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I agree with you Tony. The fact of the matter is that anyone can call himself a professional musician(on any instrument!) and it’s up to the buyer to beware. I know for a fact that there are adult amateurs out there who have had 2 or 3 lessons and are hiring themselves out for jobs! It’s unbelievable. The sad truth is that the general public thinks that all harpists play the same way and it’s just a matter of finding the cheapest one. So it’s up to the better harpists to make sure that the buying public learns to hear the difference.
As far as fees go, anyone who is playing a job for money, regardless of their ability, should be charging a fee that pays their expenses and makes them a profit. One of the curses of trying to make a living as a professional harpist are the students, adult amateurs, and even professionals who don’t need the money and so charge a fraction of what they should be charging. No professional who has to pay his or her own way can charge those fees and survive. At the very least, there should be agreed upon minimums that everyone charges to avoid that problem.
There have been numerous attempts before to write a guide for composers and it has never made more than a small difference. There is only one way to get them to hear the harp in their head as it really sounds and to think like a harpist, and that is for them to take several months of lessons. I don’t think it is even necessary for them to gain any kind of proficiency on the instrument. It’s just important that they go through the motions and try to play something on the instrument. They will gain more from that then reading all of the instruction books available. They will quickly learn how the harp resonates and how it sounds different in each octave. No amount of reading can communicate the knowledge that can be gained by taking a few months of lessons.
One more note to Clinton-
When you have this part set, make the printed pedal letters the same size as the hand written pedal markings that the harpist who edited the part hand wrote into the part you are working from.
Louise- I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like C-C#, in other words, indcating both where the pedal presently is and where it has to go.
The most unreadible, overly marked up part I ever played was Ariadne auf Noxos of Strauss. There were two pages in particular that had each pedal marked 5 or 6 times in every way and color possible. And the pages consisted of nothing more than endless fragments taped together with scotch tape. But I was a sophomore in college with 2 years of harp study under my belt(yes, 2!) and I was way over my head with this part. I never should have been playing it. If the same thing were to happen now, I would immediately take the score to the conductor or orchestra manager and demand that they get a better copy.
Speaking as someone who published an edition of Une Chatelaine en sa Tour, I can tell you that it is extremely important to proof read the part many times BEFORE it goes to press. And to have several harpists proof it. Preferably harpists who don’t know the part. It is soooooooooo easy to get a pedal wrong, leave out something, etc. and the person who did the original editing is the worst one to proof because she knows it so well that she’s likely to miss something that was left out.
Your post reminds me of something that an old friend in the Harp Society told me. She had studied with Renie, and we were discussing how you deal with a transfer student who comes from a Salzedo background who want to change over to French technique. This woman said(with a smile),”I don’t say anything to them about lowering their elbows or straightening their wrists. Over time, it just happens on it’s own.” Your post is testimony to this.
Your post reminds me of something that an old friend in the Harp Society told me. She had studied with Renie, and we were discussing how you deal with a transfer student who comes from a Salzedo background who want to change over to French technique. This woman said(with a smile),”I don’t say anything to them about lowering their elbows or straightening their wrists. Over time, it just happens on it’s own.” Your post is testimony to this.
Your post reminds me of something that an old friend in the Harp Society told me. She had studied with Renie, and we were discussing how you deal with a transfer student who comes from a Salzedo background who want to change over to French technique. This woman said(with a smile),”I don’t say anything to them about lowering their elbows or straightening their wrists. Over time, it just happens on it’s own.” Your post is testimony to this.
I have to take issue with your post.It comes across as paranoid.
I don’t know of any teacher who ever gave a masterclass who “gave easy fixes because they want to have an impact on you and the audience.” That is patently untrue.
I also don’t know of any teacher who tries to boost their pay by taking on more students. Most college level teachers are limited by the school concerning the number of students they can take on. The typical harp department is 5 of 6 students. This is to make sure that the harp students there get to participate in ensembles and get orchestra experience.
Your comment to about the teacher creating a positive environment or with students backstabbing each other is too bizarre to comment on.
I have to take issue with your post.It comes across as paranoid.
I don’t know of any teacher who ever gave a masterclass who “gave easy fixes because they want to have an impact on you and the audience.” That is patently untrue.
