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I use Sibelius music notation software (sold to educators at a lower rate than retail) and am very happy with it. Under the category CREATE, are found many options: bar, Barlines, Clef, Lines, Symbols, Text, and more. Choosing LINES enables more options from which to choose: glisses, hairpins, and others including horizontal lines, which the user can turn into a form of bracket because of the tiny light blue symbol at ends, where the user can pull down just a bit to enclose the ends of the bracket just a bit. the LINE may be slanted up or down over the chosen note (previously selected). It is not called Bracket in the software because that term is used for the symbol to the left of two staves coupling treble and bass clefs into the Grand Staff, or sometimes for other couplings like for four instruments in a larger score such as for a string quartet. I wish the software would offer a perfect solution to this naming problem. It is ever evolving however, like all software and I haven’t yet bought the latest Sibelius version so someone else may chime in on this forum to explain a better way for us to add brackets to a page.
I am so glad it was only a re-felting problem. Sometimes looking for a used harp instead of a new one, be quite sure to bend down and see if the pedal holes have nice sharp edges. If the previous owner played lots of jazz, and also used pedal “slides” frequently, that harp would have somewhat rounded-off edges of the holes so that the pedals would have an inclination to slip upward out of the sharp or natural setting. You ought to pass that harp by, and go to find another one where the previous owner played more conservatively. Otherwise the whole, removable base of a harp would need to be replaced, back at the factory where it was first made. EXPENSIVE!!
Tibor Serly (1901-1978) composed “Chorale in 3 Harps. Lyra Music company published it in 1967 and now the Lyra Music items are distributed by Vanderbilt Music Company Inc. in Bloomington, Indiana. 68 measures. A concert for 4 harps might sometimes include a work for three or fewer harps, for variety.
There was a question here about possibly getting sore fingers from harp practice. Here is a tip from Mildred Dilling, called “The First Lady of the Harp” when she was concertizing in the the mid 1900’s. She used “Tincture of Myrrh” available from a pharmacy, to toughen her fingertips. She mentioned this in a workshop I attended in 1978, ten years before her death. I took copious notes and if anyone wants more tips from her (four typed pages) they could e-mail me privately.
Gretchen,
“May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You” is copyrighted my MCA Music, a division of MCA Inc., New York, in 1950. Words and music are by Meredith Willson, written in one day. My copy is in “Family Songbook of Faith and Joy”, copyrighted in 1975 by the Readers Digest Associaton in Pleasantville, New York. It has 129 all-time inspirational favorites,and they are all in solo piano format with the lyrics inserted between the two staves. This version is very easily played by a solo pedal harp. I hope you can find a copy of this very useful hardbound book that is spiral-bound inside, with pages exactly 9 by 12 inches.
There was a time when it was the practice of the Steinway piano company in New York to send a man to the Pacific Northwest area of the USA, armed with a ruler and a magnifying glass, to visit lumber companies that had harvested some old- growth timber. His job was to find large sawn boards that would have very tight age-rings, no longer seen as rings visible in any tree stump, but as very close marks which proved slow growth of a tree in extremely cold winters. After he chose a quantity of boards and ordered them shipped back to the factory where they were used for the soundboards in the production of Steinway’s well-regarded wooden pianos, the remainder pieces of one board were just right for the Lyon and Healy Company in Chicago to cut out pieces of that excellent “tonewood” to serve as the soundboard for one harp. So the two companies had an agreement that suited them both. Impossible for two harps to sound exactly similar, since different trees were involved. In the years when Antonio Stradivari produced his violins, which have wonderful resonance and are very costly today, there is scientific proof that four years of extreme winter conditions happened in Italy. Trees grew much more slowly.Their wood age-rings were very close together in that century.
Carly, you could e-mail Skookums Sonnenschein (a lady who has played harp in Anchorage for many years.) She and 5 others are listed in the latest Directory as members of The American Harp Society, and had a few lessons with me. She would know about any rentals available and whether there is a harp newsletter online, as other states have. With extreme winter weather, carbon-fiber harps would be least affected.Her web site is listed as skookums.com, and more contact information would be there.
Alison, there is now a solo pedal harp version of the In Paradisum section of Faure’s Requiem, published by Herald Music, now distributed by Vanderbilt Music Co. Inc.in Bloomington, Indiana.
