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Everyone is in a different situation. I play mostly weddings, and almost all of the church weddings are Catholic. To me, they don’t seem hard at all….although early in my career, I died a thousand deaths every time I lived thru a mass.
FEES: I adjust my fee according to the distance from home, whether an event is inside or outdoors (obviously, Catholic weddings are in a church), and if there is any known (to me) nastiness involved…like hard to get into the building, etc. I have no idea what other harpists in the area charge, and I don’t care.
As Tony said about music you probably won’t use again (one-timers, I call them)…. if someone wants music I don’t want to bother with, I re-direct them to another harpist , or to a vocal-keyboard combo. I just had someone give me a list of about 15 songs….about 11 or 12 of them I had never heard of, and the wedding is outdoors. I re-directed them, but they hung on and agreed I could use my own rep. I figured I don’t want to spend $$ buying it, it’s too much to memorize, and fighting thru all that stuff in the wind (it’s always windy), didn’t appeal to me…and no, I don’t use an ipad….I’m Retro and Proud (somebody send me a T-shirt, please).
I like the dodge….above-the-wrist thing. Seems like you’d have to be fast, or they might catch you in mid-air.
Seated at the harp, it’s pretty easy. They seem to approach from the left, so instead of reaching behind the harp with my right, I stick out my left. They don’t know what to do with it, so they kind of half-heartedly close their pincers on it and give up.
It might work with a regular shake…extending the left paw and saying something like…I have a sore finger or whatever…while indicating the right hand.All harpists are different. Sometimes I think the only thing we have in common is some kind of harp, so it’s a case of whatever works for you. I think you’re right that most people stick with whatever they are taught, but I didn’t. I was taught Salzedo, but after I was out on my own, I just played music and forgot about it. When someone asked me what method I was using, I said, Salzedo, and she said, no, it’s not. I hadn’t noticed. I just concentrated on the music and got comfortable…which I was not when I was a student. I always felt I was in forced positions, not natural. My teacher was a Salzedo student, and he said the guy was very charismatic. My teacher actually bought a Salzedo harp, even tho he didn’t like them, because Salzedo was still alive at the time.
For me, the best way to find out what I sound like…evenness, rushing, etc. is to record myself while I play….either at practice or at an event. Kind of the difference between someone telling you the dress looks pretty and looking in the mirror at yourself.
Another factor in developing repertoire is if the harpist plays using sheet music or from memory.I tailor my music according to the audience. Most of my audiences are Hispanic, so I play Mexican songs and some other things they like….Love Story, Fur Elise, Schubert Ave Maria, Jesu Joy, Swan Lake theme, A Time for Us, Come Back to Sorrento, O Sole Mio.
Sometimes I know the audience will be Anglo, or partly Anglo, so I can throw in music like Danny Boy, Over the Rainbow, Some Enchanted Evening, Somewhere my Love. If the Anglos are old, as in a 50th anniversary party, I’d also bring in things like Always, Let me call you Sweetheart, Juanita, Endearing Young Charms…
Other cross-cultural music…both sides know it…such as Maria Elena, Ceilito Lindo, Green Eyes, La Vie en Rose, How Great Thou Art, Amazing Grace, Spanish Eyes, La Paloma, Santa Lucia, Vivaldi themes, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik…any light classical stuff.
Other songs are Memories from Cats, music from Phantom of the Opera, From this Moment, You Raise me Up, Ice Castles, Wind Beneath my Wings.
Hope this helps, but I suppose that what works for me here might bomb in NYC.
If you’re just starting out, you have many interesting adventures ahead of you. Have fun.I get three wraps around the pedal with no leftover felt. I’m retro, too…the TV is there, but it’s not flat screen, and it’s not on very much….mostly to watch skating I’ve taped, and news….and I exercise while it’s on.
I thought the pedals are fastened to the harp, unless you mean just unfolding it and leaving the others folded. I wondered why you would trim a felt. I always use the whole felt because I thought that’s the amount it’s supposed to be. I’m not familiar with different harps…you must be a harp tech.
I just get down on the floor with something stuck under the end of the harp so the body end is not completely next to the floor …too hard to get the base off and on. I like contortive exercise, but it seems to me in the 21st century replacing felts is sort of like heating water on a cookstove instead of having a water heater….it’s so early 20th century, and no one is using advanced tech to change it…they just let us suffer.How can you pull a pedal toward you? Once the felt is wrapped and the pedal is against the wood, the felt stays in place while I work on it…it doesn’t go anywhere…and I just do one at a time. I just wish (and I’ve asked, to no avail) that LH would make some kind of felts that could be put on without removing the the base.
I just wondered about the clamps. I stuff wadded up paper towels between the pedals up by the fulcrum to try and keep the pedals from shifting when the base is off. I also stick hatpins thru the felt and slot felt to hold them. Folding the pedals up on either side of the one I’m working on helps, too. I wondered if clamps were supposed to hold them in place or what. If it’s to hold one while you wrap, there’s no need for that…I just hold with one hand and wrap with the other.
I wonder if your clamps are for when you sew or to hold the pedals to keep them from sliding around? Do you have a picture of them? As for sewing, yes I do. My Etude is rather nasty to get the base back on, and glued wraps can be dislodged and cause major trauma to the harpist…namely me…so I still sew those…one gluing experience was one too many.
Sewing is slow, but it’s the surest way to keep them where they need to be, and you can play on them right away. On my 15, sometimes I sew, and sometimes I glue…however the spirit moves me.
I play in a band…only when there is a real part. They give me scores to the other pieces so I can follow and add in stuff…I put in chords, arps, or glisses…whatever. If there is not at least one real part, I don’t go. As to your question, instruments that are one-liners (one note at a time) are a waste of time (like flute). They already have plenty of winds. Bells are probably covered by percussion. You might get keyboard parts. I just improvise off the chords. I’ve never gotten dulcimer parts….I don’t know what they are like. I learned in orchestration class we are not a string instrument…we are pitched percussion…like piano, guitar, etc…but many people do refer to us as strings because we have so many. Band is great fun, I think.
I like coloreds because I can see them better, but I use standards because the pitch is stable…not vague like the coloreds….but this could be because my harps are small, so the strings are short. (Aoyama Etude and LS 15) On the concert grands, the coloreds are probably just fine.
