Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Woo hoo, I thought that was you, Stephanie! I was watching the live east coast feed with a couple friends and got so excited. I bought the video right away as soon as it was available as I am an iPod fanatic, but also American Idol takes down the videos from other sites because they have the iTunes performance videos viewing for free on their own official site. Here’s the link for the wondrous Stephanie…
http://www.americanidol.com/videos/season_8/performances/danny_gokey_endless_love
My friends were so impressed that I knew you, because that means they’re all just a couple degrees of Adam Lambert now. Because of YOU! So much fun.
Oh, I am so embarrassed. At our old home where we had been for 25 years, there was only room for harps in the dining area. It was a very small 800 sq. ft. house. After four harps took over the dining area (1 concert grand, 2 full size lever harps, and one full size wire harp) we had to MOVE! We couldn’t eat in there any more and to talk to anyone we had to sit in separate rooms.
So the house hunt was on. I needed one big room for all my harps! We found one nice house with a lovely music room and a fountain outside the window. Only it had just gone into escrow. We persevered. Just when we had given up hope of finding anything in our price range in our area (we love our neighborhood), and had been researching remodeling, we walked at the end of one Sunday into the house that is now our home. There was an extra harp room! Only the realtor said, “Don’t you want to see the guest house out back?” Whaat?? And there it was, outside across the garden, a Harp House! Forget the harp room — we now have a whole harp house! We’re still working on it and it would make a lovely studio.
In the meantime during our move I found my harps were very fussy. They just planted their feet where they wanted to stay in the main house and we sort of built the rooms around them over the past year and a half (we brought no furniture other than our bed and one old table). So it has been an adventure moving into a new home with a family of fussy harps. I love them all and they love me and they are spread out in different rooms — no matter where you turn there is a harp smiling at you. No kidding, I could even hear them talk to me when they planted their feet and dug in.
We are all very happy in our new home. A little wren welcomed all of us by building a nest in our front door wreath — I posted a pic awhile back soon after we got started on some new furniture… I think it is in the Harp Dog thread…
Harp Bird
(message #60 in the thread)Oh, oh, another important thing I did in my arrangement of “The Blooming Bright Star of Belle Isle” was at the end of the piece. The lyrics contain a denouement of marriage and I wondered how in the world I was going to put that in. So I remembered what I felt like on my wedding day, how final and wonderful it was — and the chords just came out of me onto the harp. Strong binding chords. Chords of fulfillment and clarity. I still cannot play them without almost crying inside. If you compose and arrange for the harp you have to be willing to go there.
1. First of all, listen to everything. All kinds of music and genres. You never know where your ideas are going to come from. Take note of what you like from all genres and noodle around with them on the harp. That way, when you compose you end up with your own style.
2. When noodling, pay attention to mistakes. There is no such thing as a mistake. When composing, “mistakes” are often doorways into another world. You might not be able to use what you came up with at the moment, but tape it for future use. A library of personal snippets can segue into a lovely intro or bridge section somewhere.
3. You don’t say whether you are composing for lever or pedal harp. If on lever harp, try going into another mode. If your piece is in a major key, go briefly into Dorian. If your piece is in a minor key, go briefly into Lydian. It sounds like you are modulating, but you are not. How do I know this works? By studying the sheet music for Kim Robertson’s arrangements. Her “Greensleeves” goes temporarily into Dorian and her “Come All Ye Shepherds” goes temporarily into Lydian. I’ve taken lots of workshops from Kim and she has never mentioned this. This is HUGE for a lever harp composer and arranger to have this in their toolbox, and the mode deviation adds an unexpected color too.
4. Be aware of what sounds good on the harp. SIFT like crazy. That means to take out notes so that the harp vibrates more fully and lusciously than if you kept more notes in. I learned this from Stella Castelluci. Her article about sifting is still online:
Stella Castellucci – Lights and Shadows
She talks about jazz harp but the principle is the same when composing or arranging for all harp genres.
5. This sort of relates to Item 1. Don’t be afraid to take snippets you love from all genres and mix them up. I will give an example. I was putting a lot of original composition into my arrangement of “The Blooming Bright Star of Belle Isle” and knew I wanted to create an atmosphere (I learned how important this was from one of Isabelle Moretti’s master classes).
I needed water, like traveling over the ocean, so I took one of the jazz chord patterns I’d learned from Paul Baker and made an arpeggio out of it running up and down the harp.
