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An update to my “Beowulf” post. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but those who have say that there are two shots of Paul Baker playing the harp (they gave him long blond hair or something) in the two banquet scenes with some other musicians. Will have to wait for the DVD to get a real gander since they happen so fast, but he gets a big cast credit at the end as “Musician #1”!
Hey, David,
I just saw Paul Baker playing harp live, Godefroid’s “Romance Without Words (Bois Solitaire)” in the 1990 movie “Framed” starring Jeff Goldblum and Kristin Scott Thomas. He’s playing at an outdoor engagement party and there are a couple of closeups of him while he is playing it which is really cool. On the DVD it is in Chapter 7, “Wealth.” It’s sort of funny how they lead up to it. Jeff and his sidekick are crashing the party through bushes and the sidekick is ranting on about “…not to harp on this…” and then they hear the harp through the bushes… “Hey, do you hear a HARP?”
In today’s L.A. Times newspaper they had an article about the premiere tonight of “Beowulf.” While in production they had Paul Baker wired up so they could use him as the harper in the film. They had every inch of him wired, including all his facial muscles. So I am very curious to see if they actually used him in the film or if he ended up on the cutting room floor.
Note sure how long this L.A. Times link will be active…
Beowulf PremiereSherry,
The following Gould CD has large sound samples for all tracks, is one of them the piece?
What Barbara says is important. Comfortable is not the same as slow. Alfredo Ortiz uses the word “slowerly” meaning slower than comfortable, slow enough to block place and squeeze the chord placements into muscle memory.
What I’ve found over time is that if I am having trouble with a piece this is usually the cure. In addtion to block placement, one of my problems is even tone. My teacher is a real stickler for this. I think I’m playing something beautifully and then he points out that my third finger is fading away and not playing an even tone with the rest of my fingers. Happens a lot on John Thomas’ “Minstrel’s Adieu” for me. I’ve had that memorized for awhile now but am still working on getting an even tone on all my fingers. Lots of metronoming and block placing “slowerly” on that one for me still. My teacher is picky, but, hey, that’s what I pay him the big bucks for! He’s worth every penny!
Love how Barbara uses the word “scoot.” Sounds like something I would do…I’m so baaad…Time to scoot, y’all,….heh, heh
What I do, and have done with a ten-page piece like Hasselmans’ “La Source” for example, is to find a metronome speed I can play the most difficult section with and then play the whole piece at that speed. I always practice the difficult sections by themselves more than the others. As your speed for that difficult section increases then your whole piece speeds up too.
If it is a piece like “La Source” I always run through the whole thing at least once a day. I use it as my “warm up” piece because I always want to have it ready to play for people. I want to be able to sit down and play it “cold” with as little warmup as possible for situations like guests.
I live in Pasadena, California. Other info is in my profile. I’m thinking along the same line as Victor, it would be nice if more folks filled out their profile, that way we all would have the latest info for everybody!
Woo hoo! Briony’s here!! Woo hoo! I think I got to hug you the day you got your Blevins. And your first lesson too. You were so excited I started to cry!
Jerusha, I totally believe this is what happened to me. I had to send
back TWO new harps. I felt totally taken advantage of because I was a
newbie who was not able to travel. The first came with a cracked
soundboard and the second was not put together with enough glue. Until
a company tech rep could okay the warranty issues all I could do was
take notes and photos, and in the case of the glue issue, made weekly
pencil rubbings on a piece of paper to highlight the separations.
Measured the widening cracks on a weekly basis. Made charts, diagrams,
documenting everything week by week. Took a whole year before my second
harp was okayed to be sent back.As a newbie I did not know what to look for or what was wrong, but my
gut instinct was that something serious was wrong with both harps right
from the start and I was right. The third time my husband and I were
taking no more chances and sent my harp teacher across country to personally oversee
and select my harp. All did not go smooth as the transaction itself
went haywire and took months to sort out and get everything in writing
to protect ourselves (thousands and thousands of dollars of
overcharging). We are not wealthy people. If the harp center had not
been overseeing everything and constantly going to bat for us I don’t
know where we be or what we could have done.Because what got me the most was the arrogant attitude. Oh, nothing
could possibly be wrong, it must be me. I really felt like they dumped
two new clunkers on me and expected me, as a newbie, to just take it or
not recognize what they were trying to do. There was an eight month
delay between my second and third harp, so I was essentially harpless
at that time, went to the Harpfest in SLC and discovered there that I
was not the only one that this was happening to. I confronted one of
the harp maker representatives personally about what had happened to me
and the reply was that it was no big deal about returning those harps
because if I didn’t want them “then someone else would.” That is a
direct quote. Talk about adding insult to injury. Even after taking a
clunker back on warranty (and it is not easy to return anything on
warranty) the attitude was still that someone else would be inexperienced or fool enough
to accept it.I never want to have to go through this again. My heart just aches for
anyone going through this expensive ordeal. Oh, and another one of the
‘attitude’ things that irked me through this whole process was “each
harp has its own personality so they are all going to be different.”
Yeah, well, that is true. That is why I have more than one harp. But
when harp manufacturers use that line to force defective merchandise
onto anyone, especially newbies who they hope might not know better, it is unethical. I for one am glad to
have a place where this can be discussed openly so that people have
support and can be forewarned. The support is not going to come from
the manufacturers. I found that out the hard way. Note that I said
“manufacturers” plural. Sad to say, it isn’t just one of them.I found out I couldn’t play the petite models because of the smaller
pedal spacing. My feet are real clumsy and I have to wear special
shoes. So this won’t affect everyone, but it is something to consider.June, Briggsie looks so dapper and comfy beside your harp! Thanks so
much for posting, what a charmer. Found out our little bird is a wren.
Consensus is that I should call her Marguerite after Hasselmans’
“Fileuse: Marguerite et Rouet” since I am spending a lot of time on
that now, and Marguerite is a much more birdy sounding name. Sounds
like a sweetly tweeting bird if you say it 10 times fast. Love our
little wren, although I’ve been told they can get kind of messy when
the babies come. She might get spooked before that though. We’ll see.I have a harp bird! She built a nest last week on our front door
wreath. She’s brown and very tiny, like a hummingbird. I have named her
Helene since she hears “La Source” all day long so I must assume that
is one reason she built her nest there. Hasselmans dedicated “La
Source” to his student Helene Gayat.Here’s a piccie I took this morning showing her nest on the wreath with
my harp in the background. You can also see the recessed lighting that
lets me see to play…
About the factory fire, when I got my 85CG pedal harp (the one that had
to be returned because it had not been put together with enough glue),
I tried to order a matching walnut music stand. The order fell through
three times for various manufacturing reasons (“somebody goofed making
the metal parts and they didn’t fit so they had to start over” was one
of them), the third reason being that “the sublet factory in Ohio who
makes them burned down and your completed music stand went with it.”
L&H in SLC finally sold me a fancier one from their display window
at reduced price with free shipping since five months after my order I
still did not have a stand.
