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It may be that you’re not entirely sure where to head next. Sometimes when you hit a certain degree of ability and achievement, your brain is wondering where you need to go from here. It can feel as if you’re in a sort of artistic turnout for want of a better word, just sort of sitting in traffic and idling. You’re playing, but you aren’t heading toward anywhere in particular, and it sounds as if you’re sort of wondering, “What now?” Try reaching out to forms of music that you aren’t familiar with or listening to instruments that you don’t play to get the “gosh that’s so cool” feeling back, and then just let it ferment for a while until you can relate it to your harp. Something will shake loose and you’ll lock onto a new goal, then you’ll be able to get your artistic self back into gear.
It’s motivating for me to read these stories. I feel better about aiming for a Ravenna 34 or thereabouts as opposed to thinking that there’s no way for me to obtain a pedal harp and no reason to move forward unless I can.
🙁 IMO, either people should only judge the instruments they play, or never judge the instruments they play. That way, it’s even.
On one of the piano boards, a person once mentioned playing a harp at a competition where the pianist judge knocked them down for — I am not making this up — using too much pedal. o_O
ETA: Or was that here? I can’t remember …
You may only want to put the slidey stuff on the front of the base; the last thing you want is for the thing to shoot out from under you when you tilt it toward yourself.
What is it that makes this bad harp writing?
How much harp music do you listen to? I’m definitely not in the camp of “you must play the X to write for it,” although I do think it helps certainly. However, I definitely do think that you should listen to X to write for it. The best way to develop a good sense of an instrument, as well as your own distinctive voice on that instrument, is to listen to it being played in many styles, and pay mind to when you sit forward and go, “Oh, I like that bit … “
Hie thee off to YouTube and search on “harp contemporary,” “harp boulez,” “harp schoenberg,” “harp serial,” “harp tone row,” “harp fill-in-the-blank,” and see what turns up. As in all cases of playing music, you have to have a sense of the sound you want in your mind before you can write it down, and you can build that up by listening. See if you can’t take an esoteric, unusual piece that you like and let your mind wander to get a feel for how you might arrange it for harp as well; that’s always fun.
There’s also the issue that sometimes a piece of music that sounds wonderful to a listener actually doesn’t “fit” an instrument naturally. Nikolai Rubenstein apparently told Tchaik that his piano concerto (which has since turned into one of the most popular piano pieces ever) was unplayable, incompetently written, and didn’t suit the instrument at all. And I remember Perlman talking about the different flavors of difficulty of a Paganini piece versus something by Brahms (I think, or possibly Tchaik) — the Pag piece was hard but sat well on the instrument since it was written by a violinist, while the other thing sounded great but felt clunky no matter how many times he played it.
A composer should have a good grip on what sits well on an instrument; you don’t want to be completely callous as to what you’re asking the performer to do. I’ve filled in many a measure myself by thinking not of what sound I wanted but of how my hands seemed to want to move. But it’s more important that a piece sound good and flow well to the ears than that it meet the technical peculiarities of a given instrument. Of course, it’s best when it does both, but I keep thinking of Rubenstein’s brutal skewering of Tchaik’s concerto, and Perlman’s comment about how certain parts of an “unviolinistic” piece will just never sit well on that instrument, no matter how beautiful it sounds.
ETA: Here it is, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0omSs7fHkps — he starts talking about it at 1:30 in. Now, it’s not an excuse to write difficult stuff for no reason, but it does indicate two things:
1) It’s okay to make the instrumentalist swear a few times, but
2) If you’re going to make them swear, you’d better be making them play a cracking good piece of music as consolation. 🙂Minor update: I have since learned that not only does my cousin still have my grandfather’s harp, but it was indeed a pedal harp (how they afforded it, I’ll never know, because his playing that harp was all that kept the family fed during the Depression). Also, my aunt prized it and my cousin grew up prizing the harp as well, so the dear thing is still well-loved. 🙂 I’ve asked her to take pictures of it if possible.
Second minor update: I have pretty much resigned myself to slowly saving up, given that the piano/viola are sucking up all of my attention at the moment, and I’ve finally dropped the hammer on a 15″ viola as well. Until some unspecified day in the future, it seems I will have to be content with enjoying harp music as a spectator through YouTube.
Memorize the following sentence:
“You shouldn’t do that, honey. The strings on a harp like this are under very high tension, and if they snap on you, they’ll go through you like a steak knife.”
Make sure to say it loud enough so that mommy overhears. 🙂 (Did I read that here first? Might have … )
Just found out about this — this harp may be the answers to my wishes. I truly hope this technology works out and is at least vaguely financially accessible for me. What a wonderful thing carbon fiber has been for musical instruments. The violas and cellos made of it from Luis & Clark have been stunning sounding.
A pedal harp like this can help the instrument become more accessible to many more types of people by making it easier to move and even a little less costly than the typical pedal harps.
Oh wow, just heard about Heartland putting out a CF pedal harp at some point! That might actually be an option for me!
Looking through rentals, purchases, and teachers … I think the decision to wait until I get this album done is the best one. Even renting a pedal harp is more than I can do at the moment. I’m hoping I can play at least Baroque with a lever harp; lots of Haendel, Scarlatti, and Vivaldi arrangements should keep me happy when the time comes, but I don’t know if a pedal harp will ever be doable for me. 🙁
Thanks for the replies!
Yeah, I’m really torn about being attracted to yet one more instrument that needs a trolley to move around. Unfortunately, I really like musically complex devices that can play large structures at once, and that have the capacity to play low notes. There just aren’t any of those that you can lift with one hand, more’s the pity. 🙁 When I was deciding between viola and cello, I definitely was not willing to play something as large as a cello that couldn’t play many notes at once. I’m glad there are people who love them though, because I sure love to listen to them!
I’m thinking that I’m going to postpone any movement forward on the harp until I can finish recording/producing the piano pieces that I’ve done so far (I’ve uploaded demos of them to SoundCloud, but they are still definitely in the demo stage and need more time in the woodshed before they’re ready to be committed to FLAC/CD). Investigating the harp will be my reward to myself for getting my piano pieces down. In the meantime, I’ll probably remain here to soak up what knowledge I can so that I can move forward with useful information instead of just flailing when the time comes. Six months of lessons and a rental is probably the wisest path forward.
I hope I can find a good teacher near me — I live in Anaheim, so I shouldn’t have too much trouble, but freeway traffic can be a real bear in these parts.