I needed moonlight and starlight, so I took the rhythm pattern from the intro of Hasselmans’ “Fileuse” and changed the notes to sound more new agey. Played mid-range they are water. Played in higher octaves they are starlight.
Knowing the lyrics, I needed male angst for a real good original bridge between the second and third verse. One of the most angsty harp players I’ve ever listened to is Aryeh Frankfurter so I listened to him like crazy. One day I got up, went to the harp and played my mid-section bridge. Male angst, Aryeh style, only it was me and my interpretation of what he was doing. The whole midsection ended up as a “one take.” Thank my lucky stars I had my tape recorder on!!
I needed evening birdsong, so I added grace notes here and there.
I could go on and on about this process. I know this is sort of rambling, but this is what happens when you compose or arrange. You have to get your emotions involved and develop a little toolbox of goodies you can noodle around with. Know the story you are trying to tell helps immensely. Going back to Isabelle Moretti’s advice that stuck with me, she was talking more about performing, how before you start to play you quiet yourself and go into the music. When the piece was first played, what were people doing? Dancing? Eating? What was the weather like? Was the music played outside during the day or inside at night? In short, involve all your senses when interpreting a piece you are playing. Go to that place before you even touch the harp. I took that one step further and it governs everything I now arrange or compose for the harp. My arrangements end up more original than anything as a result.
Uh oh, maybe I have just written a short article for Harp Column and didn’t even know it. But this is what the experience of composing and arranging for harp has been like for me. And I’m just starting out! What an adventure!
This summer I had to stop playing my lever harp in the back yard because it was driving our local mockingbird nuts. Instead of the mockingbird picking up on some of my riffs it heard my harp as a rival and went absolutely berserk trying to “outsing” it whenever I took my harp outside. It would quiet down only when I took my harp inside again.
The only roadrunner I’ve had a run in with was in Borrego Springs. It saw its reflection in our sliding glass door and kept attacking it, almost broke the glass. It was a large roadrunner, largest one I’ve ever seen — the size of a small turkey. And it wouldn’t go away, it kept attacking and attacking its image off and on for a couple of days.
My favorite harp/bird moment in the desert was also in Borrego Springs on our patio. I was playing my lever harp in sandals and halfway through a number I felt a little continuous swoosh over my toes. I jumped a little because I thought it was a snake, but it turned out to be a covey of quail and their little feet were padding over my toes. It was soft, like feathers.
I’ve gotten a little more info on Isabelle Moretti playing Hasselmans’ “La Source” on YouTube. A friend of mine who lives in France says it looks like it is from the Francois Zygel TV show called “The Music Box.” Zygel is on the same label as Ms. Moretti (Naive), so maybe that’s how she ended up on the show. What she says at the beginning of the clip is:
“j’ai préfére beaucoup de choses mais ça, j’aime
bien.”Okay, I’ve died and gone to heaven.
Isabelle Moretti is now on YouTube playing my favorite:
Also, from her own new YouTube site is
which is gorgeous, looks professionally done, widescreen, outside under trees, is this from a DVD? Can’t tell from her website since that is under construction.
Asturias is there on YouTube too, but it is not as well filmed as the Impromptu, plus a couple others
There are a couple more, but these are the solos.
Hi Liam, it makes me smile to hear you write of Cynthia Cathcart. I’ve always admired her from afar and had the absolute best time talking to her at Big Sky last year. She seemed really surprised that I was familiar with all her music, she’s a real treasure. About your nails, Patrick Ball makes regular trips to City of Hope for Lisa Lynne’s Harp for Hearts program that I play in so I’ve had the chance to chat with him about the nail thing as he plays with his nails, but tapes them. He showed me how he uses that clear removable medical tape on his fingernails to support them. Also, Aryeh Frankfurter plays his Dusty with his nails on his right hand. He uses press ons. So there are lots of options. I mention Patrick and Aryeh because they are two harp players I really admire and they both play the harp for a living. Patrick plays the wire harp and Aryeh plays a Dusty with wire harp technique (left hand nylon technique, right hand wire technique, his own style). So I’m trying different things with my wire harp too.
Your Dreamsinger harp sounds absolutely amazing. When you have finished your carving and she is all ready with strings and silver leaf I hope you will post pics so we all can dance with joy with you! Such beauty you are bringing into the world. Thanks so much for sharing this!
