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Saul, I have an extra copy, copyright 1966, 9 pages long. Send me by e-mail your street address, since it is not in the 2014 or AHS 2013 Directories. My copy that I still need to keep is 28 pages, by the same authors Follet and Schroeder, titled Outline of six-Year Harp Course, also Copyright 1966, apparently the earlier version from which the Outline of Troubadour Harp Course was taken.
Alison, you mention nail clippers. I have never used clippers or scissors on fingernails or toenails. My late mother, a fine concert pianist on the east coast, used only “emery boards”. I use the black kind of salon emery boards, with a rough and a fine side, made by Revlon. Safe, and very effective. Give those a try, perhaps.
Carl, in your search for a lever harp, the type of harp which might suit someone who is used to pedals, is a Tyrolean Harp. It is common in Germany and Austria and is single action, with 7 pedals instead of any levers. Repertoire is not only all the lever harp music known in the USA but also a great amount of Bavarian and Austrian music published for it, for the most part very upbeat and cheerful. Some used harps of this kind might already be here in the U.S. Three US harp players had or still have this type of harp: Jill Whitman, Bellingham, WA (AHS), Laurie Rasmussen,(AHS) and Christina Tourin, now in Mount Laguna, California, with her company Emerald Harp Productions. Tyrolean harps all have the “banana-shaped” sound chamber. Perhaps someone in the Boston area has one.
Randal, It is wonderful to hear of your generosity, sharing your musical gifts with those who truly need spiritual uplift. Probably others will chime in here who do this also. My contribution of forty years’ bringing my volunteer “Serenaders” student chamber ensemble of harps, violin, viola, cello and bass to Children’s Hospital, Alzheimers or nursing home facilities and other senior residences in my area just ended a year ago when I could no longer drive a car. Staff members at some of these places would let me know how some patients who seldom responded would tap their feet, hum along and get involved with catchy tunes like Jingle Bells, The Teddy Bears’ Picnic, and other melodies that I had arranged. I miss the group very much but thankfully I was able to pass the music and equipment along to a fine violinist-teacher nearby whom I had started as a youngster. He hopes to continue the volunteer group.
Mary, Vanderbilt Music Inc. in Bloomington, Indiana now distributes my Herald Music arrangements, one of which is a collection: Familiar Hymns With a Friend. This contains 21 hymns for harp and string quartet, with a CD included, along with all parts, in a plastic sleeve at the back of the main Harp book. Violin, Cello and Harp can easily perform this without viola or second violin. Professionals like yourselves may add double-stops to fill out any missing harmony, here and there, as you please. Some titles appropriate for Holy Week and Easter include: Golden Harps are Sounding; O Sacred Head; Jesus Christ is Risen Today; Love Divine, All Love Excelling; I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say;
Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart; Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow; and so on.Mae, you wrote on July 22 that other instruments you tried did not offer grades for folk instruments, the way harp study does. Recorder, Accordion, “Piano for Leisure”, Singing for Leisure, Saxophone for Leisure are all given as graded courses in the hard copy of Manual of Syllabuses available from the Australian Music Examinations Board. Some are be free to be downloaded, and go up to grade 8 and also Licentiate, if this kind of discipline and motivation is what you wish. For example, the highest level of recorder is examining people on concertos by Vivaldi and Corelli and Telemann. The website to download or to ask questions is http://www.ameb.edu.au. Also available from the website is the manual for Contemporary Popular Music (CPM).
Trinity College London, I notice, has a good syllabus (my bound print copy dates from 2003) where the harp section pages alternate between pedal and non-pedal harp from pages 135 to 168 and the last page, after grade 8, has the title: Non-pedal harp, Performer’s Certificate,and has exam choices from Handel, Sweelink, Shaljean, Perrett, Gough, Houdy, and so on. The e-mail to ask about downloading is: music@trinitycollege.co.uk There is also available from that source, a free 50 page book by Danielle Perrett called “Technical Development for Harpists” with many music exercises included,from Grade 1 through Grade 8,concluding with 3 valuable pages of helpful exercises “Grade 8 Non Pedal Harp!” She is an examiner for Trinity, all over the world..
If you are using some other graded list, try these; You may enjoy them.Chelsea, I’m thinking that if you join the American Harp Society you would be able to contact other harpists who live in New York City (at least 41, from Manhattan to the Bronx, and Brooklyn and beyond). We all receive a directory with listings by state, with addresses of other members; such a help in getting connected. Living on the 3rd floor and needing to get to street level with a harp, with no elevator available, is such a risk that someone needs to help you who knows what to do. Have you tried a piano store, that would have careful movers that take valuable pianos up many stories with no damage?
