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How wonderful! I will begin looking, and should you happen to run across them, please post! So this really does wind slowly back to Saul’s post.
A tiny bit of background for those not familiar w the piece- It is obviously William Byrd’s writing from the English Reinassance, but hearing them played on piano by Gould, I assumed erroneously that the variations
It’s on its way! Amazing, they didn’t have it listed under Glenn Gould the last time I’d run a search, but did have under the correct title, Thanks Gorman!
Gorman, the piece I’m looking for is “Sellinger’s Round”. I’ve tried to get it on Amazon.com but there seems to be some problem with the pieces matching the listing on the CD. I will certainly check this. I was absolutely blown away by this piece. I even went so far as to contact the radio station on which I heard it. I’m headed to check it out right now. (Sorry for the 3rd highjack, Saul).
Unfortunately for me, although I long for them, I’m still not technically adroit enough to play Barbara Brundage arrangements, but her pieces and the contemporary pieces of Laura Zaerr are my dream goals.
Therefore the following disclaimer- since I haven’t seen them (it’s torture to look at music, hear it in the imagination and not yet be able to perform it) I don’t know how Barbara handles ornamentation. It is most interesting to me to consider the use of Baroque or Classical ornamentation to be heard by the Neo-Romantic ear. There are raging battles on some of the bowed strings threads because for example Bach sounds so odd to the current “ear” when played in Baroque style. Many of the violin and cello pieces sound “wrong” without the lush vibrato that is obligatory in players that have been trained in the last 100 years.
Some time last spring I was in the car and chanced upon a piano piece played by Glenn Gould. It was a small
I second Jennifer’s comments, but also add that with harp in particular, it’s really easy to learn bad habits. I haven’t personally seen the two learning systems mentioned, but I’ve followed the users of both online, and the two teachers involved are top notch professionals.
The one thing missing when you are teaching yourself is constant feedback. Even though I’ve played many instruments, I needed ongoing support when I started to learn how a good hand position felt and what I had to do in order to learn it. That said, the best way for me to learn anything is that way. If you are someone who can learn by watching and imitating, you may well be able to learn by yourself.
Harpworld is a wonderful place to be, no matter how you get there!
The more I brood about this subject the more it intrigues me. The other day at my lesson my teacher, a fine harpist whom I greatly admire, was working on something with me and she sang a measure or two of it under her breath in syllables.
Unfortunately, I forget just what the context was, but my point is that even as a distinguished instrumentalist, she automatically reverted to solfege to answer some question about a passage she was playing.I think it would seem on the surface that a chordal instrument would be less apt to use solfege directly, but then perhaps it would be rather that the solfege would be useful and the insturmentalist might not think of using it.
As a beginner attempting to establish kinesthetic sense of the placement on the strings, without looking at the strings, I’m using syllables all the time. I may not accurately reach the interval between C-F kinesthetically, but I surely do know the difference between do and fa, and if I hit the strings around the F, I know where to put my fingers to correct the error.
I’m sure there are harpists who didn’t learn solfege first, and who have developed the aural sense of intervals so that their primary sense is of the sounds of the individual strings but for me at least, solfege is a useful tool when playing harp.
Does that make any sense at all?
We used materials by French publishers as part of the freshman sight reading and ear training course when I was
Glad for you dad Audrey. Isn’t wonderful how much we get from the harp? Take some time to get back in, and maybe you can figure out some way for it to go the next time you visit.
Sorry, I neglected your materials question, I did take copy making in college and we were to use dip pens and India ink. Torture.
If chained to the wall, I can make a readable copy in pencil, but loathe having to do so. No more Scheaffer cartridges? This gets worse and worse……..
How would one go about synthetically processing food?
Saul I’ve been doin’ this for fourty odd years, and the problem isn’t coming up with the ideas. The problem is the very mundane task of getting them from brain to print. I know what I want the music to say, I haven’t the facility to get a machine to do it so that I can have someone else see or hear it.
I was thinking about this in the afterglow of my mini-tantrum, and I think I may experiencing something akin to people who believe they can’t- ever- learn to read bass clef. Well, I think to myself, everyone can do that. So maybe MY issue is not having exhausted the search for teaching-tiny-fingers-to-input level programs that will not overwhelm my very non-cyber brain.
I know that some of you can use Sibelius as though you were born to it, and in spite of that, I still like you. But can anyone suggest some REALLY REALLY baby basic program that I can use without ruining my otherwise sunny dispostion?
Maybe it depends on how you compose. Just let me tether my horse and buggy, and I’ll tell you how I do it.
First, I get a melody in my brain. Sometimes, the melody belongs with words, so I think of it as the words part and the melody part. Then I think of it morning, noon and night
I agree with Kay. When I first read this post, it made me so mad I didn’t want to answer. Unless “the other tenants” are in some excruciatingly sensitive sub-group, you’ll never have peace.
The only wild shot alternative, in my opinion, is to acquire a copy of your “noise rights”, and adhere to it scrupulously. But be warned, if your neighbors are this “sensitive” about this issue, they may just pick up and move to the next gripe when they can’t zing you (pun intended) with their previous complaint.
I wonder if anyone else has experienced this- sometimes if I’ve neglected weekly practice, my next lesson is BRILLIANT. Haha! I think, I’ve finessed it and no one will know I’ve slacked off……..but oh my, what happens at the lesson following.
I’m not wishin’ it on yuh Kay-
It would be a great privilege for me to study with anyone on this board, but I have studied with three fine musicians (not harpists) in the past ten or so years who were not able to understand what I wanted from a teacher, in spite of my gentle but constant attempts to indicate my wants. They did not understand that although I am older than dirt I wanted to achieve as much as possible with the instrument I was attempting to learn, made fun of my very expensive hand made instrument, and spent large amounts of lesson time talking about themselves, and how well they played.
Although they were interesting, I wasn’t getting much out of their time. My harp teacher, on the other hand, demands of me what she demands of her other students, expects me to use correct technique, and keeps the bar high, and I love her for that. She is well organized, and appreciates my current general music skills without getting carried away with them. Consequently, I see progress from every lesson, and although I’m not playing any profound music yet I love the little 24 measure gems she has me play. I see absolutely no indication that I won’t continue to increase in skill, although I may be 84 before I can play a nicely rolled chord, and if it takes me that long I don’t care, because I’m getting so many other good things and I LOVE the sound of the harp. I don’t agree with everything she does- she feels that it’s unlikely that I’d be able to manage a pedal harp, and from curiosity, I’d like to see if I could, but I dearly love the lever so I can live with it.
I certainly don’t think of any of you as being unprofessional for laying out your credentials for prospective students. I haven’t seen anyone who acted that way
HOW COOL IS THAT! (MSC- that’s what it was when I went) is my Alma Mater. You were probably learning an adaptation of Kodaly. They used to teach all the levels but from what I can see in the catalogue, unfortunately they no longer do. I would be pleased to be corrected on that if someone knows.
When I attended, harps and harpists were so rare that the occasional orchestra part was played on a keyboard. At the time, the Ridgewood Symphony had someone who played harp for particular pieces but not on a regular basis, so that was as close as I got to the real thing. It was directed by Arthur Christmann, who also did the college orchestra at Montclair.
