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Ugh. It sounds horrible…Schoenberg ….you know it has to be a dog. That’s probably why you forgot it…too painful to think about. Thanks for the input. I don’t think it would be a likely choice for this orchestra.
Thank you. The operas don’t count, in this case. I forgot about the Berlioz. I’m just looking at ones that might come up. I love IMSLP, but it has SO MANY works it would take forever to look at all of them!
I know pretty much which Debussy, Ravel, and R. Strauss have 2nds….and the Bernstein Ch. Psalms,. I can’t think of any others at the moment, but I suppose there are some.
When I go into HC straight thru AOL, it does the thing about wanting me to keep signing in and then won’t let me reply. I go in thru Chrome, and it’s letting me. I guess I just can’t use it straight thru AOL anymore. With the old forum, I could go in either way, and it worked.
It seems like a lot of people didn’t come here. This forum is so awkward, small print hard to read, etc. that I don’t like coming here now, but it looks like we’re stuck with it. It’s like having color TV and then going to black and white…a real step backwards.
It’s like all the harp things…everyone needs to do whatever suits their situation. I’ve sort of gone with the flow.. I don’t know anyone else’s harps, just mine.
They have been kept in fluctuating conditions all their lives. I use the AC when it gets up to 86 in here. I like to keep the windows up as much as possible. Sometimes it’s humid, and sometimes it’s not. In the winter, I get pretty cold before I turn on the heat. To me 73 is cold. The harp bodies get the same conditions I do. I can see you cringe from here, but I really never thought about keeping harps in a temp-humidity controlled place because the weather here changes a lot, and I like low electric bills…so does the environment. I’m just explaining my experience because so many people agonize over the temp-humidity thing.
If you play outdoor events, the harp will be in a variety of humidities and temps. I have two harps, an LH 15 (1971) and an Aoyama Etude (1989), and both have withstood years and years of indoor-outdoor changes. Of course you have to do whatever makes you feel comfortable with your harp, but it seems to me that people get a bit overly worried about the whole thing.
To answer Carl: The area where I live is probably not like anyone else’s. I’ve worked the same way 31 years. I would guess that newer people working this area DO use contracts, but I don’t know or care. We’re very close to Mexico, and most people are Hispanic. At the wedding, the bride’s dad usually has a wad of bills in his pocket, of which he peels off enough, or the best man or someone comes to me with my envelope. No one even asks for a receipt. I usually meet the bride at a consultation, and I request that payment be made at the event. I tell them I prefer cash because it works so well at HEB and Walmart. The exception is a function at the university or a place that requires an invoice and pays with a check. In the old days, it would all just be done by phone. Now there is lots of competition, web sites (of which I have none), etc. As for details of the job…well, sometimes the people are coming from Mexico, or the wedding’s in a place that’s a little hard to find, or they have to wait for one of the relatives to show up, or (this happened last week) during the prelude, the bride’s ring was dropped (by the kid in charge of it) in the grass, and it took everyone feeling around in the grass for about 20 minutes to find it….so it could start late, but that’s just life. A JP can get the ceremony over with in a flash, but a pastor…well, he might talk on and on. Of course, the church weddings are mostly Catholic, so the time frame is there, but sometimes even they start late. A plug for my book…if you read it, you’d probably get the flavor of what goes on here. I know you folks in big cities can’t work like that, so I’m not a model for anyone…I just made the previous post for the reason I gave…I’m curious…what if they DON’T get paid…what do they do about it?
Did you have a contract and/or collect a deposit? This thread interests me because I don’t use a contract, and I’ve never gotten stiffed…but I came close a couple of times. I’d like to know what people do. Seems like it would be a lot of trouble to go to small claims court.
I agree that this site should autoredirect to the new one because not everyone (including me) reads the column every day and some might miss the info.
As for the new site, I really DO NOT like the small print.
I thought you said we’d be able to post pictures, but I didn’t see anywhere about that…or can we post pics on any of the new forums?
First, I will say I do not teach, but I want to address some of the issues involved here.
Is it just one harp, and all students take turns playing? Whose harps are being played? Who is moving the harps? Who pays the insurance on the harps? Who is providing the vehicle (vehicles) to move the harps? It sounds like a whole lot of work and transporting of harps for somebody…. unless the students themselves are providing their own harps and transportation.As for playing experience and expertise, we all started at the beginning….I remember quite well when I started going out many years ago. I had no experience and very little idea of what to use for rep. I was probably pretty pathetic, but you don’t learn to skate if you don’t put your skates on and get out on the ice.
However, I had worked to buy a harp, insure it, extra-string set it, buy a vehicle to move it with, and buy a bench, tuning and amplification equipment. I had no idea what to charge, and I think I didn’t charge enough. If anyone had told me I shouldn’t charge much because I was new at it, I would not have felt friendly.
As for new, inexperienced harpists who are out there learning, they have a lot of work ahead of them, and I don’t mean just learning appropriate music…they have to learn about getting in and out of difficult venues, travel time estimations, what to wear for each type of occasion…allowing time to set up, tune, change clothes (if necessary), etc. … IMO, they should charge whatever they can get, but it won’t make much of a dent in the expense it takes to get them there. I don’t worry about any new harpist starting in my area or what she/he might charge… because I was that girl once.
