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Sounds like a plan. This was your idea and it is interesting to a lot of harpists. Why don’t you write about it. Make a plan like you’re saying that uses a lot of ideas and then make an article on it. It’d be helpful to everyone. You know another instrument with these issues is cello. One time I bought a concert black outfit at a store that usually sells to people who just have leisure on their hands and the saleswoman was telling me about this cellist who had come in and bought the same black outfit because it was long and loose enough to sit with the cello.
Brian, these are some great ideas. Even though I have a lot of students I have too many expenses to spend $5-$10 on them right now but I like a lot of your ideas and will try them. I do a lot of good business practice and you’re right that this fits in to that too. I hadn’t thought about that before.
I’d love to know how you got so many students too. I have a lot but it took a while to get them. Since I have so many I have to be really careful of what I give students but I also feel bad when they give me Christmas presents, etc. So for Christmas I write them a card for them and for their families and I give them a small bag with little candies in it. This probably means I spend $20 total for the candies, cards, and little bags.
For recitals I give a flower to each student like a daisy or carnation and at the end of the year recital I give a harp pencil. I also watch out for unexpected harp items and I have also cut out stickers from Lyon and Healy because they come six on a sheet so if you cut it up it saves money and is something nice for the students. Lyon and Healy has tons of these stickers and students never mind getting another sticker.
Ok Saul, I figured you wouldn’t be happy with my answer and before you go on a writing tirade about how it wasn’t a good answer, I called another harpist to ask her your question. Here is what she said:
Well, I am lucky to have these problems only in lessons and not on the stage. Sometimes students come in flip-flops or incredibly short skirts. I wonder at what I should say to fix the problem without hurting their feelings but I found out that I don’t have to say anything. In the lesson each student comes to the same conclusion on their own. I never hear about the skirts, they just never show up in a short skirt again. The shoes I hear about because no matter what they are playing with pedals (and I
You know, I just think the book solves a lot of the problems because I have so many students and the students always follow the book. The other thing I do is to point out something about harpists giving recitals or harpists in photos in magazines. I always try to point out that they are wearig a long, full skirt, or pants, etc. so I think my students get an idea of not just what’s appropriate but also what to aspire to. It becomes less of following the rules and more of “becoming a harpist.”
I’m sure some students may not follow guidelines, but my students do and since I have so many students I think part of it is just setting out the guidelines really clearly and then expecting compliance rather than expecting non-compliance, and being a good example all of the time so they can’t point out that you’re not doing what they have to do. The other thing is that a lot of times when you have someone not complying with clothing, jewelry, etc., they often don’t comply with other things like preparation for lessons, etc. And
Yes! My students get a small book each year about my expectations and policies. Part of it talks about preparing for lessons and going to performances. I talk about what they should wear (or shouldn’t!) and things like having their fingernails clean and short.
Two of the things I like about this are that most of the parents use the book to be sure the kids are prepared and dressed correctly so I don’t even have to address the issue and I make sure that anything I ask the students to do they see me do too. So I don’t teach them in clothes or shoes or jewelry that I wouldn’t let them wear in their lesson because I want to set a good example. Maybe male teachers don’t have the same temptations to wear inappropriate clothes or shoes! It’s important I think because a lot of times kids say things like why can’t I do it if you do it? So they don’t make distinctions between what the teacher does in harp lesson and what the teacher does behind the harp especially if the teacher demonstrates in the lesson while wearing the wrong things! I’ve seen harp teachers wear all kinds of things that would be embarassing to wear on stage like skirts that aren’t long enough or jewelry that bangs on the harp. What kind of message are you sending when you have to get on stage to demonstrate something in a masterclass or just for one student then? I’ve also seen students who don’t dress correctly attend recitals with the same problems. Funky flip-flops or way too short skirts and I wonder if they ignore the teacher or if the teacher didn’t tell them and what about the parents? So if I were that teacher I’d like to just pull out my little book (it’s just stapled together so it’s really not that big) and say remember when you signed saying you read this and agreed to it? This kind of dress is not ok!
People are probably going to write a lot about the differences between Salzedo and Grandjany in response to your question but the best way to figure it out is to read what both of them wrote in their articles, to find any recordings or videos of them playing or talking, and to compare their transcriptions. The transcriptions are really where it’s at beyond just hand positions. You can really figure out how they thought about using different fingers for melodies, etc. They transcribed a lot of the same pieces, like the ones by Debussy.
Thanks Karen and Barbara. I had never heard the piece before and when she said “Fireflies,” I never guessed it was the Annie Louise David book piece. I did know that piece was in the David collection.
The Renie method book and maybe even the beginning of Old Tunes for New Harpists talk about resting the right wrist lightly on the soundboard. It really stabilizes your hand when you’re playing repeated notes like the 4-finger trill or things in the highest registers. There are also reasons for not doing it and you have to be sure it’s just resting lightly and not pressing on the board or else you can have serious nerve damage to the inside of your wrist.
There’s an interesting article by a student of Salzedo saying what she remembers of him talking about not resting the right wrist on the soundboard. It’s in an early AHJ.
Hi, I’m Salzedo-trained and have always put the diagrams above the staff. I find the diagrams below the staff confusing because it’s hard to tell what part of the music they reference. I think it’s also standard to put them above the staff.
There is a blog on http://www.harpeducationproject.com. More people should use it because it was formed to do exactly what you need: give advice and ideas about starting a harp program.
There is Robin Gordon-Cartier in East Orange New Jersey; Reba McHaney just retired from the Midland-Odessa school district in Texas and had a 10 year program there. Someone new is taking it over. There is also one in Nebraska, one in Frisco, Texas, one in southern california, also LouAnne Neil has a program with harpsicles in Los Angeles, there is the Carver school for the arts in Atlanta, and also the program at Cass Tech in Detroit.
