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Very interestng, thanks everyone. I have always learned lever changes at either exactly where written or exactly where I change them to be. I’m sure I’d never be able to do them in different places in the same piece- change them at one measure one time and at another the next.
I think part of my lever issue may be visual. Even the Camac levers are hard for me to see quickly. I have even less luck with Truitt levers because they’re so small.
I have a tendency to want to look away from music as little as possible, and I’m getting the feeling that it’s because of having to look away from the music AND the strings that I feel as though levers are a struggle.
At least when I’ve had the few lessons I’ve taken on pedal harp, there are fewer pedals (than levers) and my foot seems to find them without looking
Somewhat OT- there is a lovely set of songs by Vaughn Williams that includes “Linden Lea”. I did them 83 years ago as part of my college graduation recital. Well it feels that way anyhow. Also “Bright Is the Ring of Words”. Unfortunately it was written for baritone but we altos are used to singing all sorts of oddly misplaced lyrics.
I like “Danny Boy” if it’s done simply with a nice accomp. I make no apologies either. Taste is taste. I promise not to criticize anyone else’s choices and we can all afford to be polite.
My guess is that your daughter is shorter than you are so that the harp is balancing differntly on her shoulder than on yours. Try putting something under the harp to prop it up a bit, and see if that makes it more comfortable. If your daughter is shorter, I think the stool may also be too short.
I’m relatively short but most of my height is in my trunk (short legs). I need my harp to be higher in order to sit comfortably. My Thormahlen Serenade has taller legs, and I play my teacher’s Prelude, a lot taller, when I take my lesson. Both feel weightless. The only harp I struggle with is my teacher’s concert grand pedal harp, which just feels too big for me to balance properly.
I absolutely agree that “grinding” is a killer to enthusiasm. Kodaly done correctly totally omits that phase of training.
I had a very pleasant experience the other day when a student with whom I’d worked about 15 years ago came to my house to sell me Cutco knives. I was amazed at his conversation about all the good times we’d had when I taught using Kodaly in the elementary school he had attended.
He has now graduated from college and plays drums and guitar, having started somewhat seriously only about two years ago. He said when he began instruction that his teacher was amazed at his grounding in music theory fundamentals, and this was what he remembered from 6th grade.
I was a pretty good self-taught sight reader when I was a kid, and learning part music by rote always made me crazy, so one of the things I found most attractive about Kodaly is the high degree of skill independence in students trained in that way.
My conversation with my former student convinced me that my enthusiasm for the method was reciprocal, and that my students were equally enthused about what we did together.
I absolutely agree with Kay 100% on this. I posted a similar experience to this in “Beginning In the Middle” yesterday.
I sometimes prefer working on harder pieces a week or so more than my teacher wants me to work on them too, and she usually goes along with me on that, because she knows that I have a particular goal in mind with the piece.
I am a retired certified music teacher who took up the harp two years ago this coming April.
Kodaly training provides tools, as phonics provide the tool to decode reading. A Kolday trained student has learned layers of musical skills, and the skills remain tools through any other type of musical training to which the child may be exposed.
I have not had any formal training in Orff techniques, so I am not able to express an opinion.
I’d like to know more about the use of Suzuki harp training. From the small amount I know about using Suzuki with orchestral instruments it seems to me that the initial training would have to be somewhat different, because the Suzuki I harp book requires much more technical skill than the level I book of violin, as an example.
It has been my own experience that many very good musicians find it very difficult to teach music reading effectively, and the very structured skill steps in Kodaly are very helpful with (I’m using many too many “very’s” but the emphasis is necessary to make my point).
I have often discussed this topic with music educators, and have often heard the complaint that without a structured, sequential approach to music literacy instruction, an applied music teacher always winds up re-inventing the wheel when starting with a new student who is not an absolute novice in all aspects of music instruction.
A well run Kodaly program evens the playing field for student and teacher. A child in the fifth or sixth grade will know how rhythms and notes look and sound, will know the meaning of essential music vocabulary words, and will love using what he or she knows about music.
It’s all kid based and music based and learning based, and the results are more fun than a barrel of musical monkeys.
I am a devoted advocate for the Kodaly Method for children from nursery school on up. The method is based on the concept that children in a musically rich envrironment can learn music literacy as naturally as they learn to read the words of their native language- music is also a “native language” for children.
I think that the Suzuki Method is much harder to do as thoroughly as Suzuki advocated than doing Kodaly, although the Kodaly Approach also requires intensive training and a great deal of preparation both before and after the instructor begins working with children.
It is extremely gratifying to use the Kodaly Approach. I absolutely didn’t believe that children could do what I learned in my Kodaly classes until I
First off, I was tickled to find that “Blondie” is still published.
Second, I had a fleeting moment this morning of wondering if one of my harps actually could live long enough outside to generate some enthusiasm for the Salvation Army. Our local contingents are having a terrible time with low donations.
I figured passers-by could either pay me to play their favorite holiday tune or pay the bell-ringer to make me stop playing. Either way, the SA would benefit.
It’s still not working correctly. If I should disappear from view over a period of time it’s because of this computer, in which case I’ll see if I can back on using my husband’s computer.
I’ll be interested in hearing it, so I hope it will be recorded. I like his violin concerto, but it’s
If any of you have fibromyalgia, or know someone who does, you may be familiar with “fibrofog”, the brain freeze that causes otherwise normal people to turn into zombies at annoying moments.
THIS is what I’m most concerned about right now with buying a harp. Yesterday it was unseasonably warm on the US northeastern coast. I had a great lesson and felt just fine. By last night, the barometer had fallen or risen or whatever it does, and I was aching like a tooth from head to toe and some invisible gremlins were poking broom handles into me. So that’s really why I’m struggling.
When I’m feeling well, I enjoy the harps I usually have access to. It’s when I feel terrible that I need a harp with low string tension, bass strings not made of big hard wires, and even a narrower reach from high to low.
So it wasn’t simply being capricious about this topic that caused me to bump this post up, but I then promptly forgot what I was talking about. Fortunately it doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, it can produce embarrassing results.
So I continue to search.
I just gave this thread a bump, since it’s where I’m finding myself. Nine months ago I put my little fund into a CD and it has grown very nicely, but at the time I thought that when nine months had elapsed I’d have a sure and certain sense of the harp that would melt like chocolate into my awaiting hands.
But I don’t. One day I can be absolutely sure that I want THIS harp. Then I get worried about the string tension and think how beautiful THAT harp is, and how the tension is lower so it should be easier on my hands, but wait!
There’s another one that I’ve looked at quite a bit. That one maybe? I certainly don’t want to mistake, and getting to a harp store is a nasty 4 hour drive, and what if there’s nothing I love there?
Fortunately, I have a couple nice instruments to play until I decide. Anyone got any ideas?
Fascinating! After playing lots of harmonics on my Serenade I just tried them on my Rees Aberdeen, and they’re popping out fine there too. So I guess I’m not a one joke wonder. Now if I could only do anything else harpistic!
I’ll tell you what I think- I think these programs were gorgeous. I used the Campra in my wedding, and at the time, I was directing the choir, so mine was a men’s choir of about 20.
As long as you can pull off the quality that you included in your programs, my feeling is the more the merrier! Beautiful, JUST beautiful!
