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Janelle,
This is a very serious issue and I hope for her sake she is not cutting herself.
I would address it head on and ask her to explain it to you in great detail.
If it really is “a long story” then tell her you are “all ears”.
Then I would watch her and listen very carefully to her with discerning ears.
Remember, it is possible that she really had a freaky accident or she has a psycho cat with monster claws, or she scratched herself on the rake while gardening. Give her the benefit of the doubt and then wait and see.
However, if she really is hurting herself then there will be other problems that will start to present themselves. If you really believe she is hurting herself then you should express your concern to her directly. I am certainly not a mental health care professional, but if she were cutting herself I would consider it a cry for help. This is a common problem in high school and very alarming to see. Since she is an adult student, I assume she lives independently and there is no parent to contact.
You might want to call a suicide prevention hotline, or a mental health professional and ask them what they would recommend you do as a concerned friend.
Consider what is going on in her life and whether there is something going on with this student that you don’t know about.
If everything else in her life seems fine then consider how you might be helpful and supportive to her.
Sometimes a little bit of kindness and compassion can go a long way to help someone who is hurting.
As a teacher, you walk a fine line between respecting her privacy and extending appropriate support to a troubled student.
Wait and see, it might be nothing. I hope for her sake that it is nothing.
But if it is a serious problem you will have professional advice on what to do.
I can’t discuss any specific details on that with you at this time.
However, there are professional computer forensic specialists and cybercrime units in law enforcement who have tremendous knowledge and skill in this area.
There are also excellent attorneys who specialize in cybercrimes of all kinds.
Never underestimate the threat of a subpoena and legal action.
Yes, it can certainly be an automated virus and yes your e-mail identity can be stolen from someone else’s address book. But it is important to realize that sometimes it is malicious. I had one investigated and it turned out to be a web-site that specialized in slandering anyone for a price. It is easy to ignore these issues until it happens to you, and then protecting your identity and reputation becomes a legal issue.
Thank you for posting this ugly issue, it is a real problem for everyone but especially for professional women.
I too have had my name and image hijacked by spammers and hackers who used my identity as a mule for their malicious activities.
SOMEONE took pictures from my web-site and advertised “sexy pics and videos” of me available with the click of a mouse.
Hmm, I never took any sexy pics or vids and yet there it is in cyber-world as if it were true.
SOMEONE also registered me with fake profiles on “dating sites” and I received innumerable unwanted e-mails from interested individuals. This has happened to me several times.
SOMEONE also took my name and profession and put a copyright symbol next to it and used it to blog on porn sites.
This blog was accompanied by several nude pictures of faceless women on the sidebar.
I don’t have a problem nudity, I have a problem with sexual exploitation and fraud. Because of the way the internet works, the more often your name/profession is recognized the more it gets used. So for all your advertising for gigs, the more well known you are, the more likely you are to get “used”.
However, there are malicious individuals who will target you and take your hard earned popularity and put a negative spin on it to achieve their own agenda.
It is very upsetting when SOMEONE USES YOU for their own malicious gain by attempting to destroy your reputation while cowardly hiding behind a computer.
Achieving success in the music business is hard enough, but it is especially hard when certain people try to force you to pay A NASTY PRICE !
Fearghal,
I don’t know where my flutist got the cadenzas other than while he was in Austria. Paul Badura-Skoda is a very famous pianist and composer. I suggest you do some research of your own, if you go to his web-site http://www.badura-skoda.com you might be able to find some resources. Consider the venue of your performance and whether your audience would appreciate a more historically stylistic cadenza, or a more modern realisation that showcases virtuoso chops on a modern harp. When I was in conservatory we all learned the Reinecke and that is what we performed, regardless of whether our flutists liked it. Today there are so many more options available to the harpist who really seeks them out. You need to listen to some respected recordings and study the cadenzas to make an intelligent decision. I strongly suggest you ask for advice from your teacher or another professional harpist with whom you may be coaching. Ultimately you need to pick the cadenzas that you and your flutist like the best. I hope you have plenty of time to prepare it because it is far more difficult than it appears. In the end it is tempo that you must control because the flutist or the orchestra will often want to go faster than the harpist can play. The best performances are when the soloists and the conductor are in accord with one another so Mozart’s concerto speaks as a collaboration of virtuosos and not a battle over tempo.
