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Tony, would you consider what pianists do to be a similar concept? Maybe that’s where the idea came from. However, they do have gravity in their favor…and nowhere to go but up. Once I saw a flute player who circled her flute a lot…I thought it was distracting from the music. Anyway, what I heard at lessons was AWAY…AWAY…meaning to get away from the strings, and tho I do find it’s a great practice method, I don’t want it to carry over into playing.
It might also depend on what type of playing you do. The closest I get to recitaling is wedding preludes and receptions, but what I concentrate is on getting a beautiful sound. They can look at the beautiful harp and hear beautiful sound, but they don’t need to see anything distracting from me. I’m just at the back end, running the machine… and playing orchestra, opera, and band is different from playing solo…get it in the right place at the right tempo and make it sound good.
Everyone is unique and has his/her own ways of doing things. Never fear, there’s no danger that anyone will change their mind about anything just because of my opinions!
I think that must depend on what part of the country you are in. I’ve played Catholic weddings for 30 years in South Texas, and no one has ever said they have to pay the church musician also…and I’m sure SOMEONE would have mentioned it if that were the case.
For me, it depends on the music. If it’s an opera part, I definitely need the printed music, but I sometimes memorize the most difficult sections…usually they are too fast or they jump all over, so it’s suicide to look back and forth.
My personal rep is all memorized. For solo playing, I think it makes a much prettier picture for the audience to see a beautiful harp and the harpist (maybe not beautiful, but cleaned-up anyway), with no music stand, etc. distracting from the picture.
It’s harder for me to play without looking at the strings, but I think we are all different and have our own way of interpreting the harp. What works for one might not work for someone else.
Isn’t there an embassy from some other country near you so you could apply for asylum? Take your harps wherever you go. The Nazis spared Elie Wiesel because he was a musician.
