Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
You can order them from Lyra. I don’t know anything about Camac gut strings, but the Savarez are to me an entirely other thing.
My point about flowers was that many wedding have them by the boatload, not just bouquets and a nice display at the altar. But that money is spent before they go looking for a bargain harpist. At least
I think harp cost is a big factor in what you should charge. If you are playing a lever harp for a wedding, I don’t think you should charge the same as for a costly pedal harp. There is more wear-and-tear, and the repair and replacement cost is so much higher. But that’s a whole other category of undercutting: lever harpists taking what are normally pedal harpist’s type of gigs.
It’s ironic, but union scale is actually very low usually, so most people do charge more. Price setting is something a guild does, and can do for its members, certainly.
I am all for helping people who have little money, but the fact is that most weddings spend so much on other things, that they want to skimp on the music, when they could easily do with less flowers.
Thank you. Not only is this book very informative, it is fun and captivating. Certainly suitable for any harpist to enjoy.
Well, yes, I was basically assuming that these examples I mentioned were not playing at a professional level. Of course, we have a free market system, but many professions have minimum standards. That’s why not just anyone can join the musician’s union, at least in NYC, or the harp guilds. And is the Boston guild the only one, or are there others?
In the former environment I was accustomed to, a student would always charge significantly less, even a college student, to be clear that they were semi-professional, and that the client should expect less.
I tend to automatically cite Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and Debussy as examples of mostly faultless orchestral parts.
Pat, I think the state of composition for the harp clearly belies your belief that those
Here is where you can get a facsimile:
I think playing the harp themselves can be misleading. Then they may do something weird, and if they can do it, why not any harpist? Getting it in their ear is the thing.
What pieces do you think they need to listen to and study to train their ear?
There is no really comprehensive guide that would be useful to anyone. If I can cover enough ground clearly enough, it might accomplish that, and if it were used in schools, it would make a difference. Composers have never had a standard reference to use that was widely used. Chaloupka’s book has been out there, but I don’t know how much impact it has had. The big obstacle is getting professors to think it matters enough to make it part of their curriculum.
I have made a chart of chord spacing, though you may think some of the chords are too big. You could send me what you think are the limits, Liz. How the registers work is one of the harder things to explain. Perhaps you can help me with some of the orchestral areas.
I would really like to examine this closely. I do not like the look of the curved pedal slots. It looks like the pedals could easily slide out of position. I would like to hear how the brass neck plate being linked to the body affects the sound. I would like to see how adjustable the mechanism is for regulation. I would like to hear how it sounds!
