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The thing to aim for is to schedule your breaks so they don’t occur at the beginning or end of your job. In a three hour period you can take two short breaks between the hours or you can take three short breaks (one out of each hour) and rotate the timing of them backwards so you don’t break at the end. For example, when playing 7pm to 10pm, you could break at 7:50, 8:40 and 9:30 (or 9:20 so the last break isn’t too close to the end).
I usually keep my breaks to 10 minutes. If there are speeches or toasts during the dinner, you may find your breaks being set for you.
I never eat on the job. That’s just my personal rule. My breaks are too short and I might spill on my clothes or get food on my teeth which would look very unprofessional. I try to eat before leaving the house, but when that’s not possible because of timing, I take liquid dinner in a can (Slim-rite if you don’t want too many calories, Boost if you’re underweight) and can drink that with a straw during a break or in the car before unloading the harp or after the job. It’s enough to keep the hunger pains away.
I probably would not repeat any selections unless requested, but if necessary, repeat the pieces from the very beginning. Chances are many people will have missed hearing them the first time or have forgotten what they heard earlier. They’re listening subliminally. It’s just background music.
I can’t believe they’re the same except for appearance because the specs are different. Salvi harps have always weighed slightly more than comparably sized Lyon & Healys; I’ve always heard it was because of the Salvi neck construction, which is reputedly very strong. Carl, do you have an opinion on this or some info to share based on your experience?
It is certainly acceptable when necessary. It’s easier for larger feet than small ones; not too difficult in flat soled shoes but almost impossible in high heels! If it’s easy for you, I’m envious.
Hair and make-up are probably harder to address than clothes! The teenage years are when young people like to experiment with their appearance but are also often very sensitive and insecure about it. Perhaps suggesting neatness is the most tactful way to go. They so often take the most innocuous comment the wrong way.
I’ve heard that Salzedo was somewhat dictatorial about his students’ appearance because there was a certain image he wanted to create and they had to conform to his vision. I doubt any teacher could get away with that today.
As long as the students appear neat and clean, and their apparel doesn’t imply any lack of respect for the audience or the place in which they’re performing (or impede their movement or prove overly distracting), I would hope the listeners would focus more on how well they play than whether they have a weird haircut or whatever.
Miss Chalifoux told her female students at Camden (a more relaxed atmosphere than the Cleveland Institute) to wear skirts to their lessons rather than slacks and certainly never shorts. Not every teacher can get away with that.
I do agree that appropriate dress is a subject rightly covered in lessons, for practicality as well as taste. Many feel that rings, pins, wrist watches and bracelets should be removed to prevent damage to the harp. Others feel fingernail polish is distracting, even in pale shades. One of my teachers said no perfume and to this day I don’t wear it.
At the very least one should address the subject of footwear, which is as important a tool as the bench upon which one sits. But please, let’s not revisit the discussion of shoes versus no shoes, exhaustively covered in another post!
There’s also the issue of skirts that are too short. Frankly, anything above the knee can be problematic when sitting at the harp, especially if playing onstage where the harpist is higher than the audience. Suddenly there’s more that meets the eye than is appropriate. Tea length usually solves the problem and isn’t long enough to trip over when moving the harp.
You can get all these from Lyon & Healy, although I don’t know what the Jungle Scenes are. Does sound slightly familiar though…
Go to the Vanderbilt Music website and look at the Jubal collections. Daniel Burton has several nice arrangements of pieces by Vivaldi, and two other books you might find helpful: Italian Art Songs from the 17th and 18th Centuries and Airs from the Italian Baroque. Lots of good stuff there.
You can buy a Peterson virtual strobe tuner at http://www.wwbw.com. That’s the website for Woodwind/Brasswind. They’ll have the best prices. That’s where I bought mine several years ago. I don’t know if they sell Peterson electric strobes. Sylvia Woods Harp Center used to.
You could weave a narrow strip of felt through the strings down by the soundboard to mute it. You’ll still hear it but it will be very quiet.
Another advantage to having a pro do it is they do it all the time, so they’re faster and tend to have replacement parts if needed. Of course, there’s no such thing as the perfect harp or the perfect regulation, but if you’re lucky you can come pretty close.
You can regulate your own Camac or any other brand harp. (You can change your own tires, but do you or will you?) But you need to know what you’re doing. It’s just easier to adjust the pedal cables on a Camac (as opposed to rods) because it can be done without removing the base or disengaging the springs. But adjusting discs is not something you do on a whim or without training.
Some of us older harpists (!) were taught by our teachers to do personal regulating in the days before traveling harp technicians, and it doesn’t hurt to know the basics in case of emergency. If you have to replace a broken disc, for example, you’re going to need to regulate that disc to be sure it’s in the right position. Every owner of a pedal harp should have Carl Swanson’s book and read it, even if you never intend to do anything more to your harp than tune it and play it. At least you’ll be able to have an intelligent conversation with the technician who works on your harp. An informed consumer is a safer, wiser consumer.