You may need to gently remind them of all the notes you have to play in comparison to their part. I used to joke to my flutist that his part was a “walk in the park” while I was “climbing Mt. Everest” in a gown and high heels! If you can agree on your tempos and stick to them, the brilliance of Mozart will shine through and you will have a fine performance. Good luck!I think a student should study the piece and ask their teacher which edition and cadenzas they believe to be the best.
My flutist colleague is a distinguished professor and an international performer and he had strong opinions about Mozart, specifically this concerto. We listened to different recordings of very famous performers and compared them and discussed how we wanted our performance to be a little more in keeping with Mozart’s style and sensiblity especially in the cadenzas. I studied 5 different cadenzas and discussed them with my flutist before we agreed on what we would do. In studying these cadenzas I asked many of my professional harpist friends which cadenzas of these they preferred and why.
Their answers were interesting and I enjoyed reacquainting myself with all the cadenzas.
The other cadenzas I considered were the Pillney, the Houdy, Kathy Bundock Moore, and the Reinecke which I had already studied and performed before. My flutist gave me the Badura – Skoda cadenzas that he had found in Austria and he wanted to try them. We compared all of them until we came to an agreement of how we wanted this Mozart performance to speak…. with tasteful elegance and refinement and not a lot a lot of romantic fluff in the harp writing. Ultimately we chose the Badura-Skoda cadenzas for the first 2 movements and I chose the Flothuis for the third movement cadenza. Although I will say the Flothuis did give it a little bit of a romantic feel in the harmony, it was still tastefully done. By the way, the Salzedo edition worked beautifully and my colleagues only made a few minor tweaks here and there to make it more Mozartean. My colleagues were impressed with my powerful performance of the “Salzedo” edition and in fact our performance received a rave review from the critic and wild applause by the audience. We had 2 call backs and heard “Bravos” from the audience where there were a few highly esteemed performers and musicologists.Carl – FYI Marius Flothuis was a Dutch composer and considered a Mozart specialist. His cadenzas are very popular and approriate in style and are a lovely balance between the two voices. I don’t know what cadenzas you like to use but Flothuis’ are a popular choice.
Tayce,
You have been given excellent advice by everyone and I would try all of their suggestions. The most important question to ask yourself is how do you learn? As a performer you are wise to fortify your muscle memory with visual and auditory memory practice techniques. If you are “visual” employ the visual memory suggestions with the music, on the strings, and with the music – but away from the harp. If you are “auditory” and have a great ear, listen to it a lot and sing the flute/orchestra parts before your entrances etc.. I love to play along with my favorite recording with my ipod ear-phone in my left ear so I can still hear myself with my right ear. Muscle memory is great and I am always grateful for it when it kicks in automatically. Having just performed the Mozart this spring I understand your predicament. Don’t underestimate the importance of analysis in combination with your other memorization techniques. Even though it may be easy to analyze, always remember where you are in the piece (what key you are in, are you on the tonic or the dominant etc.) while you are playing it, so you don’t get distracted and start thinking about the grocery list and what you are going to eat for dinner.
It is easy to get into a place in your head where you know it so well that you stop thinking about what you are doing. The Mozart is so beautiful but it is not nearly as easy to perform as it appears! I hope it goes well for you good luck!
Tayce,
You have been given excellent advice by everyone and I would try all of their suggestions. The most important question to ask yourself is how do you learn? As a performer you are wise to fortify your muscle memory with visual and auditory memory practice techniques. If you are “visual” employ the visual memory suggestions with the music, on the strings, and with the music – but away from the harp. If you are “auditory” and have a great ear, listen to it a lot and sing the flute/orchestra parts before your entrances etc.. I love to play along with my favorite recording with my ipod ear-phone in my left ear so I can still hear myself with my right ear. Muscle memory is great and I am always grateful for it when it kicks in automatically. Having just performed the Mozart this spring I understand your predicament. Don’t underestimate the importance of analysis in combination with your other memorization techniques. Even though it may be easy to analyze, always remember where you are in the piece (what key you are in, are you on the tonic or the dominant etc.) while you are playing it, so you don’t get distracted and start thinking about the grocery list and what you are going to eat for dinner.
