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I’m wondering if the conductor is a university student himself. The harp parts are in the Romantic Era repertoire, which is harder to conduct (I’ve heard) than other stuff. Maybe it’s the conductor’s lack of experience, or as you said, lack of knowledge about what has harp.
I would make it clear to him (without being pushy) that I’d love to play more, and he might ask you what has harp…so you could be ready with suggestions.Thanks for the input. I was wondering if any forum members were lefties. Seems like harp and keyboard tend to be right-hand-oriented because the melody is carried (usually) in the right hand.
Interesting slant on hands.
Harpo didn’t read music, according to his bio. I forgot he was a leftie. He played beautifully.
I just wondered about it because I’m very right-dominant and play a free left hand on my rep music. When I have to play a real left hand, like with opera parts, I have to really work at it.
I wonder about string players because their left really does the work.It’s the ear of the listener…and they hear it differently from what we hear.
I am primarily a wedding, dinner, etc. harpist, (so maybe it’s not the same for recitalists) and I’ve gotten some of my best compliments when I felt I had messed up.
ex: Once I messed up part of Ceilito Lindo, and this lady came up with tears in her eyes and told me it was the most beautiful Ceilito Lindo she’d ever heard. She was serious! I kept a straight face and thanked her.I did a number on my left wrist rollerblading in November ’98. There was no name for the fracture…he called it smithereens. I didn’t have a cast. First, I went to surgery, (2 docs) and they put on a metal bar from the hand to the arm called a fixator, which sticks up (it’s not under the skin) and draws comments like “bionic arm”. (They drill a hole in the hand bone and the arm bone.)
Mine looked like the first image here.
https://www.google.com/search?q=wrist+and+fixator&oq=wrist+and+fixator&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.5548j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=2&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8Then they waited a while to see if the pieces would all come together. They didn’t. After about a month, they decided to go to surgery again and put in a plate. The Dr. told me later it took them a long time to decide how to put the plate in because it was hard to find anything to attach it to. Cheery.
Anyway, the upshot was by March, the fixator was off and I started therapy because my hand and wrist wouldn’t move. I didn’t wear a sling, but the left arm and hand couldn’t bear any weight because of the pins, plate, etc…until it had all settled. It didn’t take long, tho, to get things going, and I started going out to play very soon…so I was sidelined from about mid-Nov. till the end of March….but then I used my smaller harp, the Aoyama Etude, until November because my left arm was so weak.
After all that, the only thing I do differently are harmonics in the left hand…I do them the same way as harmonics in the right because my wrist can’t quite bend back enough…and I can’t do hand stands over. (I quit skating. sigh)
So even tho it seems the end of the world at the moment, hopefully yours will also heal up and be fine again. I, too, wondered if I’d ever play again.I just learned those two songs because the bride wants to walk in on lK and out on Everything I Do. I learned just the first part of Everything because I figure that will get her out…she doesn’t have far to go.
I just learned A Thousand Years and Everything I do for a wedding coming up in March.
I also just learned the theme from The Godfather because I think it’s pretty, and music in minor helps vary the sound of dinner music.
I think your rep kind of depends on where you are. I play lots of Mexican music, but others probably don’t.I wonder why people think harpists should smile while playing. I really can’t imagine a string player (Casals-cello, or a violinist) smiling while playing.
How weird. I was just thinking about the smile thing.
And I know I’m not answering your question.Once I sent someone’s web site to a friend, and she commented that the harpist was smiling and looked so happy playing. I commented that the harpist was NOT playing…she was just posing for the picture.
I think the only person who successfully smiled and played at the same time was Harpo…because he was trying to look silly. If I saw a harpist smiling while playing, I’d wonder what was distracting her/him from the music. Sometimes, something might cause me to smile, but it would be a distraction of some kind.
At a baby shower, I think I smile when I play “This old Man” or “Twinkle,” but that would be the kind of thing where a smile would be appropriate.
I suppose someone will write in about Salzedo and the pencil in the teeth while practicing. If that’s your thing, go for it!
The score is on IMSLP, but not the individual parts.
http://imslp.org/wiki/Symphony_No.3,_Op.44_%28Rachmaninoff,_Sergei%29Biago. I throw them away. As my teacher once said…if it’s old enough to break, it’s old enough to break again. (if it is a thick gut, I cut off a little to use for string blocks if my supply is low.)
Gretchen. As for wires, in the old days, they were made differently and never broke. The first time I broke a wire, I called LH and complained. The guy told me they were making them differently because “you people leave them on till they’re green.” I admit mine did get kind of greenish. It was a shock to know I couldn’t leave them on forever.I play pedal harp, and I always carry a full set, except for the bottom two wires. The only two times I remember strings breaking, they were wires…which sound like a gunshot…but the string just stays there, kind of loose but not looking broken, while everyone looks around for the gun.
Eventually, you will need a full set anyway because strings do need changing. They can go false. The guts can start to fray, and the wires need to be kept from getting too old….or they break and sound like gunshots.
The difference between carrying a full set and an un-full set is no big deal. There isn’t much weight or bulk involved with a string bag in your gig bag.