I also don’t know of any teacher who tries to boost their pay by taking on more students. Most college level teachers are limited by the school concerning the number of students they can take on. The typical harp department is 5 of 6 students. This is to make sure that the harp students there get to participate in ensembles and get orchestra experience.
Your comment to about the teacher creating a positive environment or with students backstabbing each other is too bizarre to comment on.
I have to take issue with your post.It comes across as paranoid.
I don’t know of any teacher who ever gave a masterclass who “gave easy fixes because they want to have an impact on you and the audience.” That is patently untrue.
I also don’t know of any teacher who tries to boost their pay by taking on more students. Most college level teachers are limited by the school concerning the number of students they can take on. The typical harp department is 5 of 6 students. This is to make sure that the harp students there get to participate in ensembles and get orchestra experience.
Your comment to about the teacher creating a positive environment or with students backstabbing each other is too bizarre to comment on.
Louise- I personally like to have the pedal markings as close to whatever else is going on as possible and I’m comfortable with them being either between the staves or below the bass staff, provided they are not so far away from the action that I don’t see them. It seems to me that if the pedals are printed in the edition and are 1) correct, 2) large enough to read easily and 3) placed in a way that you don’t have to hunt for them, any professional harpist ought to be able to adjust to the format and just use them.
What used to drive me crazy about rental parts is that each pedal would be written in 5 or 6 times(below the staff, between the staves, in Green, in Red, right above left, left above right, etc.) and my brain would just freeze up every time I came to a pedal change. I also hate, detest, and loath notes with circles around them that mean you play them enharmonically. Every time I see one of those I think “Is it the string above or below that that I have to play?” In the end, I firmly believe that what is written on the page should tell you instantly, without having to think about it, what you are supposed to do.
I keep harping on the issue of making the printed pedal letters large enough. If you look at music with printed letters, and then look at any music where you had to write in the pedals, your own hand written letters are 4 or 5 times larger than the printed letters. Why can’t the printed letters be that large? If they were, I think most harpists could adapt to using them as published instead of having to rewrite them. I wonder if at least half the reason harpists rewrite the pedaling even when printed pedaling is there isn’t because the printed letters are just too small to read.
Clinton- I was pressed for time when I wrote the previous post. I’ve thought of a few more comments.
The first choice for pedal markings is below the staff. Some harpists prefer left over right and others right over left. Choose one and be consistent.
If below the staff cannot be done in one place or another(because notes on ledger lines go way below the staff, then put the changes wherever they will fit and can be seen easily. There is nothing wrong with some pedals being written below the staff and others between the staves. Again, if they are printed large enough, no one will complain.
In addition to having several other professional harpists see the part before it goes to print, it would be great to have a couple of good harpists or harp students sight read the part while you observe them. The acid test of any edition is: Does the printed page tell you easily and clearly where to put your fingers, which hand plays what, and what pedals get moved? If someone can sight read the part(slowly for sure) without having to stop to decipher what is on the page, then your edition is a success.
This is a thorny issue Clinton. With no markings whatsoever(pedal markings, pedal diagrams, etc.) each harpist has to ‘reinvent the wheel’ and do endless editing to put all that stuff in. And if it’s a rental part, then these markings get written in over and over again because one harpist likes the pedals marked one way, another likes them another, etc. But even though it may have been a professional harpist doing the editing, Pedal markings, unfortunately, vary from person to person as to how and where they get written in. So it’s a big mess.
I would suggest the following.
1) Have several other very good harpists look at the edited part BEFORE it’s printed and get their commentary. It should be possible to arrive at a consensus that makes the most number of people happy.
2) Print the letters for the pedal markings as large as possible. My biggest beef about printed markings is that they are too small to read easily.
3) Try to use a standardized format. If the foot stays on the pedal until the next change, then put a line after it. If the change is only a few beats later, then the line extends to the next change. If the change is several measures or more later, put a short line after the pedal and then a short line before the next change, repeating the letter of the pedal at the second change.
4) put pedal diagrams wherever they will help. Again, make them large enough to see easily.
If the printed pedals are easy to read, I think that most harpists will adapt to them even though it may not be the way they would write them themselves.