It is easy to get into a place in your head where you know it so well that you stop thinking about what you are doing. The Mozart is so beautiful but it is not nearly as easy to perform as it appears! I hope it goes well for you good luck!
Tayce,
You have been given excellent advice by everyone and I would try all of their suggestions. The most important question to ask yourself is how do you learn? As a performer you are wise to fortify your muscle memory with visual and auditory memory practice techniques. If you are “visual” employ the visual memory suggestions with the music, on the strings, and with the music – but away from the harp. If you are “auditory” and have a great ear, listen to it a lot and sing the flute/orchestra parts before your entrances etc.. I love to play along with my favorite recording with my ipod ear-phone in my left ear so I can still hear myself with my right ear. Muscle memory is great and I am always grateful for it when it kicks in automatically. Having just performed the Mozart this spring I understand your predicament. Don’t underestimate the importance of analysis in combination with your other memorization techniques. Even though it may be easy to analyze, always remember where you are in the piece (what key you are in, are you on the tonic or the dominant etc.) while you are playing it, so you don’t get distracted and start thinking about the grocery list and what you are going to eat for dinner.
It is easy to get into a place in your head where you know it so well that you stop thinking about what you are doing. The Mozart is so beautiful but it is not nearly as easy to perform as it appears! I hope it goes well for you good luck!
I decided to try them because they offered me such an incredible deal to do it for one year. I have never booked a single gig through them although I get a lot of requests for bids, usually for the wrong instruments. It encourages undercutting and there are a lot of harpists that get the work because my fee is higher and the budget brides will always go for the cheapest bid. They rate harpists with stars based on how many gigs you have played through THEM, not how good a harpist you are. It is really just a money maker for them because you are encouraged to pay the $20.00 referral fee. It is great for the harpist who does no other advertising and is willing to “low-ball” on a bid. I have a lot of other work that I get because of the caliber of my playing and the quality of my work, not because of my fee. However it has hurt the market here because so many harpists are willing to go out for less just to get a gig. In the classical freelance scene, I have also had a harpist try to steal a major union contract from me by undercutting me on the cartage fee. This cartage fee had been established in the professional music community for many years and it was shocking to many to see how low a certain harpist would go.
Regarding weddings, I had a bride contact me independently for a bid and then again through gigmasters. I told her the fee is higher with gigmasters because of the referral fee and that I had already quoted her my regular fee and I wouldn’t go lower. I never heard back from her but it didn’t matter because I got booked for that date anyway.
There are some experienced quality harpists listed, but then there are some that I have never heard of before and they are willing to work for less. Recently, I heard from some professionals with discerning ears say that they heard some terrible harpists at certain events. Regardless of hype, I think it is bad for the music community because the public has expectations, and then the performance is disappointing, especially for those who can hear the difference.
“Low-ball harpists” always reduce the standard of quality that really highly trained harpists have to tried to maintain in the business. Regardless of whether the job is a wedding or an opera, many of us have dedicated our lives to the fine art of harp playing and we take our playing very seriously. We don’t play these jobs for extra spending money, we are professional harpists, it is how we MAKE OUR LIVING.He is definitely the person I was thinking of when I suggested it.
Hopefully he will be inspired to do so and we will all be so fortunate.
I love his Lyon King, and “Have I Told You Lately that I Love You”, they are some of my favorites!
David, can you feel the love tonight?
Bring us some “Thriller” Jacko arrangements and we’ll “Be There for You”!
YUCK! Now I am feeling really nauseus.
Can we get this thread back to music?
I wonder if any of our more gifted jazz/pop harpists will publish some great arrangements?
Oh Brandy,
I think the whole world is stunned, what an amazing talent, what a tragic life.
“You Are Not Alone” is a really beautiful song, a great choice for the harp.
The lyrics are wrenching, especially for anyone gripped in the raw grief of the sudden loss of a loved one.
What a comfort your soulful performances must have been to the grieving.
