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Hi Carlos. As I said above, I’m quite a beginner myself and I’m sure the more experienced players here can give you a better answer than I can. However, you’ve waited a long time with no reply so here’s my opinion fwiw. (bearing in mind also that I only play a lever harp). The big manufacturers seem to get a good rap here – L&H, Clive Morley, Pilgrim etc, but I would think the most important point is to get the harp that suits you and that will be quite a personal thing. Of course, if there is a harp-playing friend who can advise or go with you that is wonderful but if that isn’t the case I (in your position) would be looking for an instrument that appears to be well made, feels good to play and has a tone you love. If you are not yet enough of a player to make that judgement, you can at least get an idea of the voice by having the harp demonstrated for you. While appearance is always important, don’t be fooled into thinking that the more elaborate the harp, the better it will be. If you have two or more to choose from, try to judge their different voices with your eyes closed so as not to be swayed.
I’m afraid this is all rather vague but I do hope that others will now join in and give you more detailed help. Good luck with the hunt – definitely one of the most fun things you will ever do.
Being one of those people who can’t resist books on my favourite subject, I ordered The Talent Code along with its sister book The Little Book of Talent by the same author. Basically ‘The Talent Code’ explains the science behind Coyle’s ideas, while ‘The Little Book of Talent’ lays out, clearly and simply, 52 tips for getting the most out of your practice – so simply, in fact, that it all looks a bit too basic at first. I started off reading ‘The Little Book’ and am already applying some of the tips to my own practice with noticeable results (after 2 days!) I’ve now passed the book on to my husband (who is learning the sax) and have ordered another copy for my uke-playing daughter. The Talent Code, meanwhile, is now filling me in on all the background of why and how the tips work. Very highly recommended for players of all levels, though I imagine the best results might with real beginners who can develop these methods right from the start without having to undo any bad habits already aquired.
Ah well, if Iowa winters are that bad perhaps you’ll be prepared. I don’t see me ever making it to Edinburgh – it’s the opposite end of the country from me and, thanks to disability, probably just too far to travel (not to mention expensive – I would need a convenient fortune to visit all the harp events I’d like to go to). I do hope someone who is going this year will report back and tell us all what it was like.
Emma – I didn’t thank you for passing on info about the Two Moors Festival – another one I didn’t know existed!
Phill – Apologies for only just having responded to your ‘friend’ request – it’s taken me this long to find out how to access it!
Well, it sounds as if you’ve picked the right part of the UK to move to – you’ll certainly be in the heart of things and relatively conveniently placed for the Edinburgh Harp Festival! It can only be good news for the UK as well, to be getting another harper to swell the ranks, even if it is only temporary. I’m only sorry to hear you will be moving over at a time of year that means you probably won’t see the sun for another 6 months or more, I do hope you’re prepared for that!
Hi Daniele, it’s lovely to meet another beginner! My new harp (now expected in around a week’s time, all being well!) is being made by local luthier Tim Hampson (http://www.harpmaker.eu/) – it’s really wonderful to have found someone within driving distance because I’ve been able to visit a few times to see the work in progress.
I do think you’ve done well to keep going without a tutor for all this time – I do find I need someone to keep moving me on or I can get stuck on the same piece for months at a time. I’m sure we’ll meet up one day at one of these retreats because I swear I’ll make it some day. Meanwhile, if you ever feel the need for a good moan (or just a chat) with another relative newcomer, it’d be great to hear from you.
Oh I really do plan to! It looks wonderful and it’s at the top of my list of things I simply have to do. This year is definitely out – the new harp is accounting for most of my spare cash, plus my husband will be away for part of the dates, leaving me with a dog-sitting problem. Hopefully by next year I’ll also have come to know all you other UK harpists and harpers a bit better so that will make it even more appealing, if that’s possible.
Meanwhile, can I just say that if anyone a bit nearer to Plymouth has ever thought about setting up something of this kind themselves but not done so due to the horror of all the work involved, while my harp playing isn’t yet good enough to be of any use, I’m definitely up for helping out in any other way (clerical, checking out venues, general organisation etc) as long as it doesn’t involve lugging about concert harps (major back problems) or heavy furniture. Just a shot in the dark in my desperate attempts to get more harpy-stuff of the ground that I don’t have far to travel to!
Btw, I assume that some of you will be going to this year’s retreat? I’d love to hear how it all goes and what went on.
So far, neither of my children shows any inclination to play the harp but I was surprised, when my own mother died, to find how I felt the urge to try some of the things that had given her pleasure over the years. Things that had interested her became a way in which I felt closer to her now she was no longer around. For that reason, I’ll be leaving my harps to my kids because you just never know if they might suddenly feel like taking it up once you’re gone (and, of course, tastes change – I didn’t get the urge to play until I was in my 40s and it still could come to them later).
However, if they really decide the instruments are just cluttering up their homes I shall also be leaving them the contact details for my tutor and the local luthier who is making my new harp and also of organisations like those following, who use donated instruments to teach children who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford to play. Some of these are:
http://www.londonmusicmasters.org/support-us/lost-and-sound-the-instrument-recycling-campaign/
http://charitymusic.org/
http://www.mhopus.org/
I imagine not all of these might be able to give a home to a concert-sized pedal harp but I’ve no doubt there most be one somewhere that would adore the gift.Hello Emily (or is it Lou?), it’s good to ‘meet’ you, thank you for getting in touch! No, because of a death in the family I had to scrap plans for the DPAF but it’s something else on my ‘must do’ list for the future, along with the Retreat which sound absolute bliss! How interesting that your daughter is progressing from pedals to levers when it so often seems to go the other way around. How old is she? I am so envious of those who started young.
