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I once played a gig where I played Salzedo’s Eight Dances, not long after Heidi Lehwalder’s legendary recording was out, and a woman said my playing was fluid, and reminded her of Heidi. That made my, not day, my life.
And don’t fall for that old line, “It’s really good exposure.” Nonprofit organizations are businesses like any other and have money to spend.
I think you should be an adult, at least 18, for legal reasons and safety. You should be able to do a gig independently, without assistance. There are often opportunities to play for family, friends, organizations with or without pay. It is not fair to compete with adult professionals. That’s what I think. Only if you are the only harpist around at all. Plus, you have to be well prepared and play pretty well.
If you look at Bochsa’s instructions in his method, from slightly later or contemporary times, he says to play ornaments ON the beat, taking their value from the following note. I am not sure about 6/8 movements, though, but however you play those graces, make them short and snappy.
Hopefully, your teacher has kept track of what the standard excerpts are that are commonly asked for, and yes, you do learn all of them well enough to be able to work them up quickly. Each audition tends to have at least one wild card thrown in.
Here, off the top of my head, are the common excerpts from auditions in the 1980s and 90s:
Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra, Music for Strings Percussion Celesta, Bluebeard’s Castle, Violin Concerto no. 1.
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique (both parts sometimes), Harold in Italy (sometimes), Invitation to the Dance; his parts are also good for practicing sight-reading.
Britten: Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (always), Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes.
Debussy: La Mer, Prelude de l’Apres-Midi d’un Faune, Nocturnes, Iberia.
Faure: Pelleas et Melisande Sicilienne.
Ginastera: Variaciones Concertantes, Pampeana no. 3
Hanson: Romantic Symphony
Mahler: anything
Moussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto
Ravel: anything, esp. Tzigane, Rhapsodie Espagnol, Ma Mere l’Oye
Rimsky-Korsakov: always Capriccio Espagnol, Scheherazade
Sibelius: Symphony no. 1
Strauss: Don Juan, Death and Transfiguration, Ein Heldenleben, Salome’s Dance.
Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet,
Wagner: anything, especially Liebestod, and Magic Fire Music.
If it is an opera or ballet orchestra, then there is special repertoire.
A festival will also have special repertoire.
There is often sightreading. That may mean a part that has only SOME of the pedals marked.
They also commonly ask for concerti: Debussy Danses, Handel Concerto, Ravel Introduction and Allegro, and/or Mozart Flute-Harp Concerto, sometimes Boieldieu.
You learn a lot from the auditions you don’t win. Don’t try to guess what they are looking for, make music.
They often choose music from the upcoming season.
The exercises in the Lawrence-Salzedo Method would be the first step, unless you’ve had a lot of piano, followed by the Conditioning Exercises, and then I would add the LaRiviere, or at least its principles applied to the Conditioning Exercises. It has been said that they are the most concise and complete set of exercises for any instrument. If you have just started, you want to open and close your hands away from the harp, and you could squeeze a tennis ball to develop more strength, but its really about control.
Thank you so much, Peter. This is a dream come true. You have uploaded about a dozen songs recorded by Casper Reardon, not just the Suesse Suite. Did he also perform the En Bateau?
I can’t imagine swithcing to a computer. It will open up a whole new world of complications, seems to me. How long does the battery last? How do you turn pages? What if it fails? Doesn’t seem reliable to me. I would spend the money on a multifunction printer with an 11×17 flat bed screening area so you can photocopy music as needed to solve page turns.
The key is your preparation. If your practice has been solid, it will hold together in a lesson. If not, it will fall apart like wet tissues. It is a cry for help to your teacher, because every fault will be exposed. When you learn to deal with every angle, every problem, and with sufficient repetition to lock it in place, you will be secure. It takes time and lots of effort and lots and lots of thinking.
We tested this when I was in Tanglewood, and among the ten of us, if you had drilled thoroughly, you had to repractice at least three times before your lesson, preferably five times or more, for it to be faultless. As a rule, we found that it took at least ten correct repetitions to secure anything. Seven to get it right, and three or more times again to lock it in place. Anything less was insecure. Three times was the absolute minimum, even just to stay where you were and not lose ground. I suspect you play through pieces as you please, and only work on spots that give you trouble. (Like everyone naturally does.) That results in trouble spots that move from day to day, week to week, and nothing is secure. A castle cannot be built on shifting sand. It’s very simple if you can boil it all down clearly enough, and that’s the hard part.
It is not so hard to play them naturally, just be sure to spend about ten minutes a day playing glissandi at all different dynamics so your callouses can handle it. You can change angle of your finger for slightly different tone or impact. I think almost anything would be preferable than to use picks, speaking from the listening point of view. Especially if you are amplified. You can also use your 4th and 5th fingers when 2 and 3 are tired.
I don’t recommend doing this at all, but in an emergency, be sure the harp is well supported on both sides and held as still as possible. It would be better to brace it against the side of the van if possible. You don’t want the neck to be vibrating.
You don’t have to study it until college, but you should be familiar with all the basics, identifying chords, reading music accurately, and you should get a general knowledge about music from books like music encyclopedias.
It would seem to me that the answer to movement of the harp’s component parts is to make all the external parts of the action ADJUSTABLE. Put multiple holes in the discs for the pins? Allow for different-sized discs. Make the adjustables truly adjustable, including the stationery nuts. Etcetera. Jim Buxton told me that the pedal springs could be at the top of the pedals instead of the bottom.
Why does the string need to be pinched? Could not a “thumb” push out against the string, and its pad could be moved up or down as needed? The newer levers do something like that.
Could not a thin metal strip run underside the center strip to reinforce it without impacting the sound? Titanium or aluminum or something?
