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Fingering is an integral part of overall technique. A virtuoso player like Xavier or Emanuel Ceysson or many others play with speed and fluidity because all 8 fingers work pretty much equally well. They are all capable of controlling dynamics from very soft to very loud, are all equally comfortable in difficult passages, and are for the most part interchangeable in sticky situations.
When I was studying with Bernard Zighera, the principal harpist of the Boston Symphony at the time, he told me to use, as much as possible, the fingers that are closest to the notes, and that’s what I do. I think that some harpists find my fingerings awkward at times, and I think that’s because they have not developed equal dexterity in all 8 fingers. They have stronger fingers, and weaker ones, and so have to come up with fingerings that favor the strong fingers. That’s no way to play advanced repertoire.
It sounds like you are looking for a magic bullet. “If only I could figure out what fingerings they are using, I’d be able to play like them.” It doesn’t work that way. You are going to have to find some way to take a lesson occasionally with a good teacher who can get you where you want to go on the harp. You can’t do it by yourself or with a video.
Basel- There are cheap lever harps being made in Pakistan. You might try to get some of those to start students on.
If you’re having trouble keeping students, then that’s another issue. Look carefully at how you are interacting with the student. Not every student wants to become a professional harpist. Talk to each student and listen carefully to what they say. Ask them what they want to learn. Ask why they decided to study the harp. Maybe they want to play pop tunes, or folk music. If that’s what they want, then go with that. When you are teaching beginners, most of them are frankly not going to be very good or go very far with the instrument. You may get one really talented student every couple of years. Try to find easy pieces that new students can pick up fairly easily and that makes them sound like they can play something. You have to adjust your teaching to fit the student’s desires and needs.
-If you let the bride figure out what she wants to pay, I guarantee you a low fee! –
Karen- I didn’t mean that the bride should pay you what she feels like paying. What I meant was, present your best case-how you play, musical samples, variety of music available, etc. and then let her fish around among the other harpists and see what’s available price and skill-wise. Then she can pick the one that she likes and can afford.
As I write this, I’m tempted to suggest that, as you talk to the bride, you present as your best foot forward what you have to offer. In other words, the variety of music you can offer, the gorgeousness of the arrangements(which not everyone is able to play), your skill at following cues and playing the right music at the right time, the beautiful look of your particular harp, etc. Whatever is going to be of interest to the bride. I would not bring up, as the reason for your fee, the distance traveled, the cost of being a harpist(clothes, harp, insurance, etc.) the amount of time it is going to take to learn Home on the Range or whatever special request she has. She doesn’t care about those things.
-When some one comes to me and ask what I charge for a wedding, I give them my price and the price range they can come to expect to hear in my area. I also tell them that they are being grossely over charge if they hear of $500 to $1000 in my area.-
Onita- Aren’t you doing the same thing in the opposite direction? I commend you for stating your price and also the range of what a bride can expect to find if she calls around. But then your commentary should stop there. If you are bothered by the word ‘cheap’ being used on other musicians, you should also be bothered by ‘grossly over charged’. Let the bride figure out what she wants to pay.
I generally agree with your statement. I have recently started to use Bow Brand lever gauge gut and wire strings on some older instruments and like the effect very much. The feel is of course slightly more “spongy” and you may have to adjust your pull a bit. But there is no loss of sound, and I find that the somewhat lighter tension creates a fuller more articulate sound on the release of the string than higher tension strings. In the end you just have to experiment and see what feels and sounds best on your particular harp.
I think you can use standard gauge nylon strings, because they are much lighter tension than gut anyway. The 4th and 5th octave area of the soundboard is the weakest part of the soundboard, and so a change from standard gauge gut to lever gauge, which run .002″ to .006″ (two thousands to six thousands of an inch) thinner can make a substantial difference in the total pull on this part of the soundboard. The wires are of course the highest tension strings on the instrument, and a change here from standard gauge to lever gauge, a difference of .008″ to .010″(8 thousands to ten thousands of an inch) very substantially reduces the tension.
Remember also that these early soundboards-before 1910- were made to use gut instead of wire for G5 and F5(the modern day first two wire strings). You can tell this by the type of eyelet that is there. If it is a round donut surrounding the hole, like all the eyelets above it, then it was originally a gut string. If it is an ivory disc above the hole, like all the wire string holes below it, then it was originally wire. This too will have an impact on the tension on the board.
Karen- I seem to remember that post. I think I was quoting a local harpist here who used that line, but it still is unfair. I apologize. And you’re probably right. Many of these brides are in fact haggling, or at least trying to haggle, with everyone they deal with. I think everyone that caters to the wedding industry treads a fine line. It is possible to be too expensive and to therefore price yourself out of business. But if you slash your prices, for whatever, for one or two brides, then everyone is going to assume they can get that price too, and you are going to price yourself out of business in the other direction.
-I’ve actually had brides come back to me and tell me that they wish they had paid for me instead.-
The trick Jessica is to get them to realize this BEFORE they hire the other person.
Your post is great and illustrates perfectly the dilemma that all professional harpists are in. Changing public perception is difficult and convincing each prospective client that the quality of your work is so much better than a cheaper harpist is the challenge. Good luck.
