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In addition to copyright rules regarding selling arrangements, you also need to obtain permission to arrange the music.
This is one site that handles music rights: https://www.harryfox.com
I’ve obtained rights through Hal Leonard, too: https://www.halleonard.com/permissions/index.jsp
Sorry to beat you to it, Erin. Yay, AHS resource page!
The first part of the list includes level listings – I’m sure anything 3 and above will be worth considering. The last section doesn’t list levels, but, if memory serves me, most are more advanced works.
A listing of school orchestra pieces with harp parts:
http://www.harpsociety.org/pdfs/about/programs/Harped_project.pdf
An odd, but useful thing about the Salzedo edition is the harp part in the score is the urtext, not his edition – and I concur his is in many places an arrangement.
Technique can be learned at any stage, but the love for music and the instrument must be nurtured from the start. And it should be the teacher’s primary task to nurture the love when starting a young student (or not-so-young student). The love is what motivates us to learn and practice.
It sounds like this teacher sees her job as teaching technique rather than the passion of making music with the harp. When students are nervous or feel victimized, they develop tension, and tension will never allow a student to play with good technique, regardless of how insistently it is taught.
Identify your mistakes and isolate them. Do your eyes, ears and fingers know what note comes next? Practice from the last correct note you played to the note you’re not playing accurately. Focus on that relationship and not other notes until you can play from one to the next without the mistake three times in a row. Back up a beat before this spot and repeat this drill. Back up to the beginning of the phrase and repeat this drill. Go back to the beginning and repeat this drill.
Is it a hard shape for your hand to open quickly and efficiently? Put the shape in your hand by recomposing the placed group of notes or chord. If it’s a linear group of notes (placed together but played individually), turn it into a blocked chord (play all notes at same time). If it’s a chord, play one note at a time. Play from bottom to top. Play from top to bottom. Play bottom to top to bottom to top… Move the shape to a different starting pitch. Use rhythmic variations – play the notes in a dotted eighth-sixteenth pattern. Reverse to sixteenth-dotted eighth. Once you’ve learned the shape, build it in using the first paragraph’s suggestions.
Like Elizabeth, I find sections, if not the whole piece often need to be rewritten. The time I spend typing them into finale is like practicing – I’m thinking about the notes, etc…. Sometimes, just replacing a mess of a score with a very precisely written part, where there are no extraneous markings, no indecipherable notes, everything’s lined up makes the next practice session feel as if I had spent twice the time it took me to type practicing.
Of course, at the moment, I have a new work, neatly typed without any markings from previous harpists sitting on my desk, waiting for me to put in my own pedal changes. I guess I won’t be able to blame the way it appears on the page if I find it a tad challenging to learn!
In a concert setting, smiling while bowing before welcomes the audience into your performance, smiling while bowing after thanks them, but in between, your expressions need to be a natural reaction to the experience of performing the music at hand. Typically, we aren’t conscious of our facial expressions in a performance. Wearing a cheesy grin turns a thoughtful performance into a staged, pageant-like schtick.
On a background music gig, the rules are different. You should separate yourself from the music at regular intervals and each time you make eye contact with a guest, offer a pleasant grin.
Ultimately, though, I can’t help but go to that feminist place when reacting to anyone’s command to smile. People (read: certain men) expect other people (read: women) to be pretty, vacant, and ready to make them happy. A person (again, read: woman) who is deep in thought and not generously offering exactly the superficial source of happiness some folks they encounter or entertain expect is not at fault for failing to smile 100% of the time.
Last night I played Best Day of My Life by American Authors as a recessional. It’s cute on the harp – the original starts with banjo, so I played the introduction pdlt. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y66j_BUCBMY
If you like thinking mathematically, think of fractions and common denominators. Each note of the triplet is a third (of the beat, for instance) and each eighth note (in this piece) is a half. The common denominator is 6, as in 1/6.
Divide the beat into 6. Each note of the triplet is now equal to two numers: 123456 and each eighth note is equal to three: 123456
Counting out loud, tap both hands on 1, the triplet hand on 3, the eighth note hand on 4, and the triplet hand on 5. Rinse, lather and repeat. It’s also a great idea to reinforce your feel by switching hands, maybe walking around with your feet as the triplet and hands as the eighth note and in reverse, etc…
Basically – understand exactly how they fit together and then move the understanding into your body.
Dear Brianna-
Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! I’m replying to address the legal questions raised. I’m too busy to take on this project, but maybe someone else will be able to help you.Regarding the legal right to arrange and record music not in the public domain, this comes from a legal website: http://www.saffordbaker.com/2008/10/the-law-of-music-arrangements/ “If you create a new arrangement and you want to exploit it on records, you generally need a “Compulsory Mechanical License”. A Compulsory Mechanical License, or Mechanical License, allows you to make a sound recording of your new arrangement, without the permission of the copyright owner, provided you do not change the words or fundamental character of the music, and you pay the statutory Mechanical Royalty Rate. Publishers will usually include the right to make arrangements in a Mechanical License, provided the publisher receives full ownership of any arrangement created. A mechanical license can only be used after the original copyright holder has exercised their exclusive right of first publishing. In the absence of a Mechanical License, you need to contact and negotiate with the music publisher, or other copyright owner, directly. To learn more about obtaining Mechanical Licenses, contact EMG or The Harry Fox Agency.”
http://www.harryfox.com/public/MechanicalLicenseslic.jsp
Be prepared to wait perhaps up to 2 months to get the license.
Hi, Kim –
I like seeing the Search Forums and Forums in the sidebar. It’s an easy and clear way to navigate the forums.
Thanks for everything you do!
DianeHey, Briggsie – I remember meeting you. I was glad to put a face to a Harp Column user then, and glad to hear from you now.
4WD won’t do anyone any good if one wheel can’t get a grip, so weight is an advantage when driving over a solid sheet of ice. When there is something for at least one wheel to grip, I have felt much more secure with my car than in my husband’s minivan.
I do remember my first snow storm with the Subaru. I was parked on the road outside of my apartment and the plows had left a 2 foot high icy wall of snow packed against the cars on the side of the road. I went out to my car at the same time as the owner of the car behind me. She was equipped with a shovel. I kicked the snow free from my tires, and then drove over the snowpack in one, smooth motion. The other driver gave me the dirtiest look!