Andelin, there is a volume DEBUSSY REVISITED, self-published by the late harpist Suzanne Balderston, Copyrighted in 2002. The cover states: Simplified and Arranged for Pedal and Lever Harp. The four compositions enclosed are: Clair de Lune, La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin, En Bateau, and Premiere Arabesque. Her e-mail at the time of publication, printed on the outside of the back cover, was:
sbalderston@worldnet.att.net. If this contact no longer works, see if it is available through major harp music catalogues. A last resort might be to contact her son, professional cellist Stephen Balderston. These are such useful classical works, for those who play harp but want more repertoire but lack pedals, or the time to study more complicated arrangements. Her previous website was: Beautifulharpsounds.com. Mrs.Balderston arranged many other works for lever harps so quite likely they are now distributed and you would find them still in print somewhere. Good hunting!Basel,
You will find the information on Forum Archives, concerning what men are comfortable wearing, if you go to page 5 by looking at the bottom of each page in the Professional Harpists category to see how to advance to the next page. At the top of page 5 then, Saul Davis Zlatkovski lists his question about male attire at the top, in HARP SUITS and there are 7 responses! One of the posters even gives a link to his favorite shirt shop online. If you search past page 5 in the archives, in Professional Harpists, you would very likely find the site concerning shoes for men also. Wonderful to know you are somehow safe now. When you can, let us know more so we may be able to help, but never harm, in some way.
Saul, I agree that any list or chart would need to be rather general. Who would have the time to find many details of those important considerations you mention? Life became so different since computers opened up answers for us all that perhaps those people who wish to learn about harp costs, types, weights, sizes, sources and so on can each search to find what they wish to know. Also, in a short time, any carefully gathered data will soon change, as new harp makers come along, as well as many new options and choices that were not available previously. Since 1959, for example, when I began collecting many printed price lists of major harp companies until 1993, prices of new harps were helping the parents of my students decide on some of the models they would purchase. I rarely look at those heavy binders of information now; everything is quite dated. A Gold Style 23 pedal harp, for example, as of January 1 1959, for $3895., is not possible, nor a Style 15 for $1995 in the same year. And parents are surely not bringing home ten times as much salary. Your points are valuable, however, because prospective harp buyers or renters must use due diligence.
Hannah, many conductors, young or seasoned, do not know about the very helpful book, spiral bound and 74 pages, that we harpists and teachers of harp, know is THE book to buy (Under $20.) for the perfect gateway that a conductor, harp student or their parent to have. On Alfred Publishing, look for: A Harp in the School (A Guide for school ensemble directors and Harpists), edited by Chelsey Bowles, PhD. If you own it and like it, write your name on it and offer to lend it for a week or two to that conductor, in hopes that he/she would be interested enough in its content to invest in that book. This is not being pushy, just helpful so that this leader of your orchestra will see what a wonderful resource this recent publication is to find repertoire that includes harp in ensembles and a myriad of other very well researched items. Eight very experienced harp teachers contributed to this excellent publication.
Gregor Piatigorsky, the late, great cello virtuoso, was left handed. Somewhere there is a list of prominent people in history who were also left handed.
Carl, as you ponder all the different lever harp types out there, don’t neglect considering the Dilling (now Douglas) harp made now in Florida by Arsalaan Fay. Watch and hear him play on You Tube. After I found a used one, I bought it and now enjoy it for its new patented 7 levers instead of many levers, making it much closer to what the pedal harp can play. I sold my Troubadour, as it is more labor-intensive than the Douglas and cannot handle all the repertoire that the Douglas can with ease.
Tayce, My mother was given a Steinway baby grand piano. Model 0 on her 20th birthday by her mother. The cost in 1920 (confirmed by a letter I have confirming this, from Mr. John H. Steinway, Chairman of the Board of Steinway & Sons on December 7, 1982) was $1,000. I have her piano, after her death, in my living room. Mother began piano well before her graduation from high school, with Sigismond Stojowski at The Institute of Musical Art, in New York City, a ferry ride from her home in Morsemere, New Jersey. The Institute later was named The Juilliard School of Music after a large donation from the wealthy Juilliard Family (in the woolen cloth business).
I have no experience so I hope someone else will log in to this important question. Two comments, however, may help: First, get in touch with Carl Swanson, a very reliable renter of harps in Boston, to inquire about renting a harp of your choice. He posts often on this site so if you registered here and type in his name, you will obtain his e-mail. Also, many years ago when the well known harpist from Wales, Osian Ellis, was transporting a pedal harp back to the U.K. from the U.S.A, in a large wooden case, it was dumped into the Atlantic Ocean by a crew member in the cargo section of the plane, by mistake, thinking it was a coffin intended for “burial at sea”.