I agree with Alyson that a harp of this size needs to have something sturdy under it to bring it up to where you, sitting at a comfortable height, can reach out with forearms parallel to the floor with elbows bent and arms slightly raised away from the body. There seems to be a standardized height that dining-room chairs are built, in the furniture industry, of seventeen- and-a-half to eighteen inches. Have someone armed with a metal tape measure or firm yardstick, raise the harp in front of you to the height where your fingers would be comfortable in the middle area of the strings; the right hand slightly higher than the left; then that distance from the floor to the bottom of those small harp legs needs to be measured. That is most likely the height of the small supporting bench or table you need when playing. Height is one factor; nearness of the instrument to your body is another, so that when your elbows are bent and the forearms are still parallel to the floor, the harp can tilt and rest lightly on your right shoulder, with fingers able to reach the highest and lowest strings with no strain. Still another thing, since the harp has those four short legs: On the top of that supporting object: Add extra “stops”, glued or screwed in where the four legs will now rest so that if ever you must leave the harp for even a moment, it will be secure and not fall. Of course it is much better to quickly set it on its own on the floor
instead. When you play, the two back feet (near you) must still be firm and not slide anywhere, while the two front feet are raised. Try to find pictures of other small harp players to see how they manage this “in-between” size harp. You will enjoy this learning journey with this beautiful harp instrument.There are several beginning books sold with DVDs these days by harpists Schlomovitz, Bruner, Woods and others, that could help you reach good playing ability sooner, in-between Skype or live lessons from a teacher which if course is always the ideal situation.I am not in the U.K either and I also have a Venus Encore, that I bought used about ten years ago. It has a 7th octave low C at the bottom and I don’t miss the 00G top string at all, that a 47-string harp would have. I have had absolutely no maintenance problem, the sound is beautiful and mellow. There are fancier models but I don’t need a showy instrument; I try to play my best, and this is my second instrument, after violin. It is a help that it does not weigh as much as some other pedal harps, as I am not an athletic type; I can get this one into a Camry 1992 station wagon. Visiting harpists have borrowed it for concerts here in my city and have had no trouble with it, even praising the more roomy right hand playing space in the top strings area, than some other companies provide.
Ben,
Venus Harps is also located in Chicago and is very friendly. I feel sure that if you contact them this coming Monday they will understand and be of help to you. Below is contact information.All inquires or questions to :
dak@venusharps.com
Due to excessive amounts of emails from infected computers with viruses of all sorts, we now ask that if you email us for any type of information, please provide your full name, location and full email address so we know it is a legitimate request vs spam email from infected computers and their address books.If we determine emails to be from infected computers we will reply advising you of the problem. We cannot respond to information requests of any kind without knowing whom and where we are corresponding.
Telephone
VENUS Factory & Showroom (Chicago)
1-773-278-4210, 773-278-4238
8AM-2PM Central Standard Time
Monday thru FridayAfter hours forwarded to phone answering system in business office. Calls after 2PM CST, weekends or holidays please leave message.
Laura, I have these ensemble pieces, actually composed by Marilyn Marzuki, in her volume: Harp Album:Repertoire Primer. Publisher and Sole Distributor in 1976 was Studio P/R, Inc., 224 S. Lebanon St., Lebanon, IND. 46052.
This album of 119 pages is copyrighted so copying any page is illegal, but Sylvia Woods Harp Center lists it on that site, with a picture of the front cover so that may be a source; and I got my copy from Salvi Harps (Cat.No. B 13, $9.95) when their address was at 1649 Tenth Street in Santa Monica, California, perhaps in the 1970’s. Since she was an Eastman School of Music graduate there is a possibility she gave a copy to Sibley Music Library, across the street from the school; they are both a part of the U. of Rochester, in upstate New York. Marzuki was born in 1942. The co=author of the book was Barbara Kaplan. Good luck with finding a copy.There is also a Museum of Musical Instruments in Belgium, with more than 9000 instruments, displaying 1,100 at a time. If readers go to:
mim.be/instrument-of-the-month
they can see part of the collection without having to travel there to view many ancient ones such as a Greek lyre, a kithara, and other ancient varieties of what is played today.
Julie, as a senior citizen I walk just under two miles in a park with a group of other seniors, and a chaperone with a smart phone for emergencies, in a park with flat trails, once a week. I, with no replacements of any joints, am often lagging behind the others, MOST of whom have had hip and knee replacements and are walking quite briskly. Hope this gives you confidence for your coming operation! Carry on!
Andelin,
I echo Sylvia’s good suggestion about using a fake book. Lyon and Healy published Easy Fake Book for Lever Harp, by Louise Trotter. 52 pages, spiral bound. Familiar melodies with helpful suggestions for left hand, chord symbols printed above the treble melody; lyrics at the back of the book. There are categories such as Broadway, Hymns, Wedding, and so on.
Another choice is The Classical Fake Book of 413 pages published by the Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation. Most selections might have too many accidentals for lever players, but a good many can be adapted quite easily. There are three indexes: One by category such as Hymns or Piano music or Waltzes; one alphabetically by composer; and one alphabetically by title such as Surprise Symphony or Lullaby.Over 600 classical themes and melodies. When you have chosen perhaps 25 selections, it can be helpful to print the title with the key on a sheet of paper; then print the list out again, in large print that you can easily see on your music stand, revised in performing order with either groups like a few Irish, or Patriotic, etc., or by varying the key so you don’t have three or four in the same key right after each other. Then connect them smoothly with a seventh chord arpeggio or with a cadence leading the ear to expect the next piece in a different key. Play your list for someone before you visit a senior facility, so that you have that experience of someone else hearing you before strangers are your audience; you will gain confidence from this “rehearsal”.