Thanks, Gayle. When they had Harp Photo Day at the Sylvia Woods Harp Center last December that’s what I told the photographer: I wanted to be inside a nest of harps. So that is the photo I’ve put up as my portrait here on my bio page at Harp Column. We used a walnut Dusty Strings lever harp like mine and a blond pedal harp from off the floor for contrast and I’m in the middle like a happy little bird.
Saul, I think what you say here is one of the most beautiful things about the joy of playing the harp I have ever read. I am printing it out and keeping it by my harp. This is how she wants to be played and how she wants to give to me and through me to the world. I will have sweet dreams because your words will comfort me and make me smile as I go to sleep. Thank you.
Yes, this has been an interesting thread to read. I’ve been wanting to
respond, because of my experience at the AHS conference two years ago in San Francisco.
I think that was shortly after David’s “The Emperor Has No Clothes” article
appeared in Harp Column, the magazine (David, I was the one who came up to you
in the restaurant one evening to talk to you about it). Anyway, the first
concert there was at the Geary Theater and my husband and I left after the first
half because we just couldn’t sit through any more cacophony and the programme
looked like the second half would be more of the same (I was later told most of
it was). I don’t remember the piece, but it was long and cacophonous and I had
the biggest fit of giggles because near the center back of the theater someone’s
hearing aid had been turned up full volume and was answering the squeaks and
squawks of the onstage harp almost on cue. It was like some techno mating ritual
or Close Encounters of the Worst Kind going on there. Anyway, the errant hearing
aid pretty much saved the day for me and made it the most memorable concert I
ever walked out on. Hubby and I didn’t much care for the harp at that AHS
concert so we chose to bail before allowing ourselves to be subjected to any
more of it. Back at the ranch (the St. Francis Hotel)
we ensconced ourselves in front of Paul Hurst as he was warming up in the
reception hall on that gazillion dollar Louis XV harp from Lyon & Healy. He
played everything from his own compositions to Broadway to Smetana’s Moldau.
Almost a private concert all evening since the AHS one down the street ran overtime. It was
much more what we were in the mood for, I guess, but I’m not going to second
guess the wisdom of that hearing aid. I am just grateful that the San Francisco
AHS had provided an unplanned alternative.Anyway, here’s why I decided to post this message. After the concert at
the reception I found myself a bit annoyed hearing other harpists’ comments
about it, comparing their notes on how they have had to play similar pieces at
one time or another. These were professional harpists, well known harpists I
have admired from afar listening to their recordings, reading about them, etc.,
and then even they were making fun of the agony of having to play and sit
through those same pieces right there in front of me. If that’s how they really
felt then why hadn’t they done something about it instead of just talk? They
were at least in a position to have had some clout and be heard. They made hubby
and me feel good that we had had the courage to bail and have a grand time
elsewhere. So that is why I interrupted poor David later when I saw him at the
restaurant. Love the title of your article, David! Just the title alone so aptly
describes what I experienced during and after that concert. I still feel bad
interrupting your private time like I did, but it was my first AHS conference
and I didn’t know if I would have the chance to talk to you again. Thank you for being the gracious, and honest, person that you are.Well, aren’t you sweet as a button, Jennifer. You really missed me? I still have sound sensitivity. I still have huge sensory overload problems I am continually learning to live with now and make lifestyle adjustments for. That’s what happens when you lose part of your temporal lobe function. One thing is constant though: the more I can stay inside a nest of harps the better I survive and thrive.
Oh, Liam, I love the clarseach! I have more than one. Plus a large Triplett Luna, their big wire model, which I have named Nyellonde, which is Elvish for Haven of the Bells. So appropriate for a wire harp! In public (church, City of Hope) I play my walnut 36-string Dusty, because it is so portable (and it is what my teacher plays on his healing harp albums), but in private I love playing the pedal harp most because it is so therapeutic for me on so many levels. The pedals give my feet and legs a physical therapy workout as combining pedals and strings has retrained the coordination of my feet and hands. My stroke left me without use of either and I had to learn to walk and talk again and the big harp has helped most of all physically. Plus I love feeling its vibration along the whole length of my body. Those deep bass strings just resonate through me. I am a real harp hugger! I used to run around and hug trees. Now I hug my pedal harp and just let her resonate through every molecule of my body. It hurts and is hard sometimes to work the pedals but I keep trying. There is so much music I want to play!
