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Natalie, I have the version by Susann McDonald/Linda Wood. Miss McDonald is the Distinguished Professor of Harp who has been teaching harp at the U. of Indiana in Bloomington for many years. Most brides will reach the altar well before the theme and variations (sections A through U!) are played, so you could feel free to shorten it as need be, possibly keeping the beginning and ending intact and adding as many other sections as are comfortable for you. It is in D and can be ordered online at http://www.harp.com through the Lyon and Healy West web site, catalog no. 706-390100.
Price in 2008 was $8.00. It lies very easily under the hands of a harpist, as does another Pachelbel Canon arrangement by Phyllis Schlomovitz that I have, in C, from the same publisher, with different, interesting variations (A through M).
Hopefully one or the other will be just right for you!Donna, the Toyota Camry 1992 station wagon if you can find one, can hold a Lyon and Healy Model 17 or a Venus Encore easily.
A suggestion: Once you rent or borrow or purchase a transport case for your harp, place a simple cloth fitted cover over your harp before loading it into the case. You could easily sew this yourself, and that extra bit of protection is necessary whether the harp goes by air or by sea to its new destination.
There are countless tips and helps a good teacher could help you with, in just a few months of lessons, to shorten your learning curve considerably.
Elzbieta, for the last 30 years I have used my 43-string gold Lyon and Healy pedal harp, model 14, 56 pounds heavy and serial no. 3965, upstairs (6 steps down to ground level and the car from front door) for most of my practicing and for all playing engagements. String range is 7th E from the bottom string, to 1st E at the very top. In the daylight basement studio down a flight of 8 steps from ground level, is always my larger pedal harp that I never use outside the house, weighing almost 80 pounds, that I use for teaching while I sit beside the student at the Troubadour 4 model Lyon and Healy lever harp. Our positions are reversed if the student has a lever harp at home. Both these harps were bought used and I am so glad I found these as I grow older and the weight of an instrument becomes more important. The tone of each is very resonant, and the string spacing is nearly exactly the same, to a milimeter or so. All my repertoire for outside engagements can be handled easily on the smaller pedal harp, suggesting that you could be content with 43 strings unless playing in an orchestra.
Alexandra, Twenty Carols With a Friend is scored for Treble 1, Treble 2, Viola, Cello, and harp with no added accidentals. Herald Music is the publisher and most specialty harp music dealers carry it in the U.S. and several foreign countries. The harp part is easy enough for a harp student who has had one year of lessons. You can e-mail me for a sample page or two.
Alan, whether for harp or piano or guitar or any other instrument, it is a good idea to expand your knowledge of Italian a bit beyond presto, amore, pizza and so on. It will help your musicianship immeasurably over time. Not only is using a small English- Italian-English dictionary a great help for any student musician, but there is a wonderful series of illustrated books called: The First Thousand Words in (Italian, or German, Russian, Spanish, or Polish, etc. etc.) by Amery, Di Bello, and Cartwright. The illustrations by Cartwright,, full of humor, with a small duck or cat on each page, are obviously designed to appeal to young children; but I am not ashamed to reveal that all my students have gone to page 38 in the Italian volume to find comical illustrations for “arms” (le braccia), “elbows” ( i gomiti) “shoulders” (le spalle) “fingers” (le dita), “thumbs” ( i pollici), “hands” ( le mani), “head” (la testa) and other Italian words. Then, your Grossi and Pozzoli music books will become much more usable. My copy, published in 1983 by Usbourne Publishing Ltd. in London, England, was $12.95 when I bought it new.The ISBN is:
0- 86020-768-4
Combining a humorous illustration with a foreign word, greatly helps memory of that word.Here is a link to a czech-born cimbalom player living in Stuttgart, Germany. She has performed another piece by Mchedolov as chamber music and might know the publisher as you try to find the piece by M. that you are seeking. Good luck!
Paul. you could ask Heather Yule, prominent folk harpist in the U.K. that question. Her father made wonderful folk harps.
Here is a suggestion that might help:
Go to http://www.ruslania.com. At the top of the home page, all in Russian, select English. On the left you will now see a choice to click on: authors alphabetically. Now appears on your screen by scrolling down to the M section, that composer’s name. Click on it and you will see an illustration and text of a collection of pieces by him, which looks very interesting to buy, but might not contain just the particular piece you are looking for. Don’t give up, because at the top right corner are the words: send us a message, in English! So if this publisher does not carry what you wish, he will very likely answer giving you the source, and perhaps even the U.S. dealer that imports music by that composer. Kindly let this column know if your search is successful; many of us are looking for more music by this fine harpist and composer who lived from 1903 to 1974.Sylvia,
My neighborhood within a large city has a name,, and also a monthly newsletter with the same name. It is delivered door-to-door by volunteers, and is also online. I have bought a business-card size space for a one-time display ad and the charge was $40.
Other ideas: let churches and funeral parlors know you play harp. My church organist went on a bit of vacation and needed someone to fill in; now there are members of the congregation who want the sound of the harp again from time to time. Since those members are often senior citizens they may have young sons and daughters wanting wedding music, Let large department stores (that might have a silver and china department where brides go looking) and country clubs have your business cards and perhaps a demonstration CD. Hope this helps,Jimmy, if you have Home Insurance already, you might ask that company if a “floater” added to your existing policy might give you the coverage you wish for your harp, whether it is at home, in transit, or away, and what fee they charge.
Tracey, once you have finished putting your song on manuscript paper with pencil, and adding any dynamics, fingering, title and so on that should appear on the finished page, decide whether you want to transcribe it into music notation yourself, or ask someone else with music notation software to do it. It could be a music composition student at a College of Music for example. Consult the professional Association or Union of Musicians to ask what a reasonable fee per page would be. If you do it yourself, you would need such software in your computer, and there are now quite a few to choose from: Finale, Sibelius, and others with more limitations as to what they can do. I got used to Sibelius, and the Educational edition is less expensive if you are a teacher, which I am, at a community college for many years. Now once it is in print and you see the first proof, make any changes, after playing it through to make sure no mistakes are there. Let at least one other harp player play it also to give any suggestions you may want to consider. Do you want a cover? Text only, or also a picture? Microsoft Office Publisher software is helpful for that. Find out whether a nearby printing company will print music for people. One such place in the U.S. is the Office Depot chain of stores. Do they stock paper that is the size and weight you wish, or can they suggest a store that can supply this, which you then carry to the place where it shall be printed? Do you want to bring the best print copy of music and cover, or put all that as a PDF on a small “thumb drive”, that the printer can transfer electronically into his equipment with which to work? These are just a few ideas to start you thinking. The music software that you buy will have a helpful book that comes with the product, giving you much more detail. Mine has 590 pages (!!!) and it is also online, once it is purchased. Happy publishing, Tracey!
I owned a Pilgrim Clarsach since 1977(while the company had the previous name Wilfred Smith Harps) until I finally sold it to a local student a few years ago. The tension and the gut strings help young fingers gain support for the “placing” of fingers ahead of plucking, and were easy to compare to that of my large pedal harp. I was receiving compliments about the rich tone of the clarsach. If you are in the U.K., you would not be making a mistake choosing this one that your daughter might keep indefinitely for its excellent workmanship and portability, to play at school and other places. Talk to John Hoare at Pilgrim, or Benjamin Creighton Griffiths in Wales, who had a Clarsach as a beginner, with any question you might have.