Karen- I’m not for a minute suggesting that the music is more important or that the florist is overcharging the wedding. I’m putting the blame on the bride, who is willing to pay $1,000 or more for a dress that she will wear for an hour, or pay whatever the cost of the hall, the limo, etc. is, and then haggle with the muscian when that fee is so much less than everything else she is paying for. And the only reason she is haggling is because it’s someone’s personal ability she’s paying for. She shouldn’t be haggling with anyone. She should simply ask for prices and either accept them or not.
Karen- I’m sure all aspects of the wedding industry are suffering now. But ever since harpists started playing weddings, brides and brides mothers have felt completely comfortable haggling with the harpist over the music fee, when in fact the cost of the harpist is 1) the cheapest item on the final wedding bill and 2) is maybe 1/4 or less of the cost of the next least expensive thing on the bill.
For some reason people 1) hate to pay for other people’s services and 2) feel that they are being robbed or that 3) the price of someone’s services is negotiable. Every working harpist needs to remember this when people whine about the cost of the harp music and try to negotiate. Their complaining comes mostly from the above stated attitudes and not from any real financial need.
I’d like to state this question another way. When you play a job-in this case a wedding, how do you come up with your fee.
The following need to be considered when coming up with this figure:
1) The amount of time out of your day to do this job. You start counting the minute you start to pack everything up in your house and you stop counting when you are back home and completely unloaded. So the time consideration is: packing everything up and loading it into the car, driving to the wedding, unloading everything and setting up(including tuning), playing the wedding(probably 45 minutes to an hour at most), re-packing everything and loading it into the car, driving home, and unloading and unpacking in your house. Even if the church or venue is 10 minutes away, all of this is going to eat up about 4 hours of your day.
2) The cost of doing business: harp, sheet music, strings, amplifier, car, car insurance, gas, clothes, web site, business cards, health insurance.
3) Office time: the time you spend dealing with getting jobs, writing contracts, banking, talking to potential customers, working out wedding details.
4)Being able to put aside enough money to take a vacation every year, to put money away for retirement, and basically earn more than just make end meet.
There may be more but that’s what comes to mind at the moment. Start by figuring out what all of these things cost or how much time they take up. Then ask yourself how much money you realistically want to make a year playing the harp. $50,000? $60,000 or more? Then decide how many gigs you need to do each year to earn that amount. For a gross income of $50,000 on weddings alone, you’d have to play 167 weddings at $300 each to make that amount. If you charge $400 per wedding, you’d have to play 125 weddings, or one every three days all year long.
Looking at it from a different angle, you’d have to gross $1,000 every week for 50 weeks to make $50,000 and have a 2 week vacation. You want $60,000 a year gross? Then you’ll have to gross $1200 per week, or play 150 jobs at $400 each to make that number.
Now, who feels like playing a wedding for $250?
Dearie- Unionization is not “illegal price fixing.” And that’s basically what I was talking about. And price fixing means that everybody in the same field agrees to charge the same free. Again, if you read my post carefully, you’d see the word ‘minimums’ several times. MINIMUMS!! That’s not price fixing. Without an agreement on minimums the whole music industry will collapse.
Music directors of local civic symphonies have a long history of asking the harpist to play the dress rehearsal and the concert for a total of $25 or $50, whining that, as a civic symphony, they can’t afford more than that. They then wonder why, with only one rehearsal, the harpist is having a rough time with Symphony Fantastique, or Tsigane.
A friend of mine is a very fine harpsichord builder, and for years virtually all of his competition were trust fund babies who undercharged for their work because they didn’t need the money. It almost put my friend out of business. He finally decided to raise his prices to a level that he could live with and figured he’d either start making money or go out of business. He raised his prices by 50%. As soon as word got out, everybody else did the same thing. It’s now 20 years later, and he’s still in business.
The point is, anyone who is working as a professional harpist, regardless of their experience or ability to play, has to charge fees that provide enough income to survive or those who have to make a living at this are going to go out of business.
When a student or the wife of a wealthy man has daddy or hubby paying for the car, the harp, the insurance, the gas,the strings, and all the living expenses(mortgage, utilities, taxes, etc.) then they think they can play a gig for half or less what a working harpist has to charge, never thinking about how insulting and self centered their behavior is. What they should be doing is playing all those gigs for free. The choice is: play the gigs for at least the agreed upon minimums or play it for free.
Tony-I was only talking about minimums, not setting fees that everybody has to charge. What irks me is when some harpist is married to a doctor, or is a trust fund baby and so can charge $50 for doing a wedding when no one who has to work for a living can possibly do that. I think that the professional harpists in any city or area of the country should get together once a year and talk about what they feel the minimums are, and then get everyone to (at least say) they agree.
If some bride is crying poverty and the harpist is stupid enough to believe it, then the harpist should play the gig for free, not less. Once you go down that road, word gets out that your prices are negotiable and you’ll never be able to get your standard prices again.
But in the end there is no harp union to join, and no one is going to be taken to court for charging too little. So it comes back to the fact that anyone can call themselves a professional harpist(or harp teacher) and if that’s what they are doing, then they should charge what professional harpists charge.
