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My harp wears a variety of tassels–you can get them almost anywhere, and I have a red-and-green for Christmas, a white one for weddings, and a green one for Celtic-themed fesitivities.
Floor harp with full levers sounds great!! Take into cafeful consideration the weight, however, as you want to start therapy harping. I have found in my harping expeditions that the added aggravation of dealing with a bigger harp is more than compensated with the happy faces of the people when you can play all of the songs that they love so well.
Don’t discount second-hand–that’s a good way to go, too!
Have fun!–Fairy
Diana,
I travel several times a year with a smallish lever harp, and I always leave it in the hotel room. I usually put in a corner, somwhere out of the way and in the case. We’ve never had problems with once it is in the room, and leaving it behind is safer than leaving it in the car, where
I really love “Spring on the Moonlit River” (as played by Dan Yu), but Carol McLaughlin’s “Danse de le Sylphes” (or something to that effect, I lost the cd box) really takes the cake. It is so amazingly played.
The hardest finger for me was the 4th finger, so a) just introduce that slowly.
b) I quit taking from one teacher because she was holding me back. Don’t be to down on your relative–she was probably a little nervous.
c) does she have any other musical experience? Start teaching her how to read notes if not; that will break up the periods at the harp and might make you both more relaxed when you’re on more familiar ground.
d) When I show my cousins how to play something, I try to make them use at least their index finger and their thumb. They feel more like they’re ‘really’ playing.
All suggestions! Good luck! Have fun!
…You’re going to be the only student in history who is crossing her fingers for her own minivan on graduation day….
and:
…you’ve figured out you’re “little” brother is the same height as your harp, and you use him as a human measuring tape when buying car/house (got to check those doorways!), etc.
Song Sparrow,
I have a Pakistani Celtic Harp, my first harp. And although her levers do not work, and though she was strung improperly, and she doens’t have the best sound, I still love Maeve as she was my first harp. She was cheap, and serves me well as an Irish competition harp–I’ve never placed less than a third and in my last few competitions have placed first or second. (This is in reference to the Harpist stating a Pakistani harp as a poor competition harp). I think that Pakistani harps must vary widely in quality and looks. Maeve is also extremely hardy, has been taken across the country and dropped several times and still sounds the same.
I’ll be moving on to a new mobile lever harp soon to expand my Celtic repetoire, but I just wanted to say that Pakistani harps are what’s right for some people, and there’s a time and a place for everything.
Happy weekend, people!
Hey Sam,
I’ve been working on the Salzedo Excercises, and they are great, with several excercises to strengthen your fingers to work seperately and together. I’d really reccomend getting that book–it’s called Salzedo Technique or Excercises or something. Most harp stores seem to have it, and it is definitely available online.
~Fairy
…you alone can hear the harp in the strangest parts of a movie soundtrack. (I swear I heard a glissando in “Dancing With Wolves”, and there is definitely a harp in “What About Bob?”)
…you have a dream to get this great little lap harp and travel the country with it, playing beautiful songs in the Virginia mountains, etc.
I am so now going to the International Harp Museum when the fam hits Orlando in December! Thank you!!
