will probably make you, the musician, look like a self-centered jerk. But if you cite half a dozen specific reasons or places where the part just doesn’t work, and emphasize that these are just a sampling of the problems in the part, then you might get your message across. Along with the citing of those examples, I would then tell the composer that it will take a number of hours to edit the part and your fee for that will be X per hour, you might then not only get the job of playing the part, but also an added fee for the editing process.
Musicians are paid little enough already. To add hours and hours of editing the part to the process without being paid is unreasonable. You’d make more money per hour cleaning houses.
