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If there is a 0-octave A, all the more reason harps should be made with that 48th string. You can tune a 0-octave G up a half-step without breaking the string, so if it is in g-sharp, you’ll have an a-natural. The Villa-Lobos Concerto also calls for 0-octave A.
A lyre is not a harp, and has a very different sound and feel. It is side-strung, and most likely played with a plectrum. You might as well play a psaltery or a zither. Just so you know the difference. If you are having one made, consider which kinds of strings you will want, nylon, gut or wire.
I have played for infants in NICU wards (neo-natal intensive care). I have Reiki training, among other things, and am a trained musician with sensitivity. I understood that they should have music that would be good for their hearts, so I played the slow movement of the CPE Bach Sonata, which has a slow, steady pulse, and the strong theme, and the stimulation of ornaments, all of which I played quietly. It seemed perfect, and they all survived the experience.
I don’t think Reiki training is even necessary if you are sensitive and sensible. You should be able to play well. The idea that non-harpists can somehow be trained to perform this task is, to me, offensive. The first harpist I know to do this is Emily Halpern Lewis, who is as highly trained a harpist as you can find. She pioneered this back in the 1980s.
Indeed, it seems to me that certification programs have little value beyond producing income for the organizers, and sadly, it has possibly prevented real harpists who do not have certification from being able to do this blessed work. That is just wrong. Hospitals might require it now, I don’t know, but can only do so because those programs were created, and I doubt they paid much attention to the content of the programs. The idea that a harp therapist should even look at a patient’s medical chart, let alone read it, try to understand it, seems horrifying to me, and a total invasion of the patient’s privacy. I’ve probably said it before, but nothing has changed my mind on this.
What a harpist does need is some counseling, because it is emotionally challenging to play for people who are ill or dying. Reiki helps in that, because it teaches you channeling healing while remaining personally disengaged. Reiki is easily available, if not locally, then online. I only recommend that, because the Usui school of Reiki is very simple at the first degree level, and very principled. One simply channels and nothing more.
Maybe some certification programs have been designed with some substance, I think one I looked at included Reiki training, but turning this into an expensive program, and one that might even discriminate against actual harpists, is something we should all put down, I think.
Something related more harpists could possibly do, though it can be a hard sell, is to play at funeral homes for viewings. Memorial services are, to me, quite difficult to do.
This was performed when I was in school, thankfully, I didn’t have to play it. The harpists that did worked like crazy, and most of it was unnecessarily thick.
I played this in 1982, at Chautauqua Festival. It was quite playable, well written. I don’t know which version it was.
I’m glad to hear you found another solution. When I first started moving my harp, I had a station wagon, and a twin mattress to lay the harp on. Unfortunately, a twin is not quite wide enough, and either the column end or the knee-block would protrude, and though I used cushions, it was not level. Could that have led to its needing a new neck at the five-year warranty check?
Asking for a minivan would help, or going to a truck/van rental facility. A Ford Flex looks like an ideal harpmobile from the outside. The ideal is having a professional harp mover, as they have in New York or Boston.
I agree, Emily, using LaRiviere was very helpful for me in developing facility. The more one has played a pattern before, the easier it is when encountered in repertoire.
You are right about tempos. Students feel such need to prove themselves, that they race through so much music, or speed it up to make it sound harder or more impressive than it really is. The Faure Impromptu is a perfect example, which has the tempo indication of Allegro MOLTO moderato. That means, VERY moderately happy. And, I am certain, he intended for that tempo to maintain throughout the piece for all the chord passages. Then it is not so hard to play the big arpeggios in time. And the Saint-Saens solo Fantaisie is a wonderful preparation for the Fantasie with Violin, and the Faure as well.
If you are using the dolly to walk the harp long distances or over several steps, then you want one with inflated tires. From what my colleagues tell me, the three-wheeled type is good for curbs and short sets of stairs, but not for walking far or turning corners. The best one has not been available for years, but had a friction skid so you could go down stairs and control the harp easily. Would that someone would make use of that, and also figure out a way to go up stairs easily.
A harp with a curved, or extended sounding board, has a fuller bass and generally rounder tone quality, due to its shape. A straight or narrrow sounding board is a little more nasal and sharper sounding with less bass presence.
Excellent ideas. If I may add to those, with any difficult passage, I have found it helps to turn it into an exercise. If you take that pattern and play it in other octaves, other sequences, it will in time become very natural to play. Also, Salzedo edited it so that you play the bottom note with your left hand thumb sometimes, which can facilitate it. And do it in each hand, it gets your brain more accustomed to it.
