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Haha, these stories are great! Love them.
Once at a gig, someone asked me if my harp was a cello. I was incredulous, but politely laughed and told them no.
Another time at a park, I was playing my harp, and two teenage girls came up to me and asked to take a picture. I told them yes, and then they were like, “Oh, I love that. What is it…?” I don’t know if maybe they just forgot in the split second they were asking me, but they didn’t seem to know it was a harp. Hm.
Alexandra, you can get the EP at http://www.natalyazarraga.bandcamp.com. You can either buy a physical copy in a recycled sleeve that features original, hand-drawn art (which also comes with an immediate download), or a digital version. If you want to find my other places on the internet, I’m also on Facebook, Youtube, and I have a website that I’m currently in the process of upgrading, http://www.natalyazarraga.tk. Thanks for the interest! How awesome about your sister, I looove the Portal games. 😀
Shelby, yes, it sure was fun! Anime is nice. I haven’t seen a WHOLE lot of it, but I am a very avid gamer and a total nerd about video games. I really should dress up like that, lol! 🙂
Haha, I did not, but many of the con-goers did. I would have dressed up had I the time. Maybe I will at my next convention gig.
Sorry, the links didn’t go through in my last post. It’s http://www.wix.com, and my website is http://www.natalyazarraga.tk
I recently finished my own website, using http://www.wix.com. It’s a user-friendly platform for making a nice-looking Flash website for free, and you can use various services to make a free domain or url redirection if you like. I took a basic template and uber-customized mine with original artwork and stuff. I had fun designing my website. If you want to see my example, it’s http://www.natalyazarraga.tk
Wow, that’s awesome, Sarah! I was very impressed by the fluid lever changes. Being a huge prog-rock fan myself, I’ve gotten used to experimenting with unusual lever configurations and flips, so I’m really appreciative of seeing prog done on the harp. I “friended” and subscribed to your channel on Youtube (I’m “RoseofMay” on there). Great job! 🙂
I love Joanna Newsom! I first saw her video for “Sprout and The Bean” sometime ago and I was mesmerized. She is so quirky, unique, and talented. I will admit her voice was an acquired taste at first, but I love it. She is amazing.
There’s no need to be embarrassed! The harp is such a beautiful instrument, and you having the passion and skill for it should no less than impress people. Not everyone gets to see a harp. Judging from your post, I can guess we’re not too far from each other in age? I’m 20 and have only been playing for about 9 months, and the first time I played harp (and sang while playing) in public at a “touristy country”-type venue in Nashville with other fellow student songwriters, I think it was fair to say that most people, if not everyone, was enthralled and enchanted. It’s just, you have all these people playing standard pop and country fare on their guitars (no offense, I play guitar too, as well as piano), and you show up all of a sudden with a HARP! People’s eyes widen and their jaws drop. At the show, the owner told me I was the first harp player on his stage and he was honored. I was really nervous that day because it was my first time playing in public, but it was so rewarding.
If anyone EVER says anything rude to you, they have no idea what they’re talking about. Believe me, most people will respond with great interest when you tell them you play harp. People who don’t are either jealous, ignorant, or just unimportant. Love yourself and your instrument. 🙂
Thank you, Michael! I’m glad you liked it.
Yeah, I used my equipment and software to make the recording. I have a Tascam recording interface, and I used that with Cubase 5 (a DAW, or recording software) to record, edit, and mix. The picture is just a photo I took on a hiking excursion a few weeks ago, and I thought it fit; my husband basically just put the picture as a background with the audio playing over it in Sony Vegas, his video editing software.
As for mics, I used a Sterling Audio ST-51 condenser mic for the vocals and most of the instruments, and an MXL 990 condenser mic for harp, I think. I used both mics for the djembe, one for the bass (bottom) and one for the slap (top).
Since I’m mostly self-taught and coming from a non-technical musical background, my learning curve for all the techy stuff is a bit steep, but doing all the painstaking hard work myself I think is better for me than paying someone else to do it, haha. Thankfully I’m majoring in audio production at my university so that should help. Hope this helps! Thanks again. ^_^
Anybody remember how I said a few months ago that I wrote a harp/vocal song? Well, I finally recorded it! It took me a few months because I’m a perfectionist and had to balance school and other things, but here’s a recording of it. The song is called “Sundown,” and in this recording I sang, arranged, and played all the instruments (harp, guitar, keyboard), except for the percussion (djembe, tambourine, rainstick), which my husband did. This was the first song I wrote on the harp, and I poured my soul into it, so I hope you all like it! 🙂
“Sundown” on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVQLd6dycfA
Ah! I love Nothing Else Matters! Metallica is such a great band, one of my favorites in the metal genre. I’ve played it on piano so it wasn’t too difficult to translate to harp. If you can read music, then you can easily find some piano sheet music and just pretend it’s for harp, if you haven’t already, hah. It works fine for me.
Oh, and thank you, Deb, for the compliment about the video. I’m so late to reply, shame on me. I’m happy to report I’ve learned and am working on even more songs, both covers and originals.
And yes, to Karen…piano background helps a LOT. But you can still do just fine without it. 🙂
Lately, I’ve been trying to figure Joanna Newsom’s “Sprout and the Bean.” Beautiful song, methinks.
Yeah, for the most part. I’ve also been playing piano for over 7 years, so a lot of songs I knew on the piano I just had to translate and arrange for the harp. Do you mean Japanese anime? Yeah, I’m sure there’s some good songs there too – I’m a huge video game nerd, though, so that takes up more of my time than anime. 😛
I play on a Stoney End Lorraine; it’s fully levered and 29 strings. I absolutely love the warm, aged sound of it (it’s actually about 16 years old!), and having a full set of levers was a necessity for me so I could play with sharps and flats.
I consider my style to be pretty diverse. I like to play folk, video game music, rock (classic, progressive, metal, alternative, etc.), musicals, some Latin, and lots of other stuff in between. I’m still new to harp and I like almost all kinds of music so I’m all over the place.
I have a few videos on Youtube:
Serenade of Water/Queen Rutela’s Theme from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0UTw7WIzDc
Greensleeves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_r4UzrVvIs
The Place I’ll Return to Someday from Final Fantasy IX: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef_Tj8hjNWo
I’ve only been playing harp since May 2010 (I’m self-taught), so I’m still pretty new, but I’m learning, writing, and arranging lots of stuff already. Those three videos are pretty much my own arrangements, though they’re all simple and short. I’ll probably have more videos up in the future, especially since I wrote a harp/vocal song I can’t wait to record. 🙂
It’s funny that you say that about the tuning pin, because when I called Stoney End to order a replacement string, the lady I talked to said the same thing, and when I looked, I realized the tuning pin was a little farther back than the others around it. So, that might be why it broke when I was tightening the string.
Well, I know better now, so I fixed that problem and this new string had better not break. I think I might just wait until I get the new string, since my Lorraine is older than the stringing chart on the website (it’s actually from around 1994! Wow, I was just four then), and the string that I thought would work felt kind of thicker than the string I was using for some reason (it was also in a pack of three, so I couldn’t really tell which was which). I’m kind of paranoid, so I don’t think I want to risk wasting another string, since I think that high C could wait. It should get here around Tuesday, but since I’m going on a long car ride to Tennessee for the summer on Thursday, would it be better for me to re-string when I get it, or wait until I get up to TN to do it? Speaking of which, would I have to loosen the strings any? I’m not sure if all that applies if it’s just going to be sitting in the back of a van for about 14 hours.
