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Here are some thoughts from sightreading it: it is lovely, has the potential to be a great harp piece, and you have a good ear for the harp. The wide intervals sound well, but can make fingering tricky if not impossible for one hand. The rhythmic notation is not entirely clear because you are joining notes cross staff without rests in the other staff.
The ornaments are hard to play with the left hand, but not impossible. The staccato dots don’t have a real meaning to harpists. Everything we play is slightly staccato and legato. Do you want them muffled, or just articulated, separated?
I think your melodic figures could be developed slightly more to be more melodic. They could have less repetition of a same note.
In measure 19, you need an F natural pedal marking. On beat 3-and
Well, one harpist in these forums got a harp donated by begging and pleading for a long time, not that I would recommend it. If you live near old plantations and such, watch estate sales for elderly harps.
It looks rather idiomatic. I will play it and see what I can suggest. One think to watch out for in general is that staying too long in the bass can get rumbly. I did notice that your metronome tempi do not correspond to normal settings. That is irritating to me. Also, when setting the music, if you use Sibelius, in document setup, set the notation size to 3 or larger. Your systems are too small unless you print it on part paper or larger. The margins are fine, but the alternative is to put just four systems per page.
I have noticed that lots of French pieces post-Debussy are very weak on form, they have an idea, develop it with lots of figuration and cadenza writing, restate the idea, and that’s the end of it. It doesn’t hold up that well.
I did not like the sound of the 323232 trill in one hand. You can do a two-handed trill with 32 32 or even 43 43 if you work to make them even. A sustained one-handed trill usually sounds lousy, without the freedom, phrasing and brilliance of a keyboard instrument, so abbreviating them and sustaining the last note 2312, or 3412, or 2121, or 3121, is in most cases, enough. Bouskava has a great shake, and so does David Watkins. But I don’t think it is the most musical approach. Harps have to do ornaments in their own way, which is not the same as on a harpsichord. I have been working on them a lot.
I have an excellent doctor named Levon Nazarian who has created, with his partner, a new procedure to treat soft-tissue injuries and joint disease. He uses ultrasound to view the tissue and joint, and then using the image as a guide, he injects cortisone into the bursa or the tendon sheath, as he has done for me; if needed, he uses an ultra-fine surgical needle to remove calcium deposits from a joint, or stipples scar tissue or thickened tendon sheaths to make them supple and allow the tendon to glide again, thus curing trigger-finger conditions and relieving carpal-tunnel syndrome, as he has done for me, or other problems. He has published his procedure in a journal, so it should be possible for your doctor to read up on it. He can be contacted for referrals, as he teaches many residents who are now working around the country or world. He teaches and practices at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital Radiology Department. I recommend anyone explore this approach who is having carpal-tunnel, trigger finger, bursitis, arthritis and such problems. He cannot do spinal injuries, it has to be visible with ultrasound. As for bursitis, I recently started with a “straight chiropracter” who seems to have helped a lot, the severe pain has decreased considerably. It seems to me the bursa should be able to heal, so I wonder why you’ve been told it was permanently injured. This is the first chiropracter I’ve been to who has made a noticable difference. Somehow, I think there will be a doctor in Missoula who can help more.
I can say that my fingers will start to trigger when the weather is coldest, so keeping them warm seems to help.
I know a fantastic singer who lives in Calgary, a mezzo-soprano named something like Jacqueline Fiedler. I would love to tour more, but travel is hard, and it is really hard to play on unfamiliar harps, or to find ones that are the way I like. It is quite frustrating it is not like it is for pianists with Steinway able to provide pianos where they perform.
I don’t know how likely that is to happen. I have tried to watch people and have it constantly pause, that is not how I’d want to be viewed. I can be seen live in Philadelphia and Minneapolis. It may be we’ll have some video streaming on the festival website, but my concerts were not filmed. Audio, yes.
Thank you, Candace, we should meet up.
I have tried to write for lever and find it difficult. I have a collection of folk songs, but it is big and therefore a lot of work to get ready for publication. I have also found etudes impossible to write as yet. I hope to find my way into them.
I knoe John Doe, he is from Chicagoe, I think I knoe. I think he works for a harp company, or she. But he’d better watch out for Jane Doe, she is coming to get him! He owes lots of child support.
I invite all of you to the Harp Music Festival of Philadelphia, naturally, so we can all meet. I would also love to host a gathering of only male harpists, so we can dish the real dirt. I am very flattered and hope I do get to meet all of you. I wish I could travel more. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to the West Coast for the Conference or the WHC. I thought they were synchronized, but aren’t I gather.
Well, they do sound interesting. There is so much more Italian harp music than we ever hear about here.
The ideas was that they are reading these forums to figure out how to scam us, so I wanted them to think they should mention bananas in their letters, which would be an obvious tip-off to us, but by explaining it, now they may know what I was up to.
Even if you could cash a check they sent you, they want to gain your bank account and email for identity theft, and when the check was returned, they would have your account number. I don’t know how it all works, but I’ve heard that some irate people went to Nigeria to track the crooks down and were murdered. I don’t understand why it isn’t a major book or movie yet, this stuff.
Wow, a nice juicy topic!
I can say that Lucile Lawrence felt it would interfere with learning to read, which she constantly found to be a big problem with harp students, not having enough reading skill. She also felt that her approach in her ABC of Harp Playing was better, where you learn to read and play at the same time by saying the notes and pointing to them as you play them. I have not been that impressed with the selections in the Suzuki books to want to use them. I tend to think that a lot of it is based on marketing appeal, that it is attractive to parents. The involvement of the parents is something that is more natural to the Asian cultures, I suspect, than to Western.
As for the results, it probably evens out after a certain number of years. It did used to strike me that Suzuki pupils seemed to be more confident and egocentrically secure, perhaps from receiving lots of support and little criticism, perhaps? But I have little direct experience, so I will be glad to hear from those who have had it.