My tutor’s name in Fionnuala (I probably shouldn’t give more details that that without asking her first but it’s a sufficiently unusual name that I’m sure it will narrow the possibilities if the two of you know one another!) and she is a real marvel – I don’t think my playing would have ever got off the ground without her. My husband has just taken up the saxophone and experienced that awful phenomenon of a tutor who can play well but can’t teach (he has changed now) and there are a lot of those around in every field so I am more grateful than ever to have found someone who can not only teach well, but with whom I ‘click’ mentally.
Do you also play, or is your job just supporting, encouraging and (I suspect) taxiing your daughter?
I just bought Stairway to Heaven as arranged by Davud Ice, though I can’t actually play it until I get the new harp. Does anyone have opinions on how this arrangement compares with the SylviaWood one as I had meant to get hers but mistakenly ordered the wrong one.
I should be getting 8 additional strings any day now so I’m really just trying to consolidate everything I’ve learnt so far (ie. most of Sylvia Wood;s ‘Teach Yourself . . . ”) before going on to some of the music I’ve recently bought, including several pieces from ‘Classics for Pedal Free Harp’ – my favourite and likely starting point being Mozart’s ‘Spring Song’.
Hello Keziah, what a pleasure to ‘speak’ to you! The retreat looks like my idea of heaven and it’s something I’m definitely aiming for. Sadly, for all sorts of reasons, I don’t think I will be able to make it this year after all but I’m starting up a ‘retreat fund’ in the hopes thast I can make it in 2014. I’ll be keeping an eye on the website for news of how this year’s event goes and details of the next. Here’s hoping everyone has a wonderful time and looking forward to meeting you eventually!
May I offer a slightly opposing view? It’s been my experience as an older learner that the easiest things for me to learn are the things I enjoy the most. Now admittedly, having taken up the harp in my fifties I’m never going to be pestered by the RPO but, whatever the learning goals of the pupil concerned, it seems to me that without enjoyment, musicianship is nothing. I started out knowing the notes in the treble clef and not much more and I’m becoming more and more familiar every day with the mechanics of reading music but I think I might have lost interest very quickly if my lessons had consisted of nothing but sight-reading – the reason the pupil is there, after all, is to play the harp.
In fact, my biggest breakthrough was learning to play a tune I knew well that is fairly fast (no time for counting) but that consists of notes (both in treble and bass clef) which are fairly close together (no big jumps). I found the only way I could do this was by not counting the notes from the bottom upwards but by their distance from the previous note played – that still doesn’t teach you to read music but it does teach you to stop relying on counting out every note, which is the first step. It feels to me that it would be almost impossible to play any instrument without eventually picking up music notation and that it is a question of whether you want to learn that part quickly or are happy to pick it up as you go along.
Now, having said all of that, here’s the caveat. My background is in both teaching (not music) and learning as an adult. Apart from my own children, I have no experience whatsoever of teaching children and I do realise that it is a completely different ballgame from teaching adults so this is just speculation on my part. I’m just getting so much pleasure out of my own learning that it grieves me every time I hear of someone trudging along to lessons that they have started to dread, because people who hit that point very rarely come back. Not that I’m suggesting that your students are dreading their lessons, just that I fear it could happen when everything is theory. The idea of the flash cards, I must say, sounds brilliant to me, though I’d be more inclined to do ten minutes of that at the end of each lesson than fill whole weeks with it. Just an inexperienced opinion though.
Thank you for posting this Kay! To a beginner like me it seems that everyone else is drippping with confidence and experience and that I am the only person who ever makes a mistake. I suspect having told us about this will improve your own performance because. instead of brooding over what went wrong in private, you can now begin to put the whole thing into perspective – nobody died, after all. As you are already aware, the chances of anyone in the audience having noticed anything amiss are virtually nil – and it’s my bet that nobody out there could have played anything like as well as you did, even with a few errors.
It is brave and generous of you to share the experience. Although I’m a long way off any kind of public performance, when I do eventually play for a crowd of strangers and make mistakes (as I inevitably will) I will remember your experience and know it happens to the best of us. Please don’t have any worries about your next performance – the ‘worst’ has happened and it’s uphill all the way from now on. Anyone who says they have never made a mistake in any performance is either lying or a robotic and uninspired musician. Good luck next time -please do come back and tell us all how it goes.
I do apologise for taking the conversation off in another direction but I just wondered how others feel about that idea of ‘upgrading’ to a pedal harp? I actually felt quite disturbed when I read Paul’s comment that his teacher wants him to ‘upgrade’ as, to me, they are two quite different animals, each with their own attractions. I once read (can’t remember where) that talking about using a lever harp as ‘gateway’ to a pedal harp is a bit like asking a violinist if they plan to upgrade to a cello and it seemed quite a good analogy to me. I know lots of people play both kinds of harp and that is another thing altogether but I do hate to hear the lever harp talked about as if it is the poor relation to the larger version. I’d just say to Paul that I know players of the lever harp who have a very good classical repertoire despite having fewer strings to play with – play whichever instrument you wish but please don’t assume that one is somehow inferior to the other, there are things you can do with a lever harp that you couldn’t do with a pedal harp.
I can’t wait to hear about your new ‘baby’ Paul – I hope you bring your Mademoiselle home with you and tell us all about her (and it’s a pleasure to ‘meet’ another mature learner).
